The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-11-24
s1S5 AN ACRE IN IMPROVEMENTS.
AND HOW IT PAYS.

May readers win get useful hint
from the following facts given TO the
american Agrtcultxrtst by 8 reliable
gentleman. Such hints and details give
great value to the pages of this journal,
for every cultivator having even the
smallest plot of ground:
Eleven years ago I bought field that
was somewhat wet in spots, rough with
stumps and bushes, and quite stony.
With hard blowing, much hoeing and
cnltivating, a part of it yielded 81 BUSH
els of corn per acre, and part of it 81
bushels of potatoes. Failing to bar
gain for an adjoining piece of ground,
as / expected, 1 thought to put the
money out at interest, but guided by a
suggestive item in your paper, hired
lot of men just discharged from a
railroad and set them to work with
spades. The roots and brush we burned.
The larger stones we sunk in holes dug
under them. The smaller ones, all that
could be handled, we sunk in large
drains, dug every % feet, feet deep,
and filed up 81 feet with the stones.
Where stones were lacking, we filed
out the drains with drain tiles. We
spaded the whole piece over two feet
deep, keeping the best soil on the top,
digging in % two-horse wagon loads of
manure pretty deeply, and picking out
every stone as large as a hens egg.
This whole work cost SIS5 per acre,
and all the neighbors called me foolish
wasting money that would have
brought me per cent. Indeed, Dor
rowed some money at that rate to fin
ish my job. The whole field was as fine
and mellew as an ash heap or snion
bed, and you could thrust cane down
into it two feet anywhere.
Now for the result: For ten wears
past part of that lot has given me an
average of rs bushels of corn per acre
sold at an average of SO cents per
bushel-or 40 bushels per acre more
than could possibly have obtained as
it was originally. 1t is like cultiVating
any other garden spot. II costs no
more for manure, for seed, for plant
ing and working, and the extra stalks
have doubly paid for the handling of
the extra AZ bushels of corn. So I
have had annually 42 bushels of corn
extra, at SO cents per bushel, or S34,S6
annual interest on the outlay of $lS5 at
first-equal to over 1872 per cent, in
stead of 7, for the money borrowed
tatoes, has yielded as high as 80 per
cent. interest per annum, and more.
Indeed, though I cannot give all the
figures, / am sure that on all the crops,
taken together, have got my original
investment back once in three years
From this experience, and others like
it for shorter period, 1 can fully sub
scribe to the oft-repeated doctrine of
the American Agriculturist that most
farmers would make q great deal of
money by selling half their land and
putting the avails into the other half,
if indeed it would not pay to sell two
thirds. Much less expense would put
the majority of soils into the ash-heap
or garden condition of my land. Keep
on drumming these ideas into our
American cultivators. Youput money
into every mans pocket whom you
bring over to intelligent culture. Arith-
metic and common sense, or sound
reasoning, will yet do the business of
making farming pay better, ana your
journal must perform a large share of
the work. / was led to give you this
experience by 8 remark in your bust
ness announcement for September, in
which you say that no cultivator can
afford to be without the paper, unless
he would suffer great loss, and fall be-
hind his neighbors who are subscribers.
am thousands of dollars richer to-day
for it's hints to me, and know several
others in the same condition.