Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1871-07-15
Josh Billings on the Theory Of
Farming.
WHAT KNo ABOUT pnARxrs.

|
Mi buzzom frend, Horace Greeley, hes
rlt book with the abuv name, and
altho ! hevent had time to peroose it,
yet don't hesitate TO pronounce il bully.
Pharmin (now daze) is pretty much all
theory, and therefore il amt astonishing
that a man kan live in New York and
be good chancery lawyer, and also
kno all about pharmin.
A pharm (now daze) of one hundred
akers will produce more buckwheat and
pumpkins, run on theory, than it would
sixty years ago, run on manure and hard
knoks.
There is nothing like book larnn, and
the time will eventually come when
man won't hsv to hav only one of "Josh
|. Billings Farmers Almanax" to run
pharm, or kamp meetin with.
Even now it amt unkonmon tew see
three or four hired men on pharm,
with three or four spans of oxens, all
standing still, while the boss goes into
the library and reads himself up for The
days plowing.
If was running pharm (now daze)
suppose would rather have thirty-six
bushels of some new breed of potatoes,
raized on theory, than to have eighty
four bushels got in the mean, benighted
and underhand way ov our late lamented
grand parents.
Pharmin, after all, is good deal like
the tavern bizness, ennybody thinks they
can keep hotel, (now daze) and emmy
body thinks they can pharm it, (now
daze,) and they kan, but this is the way
that poor hotels KUN to be SO plenty,
and this is likewise what makes
pharmin such eazy and profitable biz
ness.
Just take the theory out of pharmin
and thefe amt nothing left but hard
work and all fired lite krops.
| When | see so much folks rushing
into theory pharmin as there is (now
daze,) and so menny of them rushing
out again, think ov that remarkable
piece ov skriptur which remarks, 'menny
are kalled, but few are chosen
/ onsL took pharm on shares, miself,
and run her on some theorys, and things
figured up this way, dun all the work,
| phurnished all the seed and manure, had
the ague nine months out ov .welve, tor
mi share ov the profits, and the other
fellow paid the taxes on the pharm for
his share.
By mutual consent quit the pharm at
the end OF the year.
What kno about pharmin aint wuth
hraggin about, and feel it mi duty to
state, for the benefit ov mi kreditors,
hat it they ever expekt me tew pay
five cents on dollar, they mustn't start
me in the theoretical pharmin employ.
If man really is anxious tew make
mummy on a pharm, the less theory he
lays in the better, and he must do pretty
much all the work hisself and support
his family on what he kant sell, aud 20
ragged enutf oil the time tew hunt bees.
| kno ov menny farmers who are so
aff1ikted with superstition that they
wont plant IA single bean only in the last
quarter ov the moon, and kno others
so pregnant with science that they wont
set gate post until they have had the
ground analised bi sum professor of
anatomy tew see if the earth haz got
the right kind of ingredience for post
holes.
This il what call running science into
the ground.
The fact ov it IL, that theories of all
kinds work well except in praktiss !;
they are too often designed to do the
work OF praktiss.
There aint no theory in braking mule
only tew go at him with klub in your
hand and sum blood in yure eye, and
brake. him, just as you would split log.
What kno about pharmin aint wuth
much emmy how, but undertco ok to brake
ii kicking heifer once.
read treatiss on the subjekt and
pl oil Owed the direkshuns cluss, and got
KIN, kt endwaze in about 5 minits.
then sat down and thought the thing
over.
l made up my mind that the phellow
who wrote the treats was more in the
treatiss bizzness than he was in the kick
ing heiter trade.
cum to the konklushun that what he
kuu about milking kicking heiters he
had learnt by leanin over barnyard
fence and writing the thing up.
got up from my rcfiekshuns
strengthened and went for that heiier.
l will draw a vail over the language l
used, and the things did, but went in
to win, and won
That heifcr never bekum COW.
This is one way to brake kicking
heifer, and after man has studyed all
the hooks in kreashun on the subject,
and tried them on, he will fall back onto
mi plan and make up his mind as did,
that kicking heifer is wuth more for
beet than she is for theoretic milk.
l hav worked on pharm just long
enuR tew kno that there IL no prayers
So good for poor land as manure, and no
theory kan beat twelve hours each day,
(sundaz excepted,) of honest labor ap-
piled to the sile.
| am an old phasioned phellow, and
hartily hate most nu things, bekauze /
hav been beat by them so often.
l never knu pharm that was worked
pretty much by theory, but what wuz
Cor sale or to let in a few years, and |
never knu pharm that waz worked bi
manure and muscle, on the good old
ignorant way ov our ancestors, but what
waz handed down from father to son,