Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1870-07-13
WHOLE NUMBER l3I.

the regular clover rotation, that has
never failed, on any soil or in any eli
mate, to make farming prafitable. In
stead of the miserable alternatives, hog
and corn, by which the place was run
down, his ground is corn on a clover sod,
oats with-yard manure, wheat with
bOne-manure, using potatoes and sor-
ghum for variation. The only fruit on
the place when he bought was a peach
orchard, with bark ragged, OOzing gum
and yellOWish leaves. A large peach
orchard remote from railroads, as that
was then, means peach-brandy, and
that means rags and mania @ DOtU So
the old trees were cut away, and instead
of peaches, he set out apple-trees.
These he cultivated and trimmed with
care, so that in eight years he began to
eat. Now he has apples ten months in
twelve, sells many barrels in the fall,
many gallons of excellent clear cider,
and has great casks of cider vinegar in
store. AS railroads came nearer, they
also made the Western farmer aCcessi-
bic to the consuming towns. He saw
this, and is shifting the place from
grain and potato farm to a fruit or
chard. The upper field on the farm,
twenty eight acres, he has set with
sixteen feet apart. He requires nothing
of this field but q few loads of buck
wheat, but keeps it perfectly free of
weeds and grass, and tOp-dTesses with a
mixture of mari, lime, and Unleaehed
ashes. When the peach-trees have Civ
Ell two or three crops, he will cut them
away, and the apple-trees will stand
thirty-twO feet apart and engrOss the
surface.
HIS IDEAS ABOUT FENCES AND BUILD
INGs.
Where chestnut grows, he insists that
a snake-fence is the best, because most
durable and the cheapest. A rail well
raised above the turf, and never shaded
by weeds and bushes, will last fifty
years. A post will rot in from fifteen to
twenty-five years. The snake-fence is
laid fast, quick mended, and may be
moved from one side of the farm to
another as occasion requires. Not so
with q post and rail fence. BY driving
! two uprights on each side, and lashing
them at the top with two feet of wire,
q snake-fence is made nearly as firm as
post and rail, and nearly as strainght.
| AS they rot off, sharpen and reset. So
| of buildings; he calculates that a cheap
| structure that answers the end is better
| policy than barn of the first quality,
| that a man goes in debt to erect. For
| instance, sixteen years ago, he put up a
cheap barn. 1t is big enough, and shell
| ters all his stock and crops 1t cost him
not over $1,000. A barn no larger, built OF
| the best materials, by an able carpenter
would have cost $500. The interest OIL
this sum for sixteen years, at seven pei
| cent. is S836O. Deduct the interest on
the sum which his barn cost (S336), anC
! there remains a balance of over three
| thousand dOllars-enOugh to build a frs
/ class barn. So he has gained use of 27Ot
during a time when it was of much
more Importance than housing his crops
in a model barn. He reasons the same
way about paint on OUtbuildings. Tht
difference in durability does not equa
the interest Of the sum that the painting
would have cost. So of tools he makes
a cheap COntrivance, costing seventy
five cents, to grind all his apples, Whel
a patent cider-mill might cost seventy
five dollars. A cider-mill he uses Onl,
a week or two in the year. Why chea
himself of the 5-25 interest on that sun
when a homemade affair does tn
work?
By such calculations, this worthy far
mer thrOve amain. He has bOugh
land right and left. The home tract /
now nearly three hundred acres. HI
has farm in another county worth SIS
600, and is startinga dairy farm on forty
acres of excellent grassland, three miles
from the home tract He proves tha
farming rightly followed, does pay, anC
pay handsomely. He has grown richer
and richer on a tract where every tenant
and owner had for fifty years grown
poorer and poorer. He has many shreWC
rules of thrift, but the chief of them are
four, and they areworth adopting by ev,
cry man who hopes to succeed as a far.
mer:
1. Do nothing that won't pay, and
neglect nothing that will pay.
! 2. If you can make q thing, don't buy
it. If you can't make it, pay a first.
class workman, and get first class tool
| 3. To have the use of money is OI
more Importance than painted barns
and a snowy house.
4. No outlay on place improves it so
fast as tOp-dressing of brains.
J. B. i.