The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-02-04
GOOD AND BAD HusBANDRY.-.
BY HORACE GREELEY.

ken up and pulYerized to depth of fif-
teen to thirty inches, according to the
crop; but, if all the team he can muster
is yoke of thin, light steers, or span
of old, spawned horses, which have not
even speaking acquaintance with
grain, what shall he dol So he may
heartily wish he had thousand loads
of barn-yard manure, and know how to
make q good use of every. ounce of it !;
bat, if he has it not, aud Is not able to
buy it. he can't always affords to for
bear sowing and planting. and so, be-
cause he cannot secure great crops, do
without any crops at all. If he does
the best he can, what better can he do ?
Again: Many farmers. have fields
that must await the pleasure of Nature
to fit them for q thorough cultivation.
Here is field-sometimes a whole
farm-which, if partially Invested of
the primitive forest, is still thickly dot
ted with obstinate stamps and filled
with green, tenacious roots, which could
only be removed at a heavy, perhaps
ruinoas cost, a rich mar might order
them all dug out in q Hpntb, and see
his order fully oheyed ;s5dfs except to
clear spot for garden or under very
peculiar circumstances, 1T would not
pay; and poor man cannot afford to
incur a heavy expense merely for ap-
pearance's sake, or TO make theatrical
display of energy. In the great major
ity 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, NOW the
smoother and pasture the rougher por-
ton of it, and wait for rain and drouth,
heat and frost, to rot his stumps until
they can easily be pulled or burned ont
as they stand.
So with regard to process detest,
known as Pasturing. | do firmly be-
lieve 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
60 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 in
fancy the finest trees, such as the sugar
maple, and leaving only such as hem
lock, red oak, beech, &C., to attain ma
turity. Our race generally emerged
from savageism and squalor into indus
try, comfort and thrift, through the pas
toral condition-the herding, tanning,
rearing and training of animals being
that department of husbandry to which
barbarians are most easily attracted (:
hence, we cling to pasturing long after
the reason for it has vanished. The
radical, incurable vice of pasturing-
that of devouring the better plants and
leaving the worse to form and diffuse
seed-can never be wholly obviated /;
and / deem it safe to estimate that al
most any farm will carry twice as much
stock if their food be mainly cut and
fed to them as it will if they are re-
quired to pick it up where and as it
grows or grew. am sure that the gem
eral adoption of soillng instead of pas
turing will add immensely to the an
nual product, to the wealth and popu-
lation of our older States. And yet, /
know right well that many farms are
now so rough and otherwise SO insult
ed to soiling as to preclude its adoption
thereon for many years to come.
Let me indicate what mean by good
farming, through an illustration drawn
from the Great West:
All over the. settled portions of the
Valley of the Upper mississippi and
the Missouri there are large and small
herds of cattle, that are provided with
little or no shelter. The lea of fence
or stack, the partial protection of a
young and leafiess wood, they may
chance to enjoy; but that it is a ruinous
waste to leave them a prey to biting
frosts and piercing northwesters, their
owners seem not to comprehend. Ma
ny farmers far above want will this
winter feed out fields of corn and stacks
of hay to herds of cattle that will not
be one pound heavier on the lst of next
May than they were ON the 1st of last
December-who will have required that
fodder merely to preserve their vitality
and escape freezing to death. 1t has
mainly been employed as fuel rather
than as nourishment, and has served,
not to put on flesh, but to keep out
frost.
Now i am familiar with the excuses
for this waste, but they do not satisfy
me. The poorest pioneer might have
built for his one cow a rude shelter of
stakes and poles, and straw or prairie
grass, if he had realized its Importance,
simply in the light of economy. He
who has many cattle is rarely without
both straw and timber, and might shell
ter his stock abundantly if he only
would. Nay: he could not have neg
lected or omitted it if he had clearly un-
derstood that his cattle must somehow
be supplied with heat, and that he can
far cheaper warm them from without
than from within.
The broad, general, unquestionable
truths on which 1 insist in behalf OF
Good Farming are these; and l do
not admit that they are subject to ex-
ception:
l. 1t is very rarely impracticaBle to
| to grow good crops, if you are willing
to work for them. If your land is too
poor to grow wheat or corn, and you
are not yet able to enrich il, sow rye OF
| buckwheat; if you cannot coax it to
grow a good crop of anything, let it
| alone; and, If you cannot run away
| from it, work out by the day or month
| for your more fortunate neighbors. The
time and means squandered in trying
| to grow crops where only half or quar-
ter crops can be made, constitute the
| heaviest item on the wrong side of ouI
| farmers balance-sheet; taxing them
more than their National, State and To-
cal Governments together do.
| IL. Good crops rarely fail to yield q
profit to the grower. 1 know there are
exceptions, but .they- are very few
Keep your eye on the farmer who al
most uniformly has great grass, good
wheat, heavy corn, ETC., and, unless he
| drinks, or has some other bad habit, you
will find him growing rich. am con-
fident that white blackbirds are nearly
| as abundant as farmers who have be.
come poor while usually growing good
crops.
Ill. The. fairest single test of good
farming is the increasing productive
ness OF the soil. That farm which av.
eraged twenty bushels of grain to the
acre twenty years ago, twenty-five bush.
els ten years ago, and will measure VI
thirty bushels to the acre from thi:
years crop, has been and is in good
hands. know no other touchstone Of
farming so unerring as that of the in
crease or decrease from year TO year o
its aggregate product. If you would
convince me that Y. is a good farmer
do not tell me of some great crop hi
has just grown, but show me that hi
crop has regularly increased from veal
| to year, and am satisfied.
! j shall have more to say on thes,
points as proceed. 1t suffices for thu
present if have clearly indicated wha
1 mean by good and what by bad farm
ing.
DIARRHEA-Is very common disease
in summer time. Cholera is nothing
more than exaggerated diarrhea. Whel
l H. 4; a h. hoe -