Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1870-03-10

Of Farming.

faYING OFF NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Prom the New York TriDune.l
Whoever finds himself the newly III
stalled owner and occupant OF g farm
should, before doing much beyond grow
ing u crop in the ordinary way, study
we'll its character, determine Its capael-
ties. make himself we'll acquainted with
its peculiarities of soil and surface, with
intent to make the most of 1t IN his
future operations. l would devote at
least a year to this thoughtful observation
and study.
To one reared among the rugged see
merry of New England, or on either slope
of the Allegheny ridge, all prairie farms
look alike, Just as a European supposes
this to be the case with all negroes. A
better acquaintance will show the aver
age prairie quarter-section by no means
an unbroken meadow, ''level as a floor"
butdivers1fed by water courses. ~''sloughs,"
and gentle NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. by con-
siderable rayines and "barrens'' or eleva-
ted 'fswales," thinlv covered with timber
or brush, or both. But l will eoutem-
plate more especially a Northern farm.
made up of hill and glade, rocky ridge
and skirting bog or other low-land, with
q wood-lot on the rear, or not far distant,
and clumps or belts of timber Irregular
" lining brook and %ravine, or lurking in
the angles and slnuosrties of walls and
wooden fences, and a ragged, NOISY or
chard sheltered in some quiet nook, or
SPRAYING over some gravelly hillside. A
brook. nearly dry in August, gurgles down
the hill side, or winds through the swamp;
while fields, moderately sloping here and
nearly level there, iuterposed here and
there, have severally been devoted, for a
generation or more alternately to grain
and grass-the latter largely preponder-
ting. We will suppose this farm to mea-
sure from 80 to 100 acres.
Now the young man who has bought
or inherited this farm may be who'll
" and consciously unable to enter up
on any expensive system of improve
ment for the next ten years-may fully
realize that four or five days Of each week
must meantime be given to the growing
or earning of the present bread-yet he
should none the less study well the capac-
tiles and adaptation of each acre, and ma
ture a comprehensive plan for the ulti-
mate bringing of each field into the best
most useful condition whereof it Is sus-
ceptible, before he cuts a Ewing tree oil
digs a solitary drain. lie IS more certain
of doing neutrality-suspicious. many things
that he will sadly wish undone, If he
fails to study peculiarities and mature a
-. Lzfo-o - AonrinS 70 i'm nIanra ~ m tIf
his several fields for profitable cultivation.
And the first selection to be made Is
that Of a pasture, since | am compelled to
use an old familiar name for what should
be essentially a.new thing. This pasture
should be as near the center Of the farm
NAV be, and convenient to the barns
and barn-yard that are to be. 1t should
have some shade, but no very young trees.
should be dry and rolling, with an album
dance Of the purest living water. The
this pasture-lot may be, the bet
ter | shall like it, provided you fence 1t
very stoutly, connect 1t with the barn-yard
by a lane if in close proximity, and firm
ly resolve that outside of this lot, this lane,
this yard and the adjacent stable. your
EldLl hCNCl OC SCCbs " Oh NAS
road to market. Very possibly the day
may come wherein you viii decide to dis
pense with pasturing altogether but that
is, for the present improbable. One pas
tnre will have if YOU live in the broad
West, and propose to Craze extensively,
will doubtless be a large one but per-
your stock in spring and fall to
roam all over your " telds-and your
neighbors' also)-in quest of their need
full food. biting off the tops of the finer
young trees, trampling down or breaking
down some that are older, rubbing the
bark off of your growing fruit trees, and
doing damage that years will be required
to repair, | most vehemently protest
The one great error that misleads and
,orrupts mankind, is the presumption that
,onleutiag mag be had for nothing. The
average farmer imagines that whatever
flesh or of milk may accrue to him
from the food his cattle obtain by brows-
ing over his fields or through his woods, is
70 much clear gain-that they do the
work, while he pockets the net pro-
,eeds. But the universe was framed on Il
plan which requires so much for so much
and this law will not submit TO defiance or
Under the unnatural transitory
which environ the lone squatter
IN q vast prairie, something may be made
BY turning cattle loose and letting them
shirk for themselves but this is at best
.ransitory, and at war with the eXigencies
Of civilization. Whcever lives within
of a school house, or within hearing
Of a church bell, is under the dominion. of
; law alike inexorable and benefcent-the
law that requires each to pay for all he
gets, and reap only where he has sewn.
You can hardly have a pasture so small
that it will not afford hospitality To weeds
and prove a source of multiform ~infesta-
tons. The plants that should flourish and
be difused will be kept down to the earth,I
those which should be warred upon and
eradicated will flourish untouched, ripen
their seed, and diffuse it far and wide,
Thistles, White Daisy, and every plant
that impedes tillage and diminishes crops,
are nourished and diffused by means of
pastures.
1 hold, therefore, that the good farmer
will run a moving machine over his pas
ture twice each summer-say early June.
and then late in July-or if his lot be too
rough for this, will have it clipped at once
with a scythe. Cutting all manner of
worthless if not n~oxious plants in the
blossom, would benefit the soil which their
would tax; it will render the
eradication of weeds from your tillage a
far easier task and so will prevent your
being a nuisance to your neighbors. | am
confident that no one that has formed the
habit of keeping down the weeds in his
Will ever abandon it.
I think each pasture should have
Though mine, as yet. has not arude she'd
or shelter whereto the cattle may resort
in case of a storm or other inclemency.
How mush they shrink as well as suffer
from one cold, pelting rain, few fully re-
alize but l am sure that the "merciful
man. (who as the scripture saysD lis
~. . =