Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1870-03-01
Good and Bad Farming.

suggestive and well worth reading, what
ever they may amount to in practical
point of view His ideas of good and bad
farming are stated as follows:
Many farmers have fields that must wait
the. pleasure of Nature to fit them for thor
ough cultivation. Here is a field-some-
times whole farm-which, if partially di-
vested of the primitive forest, is still thick
ly dotted with obstinate stumps and filled
with green, tenacious roots, which could
only be removed at heavy, perhaps ruin
Gus, cost. A rich man might order them
all dug out in month, and see his order
fully obeyed; but, except to clear spot |
for garden or under very peculiar cireum-
stances, it would not pay I; and poor man
cannot afford to incur heavy expense
merely for appearances sake, or to make
a theatrical display of energy. In the
great majority of cases, he who farms for
living can't afford to pull green stumps,
but must put his newly cleared land into
grass at the earliest day, NOV the smooth
er portion of it, and wait for rain and
drouth, heat and frost, to rot his stumps
until they can easily be pulled or burned
out as they stand.
So with regard to a process | detest,
known as pasturing. do firmly believe
that the time is at hand when nearly all
the food of cattle will, in our Eastern and
Middle states, be cut and fed to them-that
we can't afford much longer, even if we can
at present, to let them roam at will over
hill and dale, through meadow and forest,
biting off the better plants and letting the
worse go to seed; often poaching up the
soft, wet soil, especially in spring, so that
their hoofs destroy as much as they eat
nipping and often killing in their infancy
/ the finest trees, such as the sugar maple,
and leaving only such as hemlOck, red oak,
| beech, ETC., to attain maturity. Our race
generally emerged from savageism and
squalor into industry, comfort and thrift,
through the pastoral condition-the herd
ing, tanning, rearing and training of ami
mails being that department of husbandry
to which barbarians are most easily attract
ed hence, we cling to pasturing long after
the reason for it has vanished. The radi-
cal, incurable vice of pasturing that OF
devouring the better plants and leaving the
worse to form and difuse seed-can never
be wholly obviated; and deem it safe to
estimate that almost any farm will carry
twice as much stock if their food be mainly
cut and fed to them as it will if they are
required to pick it up where and as il
grows or grew. am sure that the genera
) adoption of soiling instead of pasturine
will add immensely to the annual product
to the wealth, and to the population, of oul
older states. And yet, | know right wei
that many farms are now so rough anC
otherwise so unsuited to soiling as to pre-
clude its adoption thereon for many year
to come.
: Let me indicate what I mean by GOO
= farming, through an illustration draw
i from the Great West
All over the settled portions of the val
c ley of the Upper Mississippi and the Mis-
e souri, there are large and small herds G
e cattle that are provided with little or n
e shelter The lee of fence or stack, tn
e partial protection of a young and leafes
1t wood they may chance to enjoy; but tha
it is a ruinous waste to leave them pre-
% to biting frosts and piercing Northwestern
a their owners seem not to comprehend
,e Many farmers far above want will tn
a. winter feed ont fields of corn and stacks
r hay to herds of cattle that will not be OF
n pound heavier on the LIST of next May tha
: they were on the LIST of last December
m who will have required that fodder mere
IN to preserve their vitality and escape free
ii ing TO death. 1t has mainly been emplo
10 ed as fuel rather than as nourishment, al
il has served, not to put on flesh, but to ket
ut out frost.
ee Now | am familiar with the excuses f
it. this waste, but they do not satisfy me. III
in poorest pioneer might have built for b
one COW rude shelter of stakes and pole
n and straw or prairie grass, if he had res
. lied the importance simply in the light
% economy. He who has many cattle
q rarely without both straw and timber, al
10, might shelter his stock abundantly if
h. only would Nay, he could not have ne
~ lected OF omitted it if he had clearly undo
a. stood that his cattle must somehow be su
- piled with heat, and that he can far chea
! er warm them from without than fro
- within.
IS The broad, general, unquestionable trut
% on which insist in behalf of good far
:. ing are these; and do not admit that tn
- are subject to exception:
20 I. 1t is very rarely impracticable to grt
= good crops, if you are willing to work
them. Ifyour land is too poor to gr'
~ wheat or corn, and you are not yet able
!" enrich it, SOW rye or buckwheat; if Y
cGe' cannot coax it to grow a good crop of al
no thing, let it alone; and if you cannot r
nu away from it, work out by the day or mon
II! for your more fortunate neighbors. I
esh I'LL. II ,,,oo,, z,,,o,,7o.od :, +r,-;,,o-
SIN grow crops where only half or quar-
ms crops can be made, constitute the heavi
ne item on the wrong side of our farmers b
sh- ance sheet taxing them more than tn
ne National, State, and local governments
MS gether do.
Ii. Good crops rarely fail to yield pr
Tue it to the grower know there are exc
'ue tons, but they are very few. Keep "
an eye on the farmer who almost uniform
nc has great grass, good wheat, heavy co
oie etc, and, unless he drinks or has some O
er bad habit, you will find him grow
SnV rich. I am confident that white bla
'u' birds are nearly as abundant as farm
~ who have become poor while usually grt
YOU ing good crops
"' III. The fairest single test of good fal
ing is the increasing productiveness of
III soil That farm which averaged TIVE
Why bpsbo,s Of Grain to tho ocre twontr -.
n"' ago, twenty-five bushels ten years ago,
Tue will measure up thirty bushels TO the Z
oe' from this years crop, has been and i
good hands. | know no other touehst
:, =" offarming so unerring as that of the
'no crease or decrease from year to year Of
aggregate product. Ifyou would convi
'e'- me that Y. is good farmer, do not
u me of some great crop he has just gro
one but show me that his crop has regularly
'"n1 creased from year to year, and am So
uch fed.
t to
wen ar ..cu