The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-11-07
PROFITABLE Fl FARMING.

candidate for Office.
PROFITABLE FARMING.
kn-6fdress Delivered by Horace Greeley at
the Maryland State Fair, Oct. 10, 1879.
Mr.. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
That take the Renovation of Worn-out Soils
as INV text on this occasion will, trust, be
regarded as no special reflection upon the Ag-
riculture of Maryland; for such soils may be
found in every one of our older States, and in
almost every country where exhaustion by cul-
ture is possible, unless China and Japan sup
ply exceptions. To wrench from an arabic
field Whatever of food-forming material its soil
contains and will readily yield, then repeat the
same!process on another field, and then anoth-
er, IL the barbarian's natural method of swim
ding Nature out of scanty, precarious iyeli-
hood, whenever game has become too scarce
and shy to supply him with needful food. 1t
is simple repetition, with the inevitable mod
ifcations, of the process by which his progeni-
tors rendered hunting for a livelihood no long
er productive or even possible. To destroy
without reproducing, to live this year so as to
render living next year more difficult to ex.
haust or.dry up the fountains whence life and
strength have flowed sweetly and bounteousiy,
are the barbarian's needless methods, from
which many of our people are not yet emancl,
pated. have seen in New England tleld
which once bore good wheat sown to rye year
after year, till its crop had steadily dwindled
to FIVE bushels per acre, when it was thrown
cut of cultivation and given up TO sorrel and
u,ullein, with the sage observation that it
washed badly, and so had become good for
nothingl Yet that field sloped gently to the.
south, and, if well subsoiled and then plas-
tered at net cost of ten dollars per acre,
would have produced good crop of clover i'm
naediately. The husbandry that had wrought
It's ruin was simply barbarous, though those
who titled it knew how to read, write and ci-
pher, aud wer, grossly ignorant Of nothing but
She art whereby they were trying to live.
Iprotest, at the threshold, against the cur
rent notion that poor men must grow poor
crops, unless they have taken some monkish
VOW to remain poor forever. Here is one who
has inherited or somehow acquired cot and
few sterile acres, but has no money, no team,
no fertilizers; what shall he do? answer,
Whatever he may do, let him not cultivate one
acre more than he can so feed and till as to
give reasonable assurance of good crop. Far
better work out by the day or month than to
waste your time and strength on cultivation to
no purpose. Let him have one acre plowed
and subsoiled thoroughly, fertilize it amply,
set few fruit trees along its north side, and
make each square rod do its best in the pro-
duction of roots vegetables and Indian corn,
while working out by the day four or five days
in each week, and six days during the hurry
and high wages of the summer harvest, and he
will get ahead much faster than by half tilling
ten or fifteen half-plowed, niggard, unmanured
acres, and thus growing what will range, ac-
eording to the season, from scanty half-crops to
no crops at all And, if you tell me that he
can find no one to hire him, say, then let him
puliup stakes, ego West" and keep moving
sill he finds some region where honest work
may be readily exchanged for honest bread.
One of the first elements of successful reno
walton is law, such as we have in New York,
and trust in most old States compelling every
man TO take care that his animals do not injure
hia neighbors crops-in other words, that we
must thoroughly fence our respective cattle
yards and pastures, not our whole farms. Ihe
saving in fences thus effected is immense; but
that is only one of its blessings. value above
this the liberty accorded to each of us to grow
wood on our own lands wherever we will, with
out being obliged to fence out our neighbor's
cattle, especially while roaming in ravenous
pursuit of food in early spring. If you mean
TO renoyate your farm, begin by throwing out
the acres you can not fertilize for some years
ahead, and cover these with wood as soon as
YOU may. Gather or buy nuts and seeds, plant
them in your garden, and transplant the young
trees to the crests of your ridges, the sides OF
your ravines, when barely year or year and
a half old, and keep setting trees till all the
land you cannot fertilize and thoroughly till Is
covered with thrifty timber. The very first
step in renovation to the average farmer is to
Emit the ares. on which labor and capital must
be bestowed.
If insist on deep tillage as essential to good
farming, you will understand that this, like ev-
cry sweeping rule, is liable to exceptions. For,
/. There is much land too rocky, too preclpl-
tous. or too STERILE to be cultivated at all; and,
2. There is good land so full of stumps or
strong tree-roots that it should be got into grass
as speedily and cheaply as possible, thus to re-
out injury to team or plow. But any field that
Is to be cultivated henceforth, continuously, or
by frequent alterations Of grain with grass,
ought to be plowed deeply and thoroughly,
both surface and subsoil, as preparation
for profitable tillage. Mind that | say sub
soiled which means pulverizing the subsoil
and leaving it subsoil, not turning it up to the
surface and leaving it there. think have
seen even this done with profit, especially where
the subsoil is clay, with several inches of sandy
loan above it; but subsoilng is quite another
process-one very generally required; while,
up to this hour, not one acre in each hundred
under cultivation in this country has ever been
subjected to it.
cultivate steep hillsides of sandy or gray
elly loan which, but for subsoiling, would
wash fearfully in every violent shower, sweep
ING away their finer particles, to be lost for
ever; eve subsoiling prevents this by presenting
deep. loose, porous soil, into which water
falling on the surface sinks rapidly, and much
of Il remains in the subsoil till it is needed
and drawn upon by the growing plants above