Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1870-02-22
THE HERALD.
What I Know of Farming"

hardly met public expectation. They
are much better adapted to Eastern
agriculture than TO farming at the
West, and especially to the newer
portions Of it. They contain, never
theloss, much that is useful for farm
ers generally. The first two essays
have eiicited sharp criticism from
several public journals, aud among
these is the Chicago Tribune, from
which We take tho subjoined extracts.
We hope, however, none of our read
ers who ere prone to the system of
taking from the soil its fertile con-
stituents year after year without re-
storing them in some form, will mis-
interpret tho language or meaning of
the Chicago Tribune in reference To
Keeping np- tho fertility of land, and
construe its remarks on this point as
Il justification of the ''skinning" pro-
cess which rs great fault with many
Western farmers. That kind of
farming cannot be too strongly con-
demned. The Tribune says:
The preference for cutting fodder
over pasturing is evidently one whose
wisdom or folly depends solely on the
ratio that The value of lobor bears TO
that of land in any locality. If la
Dor is so high and land so cheap, us
IN Kansas .and Nebraska, that ten
days laboIiaro worth an acre of land
obviously the farmer in such 4 local
ify cannot arotitably Oxford the labor
required to- cut fodder for his cattle,
in order to, save his land the very
slight injury they would commit in
picking M their own feed. If, on
the contrary land is so dear and la
tor relatively so cheap that an acre
Of land is worth 500 days of labor, as
II is likely to be within twenty or
forty miles of great city, the farm
or not Only cannot afford to pasture
his land, but he cannot even afford
to till it, except for those crops which
combine the greatest bulk and perish
ability, and therefore give him an ad-
vantage over the more distant farm
er sufficient To offset the counter adj
vantage enjoyed by the latter in the
lower cost Of his land. This simple
law explains why the farmers in Ne.
hrnska grazn more cattle than they
can shed, while those on the Jersey
plains cut feed and raise Strawberries.
Open TO the same objection is Mr..
tfreeley's statement that "The fairest
single test If good farming is the in
creasiDg productiveness of the soil
# this were true, then there would
never have been any good farming
in the Southern and Western States,
nor anywhere in the Union except
Massachusetts and Connecticut-two
States in which farming is confessed
IL less profitable than almost any
where else in the Union, yet the
only two wherein the average fertil-
ity of the foil is increasing.
The true test Of good farming il
not the increase in any particular
property OF, the farm, in its size, or
its quantity: of trees, fences, orchards,
stock, or buildings; but rather in the
income the farmer derives from il,
and his own advance in wealth and
social power by means of it. A farm
IS only tool--vlauable for what the
owner can. make it produce in food,
shelter, clothing, education, pleasures
and accumulated capital for himself
and family. 4 good workman will
keep good tools but who would say.
as q general proposition, that the
profits OF workman, are, necessari-
~, proPortiDned TO the sharpness OF
bis tools2 1t so, workman who ex-
pended his whole labor in keeping
his tools sharpened, would rank above
one who. made the sharpening of his
tools incidental to the main point
the profit OF his business. Just so
with farming Amidst dense pop
ulation like. that which fills the area
Of City miles around New York, Lon
don, Paris, or Pekin, the land is SO
dear relatively TO labor that it IS
profitable to expend a considerable
proportion Of the capital invested in
farming in improving the fertility of
She soil. But in new and thinly-peo-
pied countries it pays better to invest
the same capital in more land, in ma
chinery and in stock.
Each mode Of farming pays best
in its own locality, and is therefore
practised there. Hence, in all dense
ly-populatea communities the .fertii-
~ Of the soil is rising, though the
profits Of the tiller Of the soil may be
annually decreasing and his condition
deteriorating, and hence also in oil
newly-pOpllated countries the vir-
gin richness Of the soil is, as a rule,
diminishing, though its owners are
advancingin wealth and social power
Throughout France and Belgium
where the peasant farmers can scarce
afford To eat once u week the very
meat they raise, where they have nc
surplus income 10 eXpend on furni.
ture, pian:s, or lhe education Of their
children, che land is advancing in
fertility. But their farming is not
better, nor, for themselves 80 good
a. that OF the great farmers in Illinois,
Indiana, or Iowa, where the tillers oil
the soil, rather than the soil itsef are
getting richer every year. When the
time arrives at which it is prof able
to cultivate land with special refer
eEce to increasing its fertility, farm
ere generally discover that fact
But the increase in the fertility OF
the soil at ell times is the accident
and not to- the test or the object OF
good farming. In so far as Mr. Gree
ley's contracted and provincial theo-
ry OF farming may tend to influence
farmers, Western or Eastern, to ex-
pend money or labor in increasing
the fertility of their land, when the
same money or labor applied in buy
ing more: stock, or tilling o larger
area, would yield them a larger con-
tinuous p:0ft, he does them an in
jury.
ssa- There is a great deal of intem-
- n