Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-08-03

clover and timothy. Next year you win
put ia corn the ten acres of your best
land. Sub7soil slow 1t well, and manure
every bill OF corn. You win then make
as much corn on the 10 acres as ron will
this year on the 20 acre field; and you
will have 20 acres of surplus rye or
wheat for your hogs. 1t will not take
more than half the labor to cultivate ten
acres that it would to cultivate twenty;
therefore you will have time to make
cross fences and some Blue grass in the
woods. In 1873 you have to plow
up ten acres of young clover for
corn, and you can NOW and
Craze the rest. Whatever field
you NOW for half, win make more clear
profit than the field of the same size in
corn. Your blue grass lots will yield
profit OF three 10 five dollars per acre, and
your clover pastures will yie.d as much.
By the time you will have gone through
the first five years of rotation, and have
sodded your whole tract with grass, it
will net yon three times as much profit as
you now make with the same amount of
labor; and your land will be continually
becoming richer. You may then sell an
nually from the little farm 800 lbs of but
ter, 10 tons of hay, 10 pork hogs, fat
steers, 2 mules, 100 lbs wool, 25 mutton
sheep, and 80 bushels of wheat, besides
clover seed, timothy seed and blue grass
seed, as well as fruits. Then you will
consider farming profitable, and your con-
science clear of the crime of wasting and
washing away your fine soil. You will
then farm according to the natural de-
mands of this fine country. 1t viii be
the most profitable, the easiest and most
delightful system you could adopt. You
will cease to fret at Providence for send.
ing too little rain; because your fields will
withstand drouth, and for sending too
much rain, because your land will not
wash; and bad luck will seldom OYertake
you.
We all cultivate too much land and
make too little grass. We subsoil and
manure too little. Continual blowing
without pasturng and manuring, will
wear out the best land in the world, and
impoVerish the owner. 1t is q grave
error to plow 30 much ground for corn
and make no grass. Eight acres to the
hand is as much as ought to be TILED;
and that spot ought to be SUBSIDIZED, ma.
nured and cultivated up TO high pressure
farming. ALI the rest of the tract, whether
woodland, rocks, hills, gullies, barren
spots, fence rows, lanes, pounds and
yards, ought to be in grass. No square
yard Of ground ought to be idle or unpro-
ductive. The continual blowing of our
fields to destruction, and feeding all stock
from the corn crib, is hard life. There
is no clear profit in raising stock from the
corn crib alone. And yet this is the sys-
TEN which ruins our farms and empties
our pockets, makes money scarce, times
haro and the people poor. The time has
come to quit it. We are obliged to plow
less and make more grass. Our impov-
erished fields will force us to it.
But it may be asked, how shall we get
laborers to make fences and sow grass,
and how will the landless renters live |
confess that here are seeming difficulties.
But we are obliged 20 sow grass; we have
gone on as long as we can without il.
And If we can hire none to help us, we
must do what we can ourselves. But the
renter will find it his interest to help us
make fences, sow grass, make hay and
raise stock, instead of renting poor fields
to keep himself poor, while he plows and
wears them into gullies. We can pay
him more in hay, wheat, corn, beef, pork,
mutton, wool, milk and blue grass than
he could make by the common plan of
renting and shallow blowing. Give the
renter from your farm ell that he ears
on il, and he will soon buy farm of his
own. While he sows and enriches your
farm, he will get enough from its in
creased profit to buy himself farm; and
you can afford to give it to him for the
improvements made for you. There is no
natural conflict between your interest and
the true interest of laborers and renters.
They can make the most by that system
of farming which enables you to pay
them the highest wages. You cannot
afford to pay them much to plow your
land into gullies and wear it out, but you
can afford to pay them well to cover your
land with grass, and enrich it, and make
hay, and raise for market all sorts of farm
stock. And let me call the attention of
renters earnestly to this subject. Recol-
lect as far back in the past as your men,
ory serves you, and see what hard life
renters have here. You will recollect but
a few men who have followed renting
and moving from farm to farm every year
or two that have made more than enough
10 support their families. You know that
but few have made enough during their
whole lives Of toll to buy farm of their
own. You know that majority of rent
ers have worked on from year to year till
they concluded they could not make
living here, and then packed up and NOV
ed to q new country. They began life
poor, worked hard ard continued poor,
ill they move off still poor. And you
know that, while they were working hard
and keeping themselves poor, they wore
out most of the fields on which they
worked, and of course damaged the
owners of the land. Now, say to all
renters, that you know this is a true
statement, and therefore you cannot ex-
pect to prosper if you continue to follow
that system. You are obliged to see that
the renters life has been q hard one,
because his system of renting and labor
has been all wrong. 1t is against the
interest both of the renter and of the
land owner, and therefore impoverishes
both. They have neither got rich while
wearing out the land, because no one
can become rich by wearing out his land.
But if you had been working al the time
on a system which would have made all
the land rich and productive, then you
would have made yourselves rich as well
as the land owners. We have an uncom-
monty fine country for judicious farming.
All may prosper here if they will 50 labor
as to give our soil fair chance. 1t is
your interest to propose to work and rent
another mans land on the plan which
will enrich the whole tract the fastest and
make ii produce the most. And the long
er you continue on the same farm, which
you are sodding in grass and enriching,
the greater will be your annual profits.
Your profits will increase precisely in
proportion TO the increased production
and profits of the whole tract. And the
richer you make the soil, and the more
grass you cause it TO produce, the greater
will be the profits of the land owner.
Then you ought not to desire to work on
any other plan, and the land owner ought
not to let you work his land on any other
plan. Your interest and his go together.
In concluding my remarks on the system
of renting ard labor, let me say to land