Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1873-02-19
From the Rural SUM-
Why Not A.?
LEBANON. Jan. %.

lEBANON, Jun. -, 1870.
Editors RurdE Sun. One grain of wheat
carefully planted will produce, at the low
est estimate, three stalks. Each stalk will
have head producing twenty grains.
Thus, one grain will yield sixty grains,
or sixty fold.
If one grain will yield sixty grains, why
would not one bushel yield sixty bushels :?
RULE OF THREE.
Let the grains of the seed wheat be
sound, one bushel of wheat can be MADE to
yield, by proper culture, and in suitable
soil, sixty bushels of wheat, or, surprising
q bushel to be sown to the acre, sixty BUSH
els to the acre. The query OF "Rule of
Three is pertinent and suggestive. 1t is
indeed rather a severe commentary on the
farming of the country. The average yield
of what per acre in Tennessee, taking the
whole State, is stated in the census report
of 1870 to be only .fUe bushels. This, TO be
sure, includes all sorts of soils, but in our
best counties the average Is rarely above
ten or twelve, and on the very choicest
lands, rarely above twenty. Now Rule of
Three states this question in substance
If one grain yield sixty, where is the sixty
fold in our practical farming? Why the
tremendous fall in the average? Our
querist might fairly have put his question
in stronger terms. Wheat tillers; one
grain makes several heads, and often pro-
duces one hundred or one hundred and
fifty grains. From this we see that the in
quiry after the siXty-fold yield is by no
means extravagant.
Therei is evidently something very wrong
somewhere. We say that the principal,
not the only, trouble is poor culture.
There is not enough capital and labor e2-
pended in preparing the soil. Does dray-
man, or q teamster, expect TO get good
work out of his horses without caring for
and feeding them plentifully? 1t is the
heavy, fat sleek animals that are relied
upon for real work. So with the lands.
4 starving, tired soil, robbed, by constant
cultivation or overwork for a series of
years, of all its life's blood ought not TO be
expected to yield anything worthy of note,
and especially when it has been scratched
over to the depth of only an inch or two.
We have a great deal to learn yet in the
way of successful farming.
Cultivate more thoroughly. Expend
more money and muscle on an acre. If
the farmer has 100 acres, is "land-poor,"
has not the means to manure properly, or
time to pillow deeply, let him sell off as
quickly as possible, twenty-five acres and
make himself richer. This will give him
capital and means to operate upon, and,
if he be good common sense business
man and farmer, he will be able to make
more off his seventy-five acres than he did
before off the hundred.
A farm ought TO be as rich as a garden,
and ought to be cultivated as thoroughly.
If this were done we would have the sixty
fold and more. "But this is Visionary
says one. It is not Customary. There are
thousands of farms of this character in
England and on the Continent, and it is
not unusual for them to make the sixty
bushels from the one sOwn, or, what is
about the same thing, sixty bushels to the
acre, They have even reached one hun
bred bushels to the acre.
1t is rich land that pays. Most of our
vegetable gardens realize a greater net cash
profit from five to six acres, than hundreds
of our farmers do from farms of 100 or 200
acres. Now this is done by abundant ma
nuring, in connection with thorough
culture,