The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1871-09-02
FARM AND OUSEHOLD.
A Scotch Farmer and his Work.

A Scotch Farmer and his Work.
Mr.. Curtis presented the following report
of the committee, consisting of himself and
MIR. Lyman, appointed to visit William
Crozicr's farm, located on Long Island,
some forty miles from New York. In 1868
there where on the place six or eight cows,
a pair of mules, horse or two, and 800
head of Merino sheep. They made about
seventy-five loads of manure. The 600
acres of arabic land was out into twenty
or more small fields, divided from each
other by old hedge rows full of briers and
small ceders. Several hundred acres were
in an old common that yielded scant pas
ture for two or three months in summer.
Much of this common was overgrown with
oak-bushes, little cedarS, and hickory
stunts. Now we find the farm stocked
with eighty-two horned cattle of superior
thorough-bred stock, tifty-two horses,
twenty-seven sheep, seven five hogs, three
hundred hens, and thirty-five ducks, and
he buys no hay, no corn, or oats, no roots.
He has fifty acres in one clover field. The
sole outlay for cattle food is about $500 for
wheat shorts. Instead of seventy-five loads
of manure we estimate his compost piles
for use this spring and summer to contain
6,000 loads. Manure making with this
vigorous farmer is not theory-an effort
and a wish merely-as it is with thousands.
He makesit. There are the immense banks
of it standing a fathom deep in the main
stockyard, and looming above the burrows
of all the ploughed fields. His compost
pile is not the winters accumulations
thrown into the yard from stable doors and
windows to be hauled in the field in April
and May. Manure making composing
goes on the year round; no day of winter
so frozen but it secs additions to the piles
of fertilizers; no summer morning without
its round of chores that swell the heap.
Everything" he says, "must have a
mother, and manure is the mother of all
things" lie keeps an OK team, and has
them driven steadily at work the year
around hauling absorbents and compost
ing stuff. His task is, five loads before
dinner and five after dinner of leaves from
the woodlands, muck weeds and salt mud.
His calculation is that the solid droppings
of COW or OK amount to something like ten
loads in a year, and that loads of muck and
leaves should be composted with it. For
manure making he says four sheep equal
COW, horse equals two cows, and two hogs
equal a COW. Pasture land he does not
believe in. Young animals and mich cows
should have small range and run in it an
hour or two for exercise. But a quarter
of mile day is al! the walk mich COW
needs. This forcing COW to range over
a wide reach of hill and swamp and moor
and wood for the material to make milk off,
he insists, the crying sin of American dairy
men. He is thorough believer in cooking
for all farm animals in winter, and cutting
green food for them all summer. Bigin-
ming, for instance, with May, he goes
through the year as follows: May-Old
Hay, the last of the stalks and roots, and
rye. June-Clover and oats. July-Sow-
ed corn and fresh meadow hay. August
Sowed corn, clover, and oats. September
Sowed corn, field corn, soft heads of cal
bage. October and November-Turnip
tops, corn, beet tops, carrot tops, and
roots. November Is to May 15-Boiled
together and sprinkled with meal and
shorts, the rate being about four tons roots
to one Of stalks and hay. He used Prin-
dies boiler, large size, and a double steam
box. The stalks and roots are all cut fine,
shovelled into the box, and the steam let
on. In about six hours it is soft so that a
stick can be pushed through it. 1t is allow
ed to cool to the temperature of the blood
before it is given to the animal His roots,
Swedes, mangolds, and carrots are grown
in the following manner: Draw burrows
say two and a half feet apart, and fill them
with manure; then cover with double fur
row and roll flat, and open enough to re-
ceive the seed; cultivate with horseshoe.
On land not remarkably fertile he gets
thrty-fve tons to the acre; allowing thir-
ty bushels to the ton, that crop is 1000
bushels. He harvests by ploughing them
out, first clipping the tops while in the
ground with a sharp steel hoe; then he
harrows over the field lifting the teeth as
the roots become entangled. Then dump
carts 60 on, and gather and throw them
into long piles by the road. These piles
are covered with tops, straw and earth and
loads are taken out daily as they are need
ed at the barn. With G,000 loads of ma
nure he has enough to dress thirty acres
very heavily and all his Sweedes were large,
as also his carrots many of them, taken
from any part of the pile, measuring three
inches across the crown. He cut sixty tons
of hay, and we saw at least twenty yet in
the barns, middle of March, for his DEEPEN
dence is upon roots. He had thirty-two
acres in roots in 1870, and estimates his
crop at 80, 600 bushels. Besides these crops
he has made extensive and permanent
ameliorations. Bushes have been grubbed
up, fences rebuilt on all parts of the place.
tough old pastures thoroughly ploughed,
the forests trimed and raked, young groves
of locusts nursed, gates hung, high yard
fences built and roads graded. He has
the best milk house we have ever seen, not
excepting the famous diaries of Chester
County, west of Philadelphia. His hog
pens are commenced on an excellent model,
but to describe all these and his system in
connection with them, would be to write
treatise on butter and pork making. We
submit this as a report of progress, and
have given the chief features of his faith
as an agricultural thinker, and his practice
as successful farmer. Nor have wo said
these emphatic things from a wish to praise
Mr. Crozier but simply to let farmers
know how striking the real successes of
their profession are.-N. Y. World.