Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-04-10
FARM AND GARDEN.
Profits of Tobacco Cu,ture

FrOHts OF Tobacco Culture.
A contemporary calls attention to the
fact that with new tobacco at thirty
to forty cents pound, numbers of
Yankee tobacco-growers have become
rich and own some of the best farms in
New England" And again, with jubi-
liant triumph, asks, 'tWhere, we should
like to know, can from $500 to $500 be
taken from the acre every year ?" The
conclusion assumed is, that this is
profitable farming" But the assump-
ton that any such profit is really OBJ
tanned, Is baseless one. The crop
may be gathered from the area of
single acre, but it is made up from the
fertility drawn from many acres. To-
bacco is one of the most eXhausting
crops to the land on which it grows.
Like all large-leafed plants, it requires
much nitrogen, and, more than in any
other known in modern agriculture, it
takes potash from the soil. The produce
of farm, after having served its pur-
pose as cattle food, is turned as manure
to the barnyard or stable, and should
be returned as fertilizer to the fields
from which it originally came. In to-
bacco culture it is carted to the tobacco
may go to thin red top or thinner rye.
1t is no wonder, therefore, that In West
ern Connecticut "many farm of from
sixty to one hundred acres, with good
buildings and out-houses, and three or
four acres of tobacco land, will not aver
age in price $50 per acre." That tillage
is the best and most profitable which
raises the fertility and consequent pro-
ductiveness of the whole homestead
throughout for staple cropping, meadow,
grazing, corn or wheat, and this is most
wasteful which concentrates all upon a
few acres, to the neglect of the rest, and
stakes the payment of the yearly ex-
penses of a single product liable to great
fiuctuation in the market, and incapable
of being used upon the land itself.
Suggestions About Fencing.
Where it is needful to have permanent
fences, as on lines, along lanes, and
around buildings, make them of durable
materials. A common board fence, es-
pecially if it run north and south, is not
very desirable neither is cobble stone
wall, as usually made. A worm fence OF
sound chestnut or cedar rails and stake,
provided the rails are Of good size, will
last from seventy-fve to a hundred
years. For permanent, durable, strong
fence, the worm rail fence of the best
timber is really the best we can make
unless good stone are procurable. We
shall get through fencing with boards
one of these days, when the price Of
lumber rises to the sum which the ratio
of its increase for the last twenty years
indicates will be its value twenty years
hence. Chestnut for fencing can be
grown as readily and cheaply as any
timber. and a very few acres devoted tc
this culture would in twenty years fur
nish material enough to fence 150-acrt
farm. [ knew a farmer in the centra
part of this State who started magni
ficent chestnut forest by first summer
following the field and then sowing tn,
nuts broadcast in the fall and dragging
them in. He had to watch the squirrels
and crows and boys, who stole them be
fore they sprouted, but the experiment
succeeded, and the ground was sool
hidden by the young trees. After a few
years the forest was thinned, the tree
taken out, making loop-holes, and thel
the rest of the grove went rejoicing OF
its way to maturity. Rura
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