Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1874-01-24
A Model Stock Farm.
How Long Island Farmer Makes
Money at his Business.


by William Crozier, and is situated upon
an almost insular headland near North
port, Long Island, which is washed
upon almost its whole boundary by the
waters of Long Island Sound. 1t con-
sists of light sandy loan, in some
parts being almost wholly sand ; its sur
face is picturesquely rolling, and diver
sifed with hill, dale, and valley, and is
covered in large part with such shrub
berry and timber as are found upon the
sea coast. Six years ago, when Mr..
Crozier entered into possession of this
farm, it was neglected wilderness of
impoverished barrenness, overgrown
with wide hedgerows of rails and tan
gled bushes, which occupied consid-
erable portion of its cleared acreage. 1t
furnished precarious subsistence to six
COWS and one horse, and its farm build
ings were mere weather-beaten wrecks
useless for shelter. The unsightly and
obstructive fences or boundaries of the
numerous small fields have been swept
away, their sites cleared and grubbed,
and the titled part of the farm has been
divided by straight post and board or
post and rail fences into six fields of
from 60 to 120 acres each.
A rotation of crops suitable to the
soiling system of keeping cattle has
been adopted, and by the necessary re-
action of food upon manure and manure
upon food, which results from this sys-
TEN, the farm now keeps abundantly
supplied from within its own resources,
forty horses, Ill head of COWS,
bulls, heifers, calves, and oxen; sixty
seven heavy sheep, $50 hogs, and poultry
of various kinds in great numbers. This
stock, fed in stalls, in which plentiful
bedding of leaves, straw, and other lit
ter is used, with the addition of swamp
muck spread in the yards and compost
ed with the droppings, together pro-
duces over 10, 900 loads of manure per
annum, all of which is worked over and
brought to the finest condition for use
upon the corn and root crops, and the
meadows. This is the key to Mr.. Gro
zier's suecess-soiling stock and making
manure. .t
The stock is all thoroughbred, the
horses are pure Clydesdales (the work
ing and breeding mares weighing 1000
pounds each) and Morgans. The COWS
are pure Jerseys and Ayrshires,i in near
ly equal proportions. The sheep are
Cotswolds and Southdowns, the hogs
are all the choicest Berkshires, and the
poultry are Aylesbury and Rouen
ducks; game black Spanish, Buff Co.
chin, and houdan fowls; bronze turkeys
and Bremen and Toulouse geese. All
this stock having been bred from the
best strains, and with great care and
Judgment, and being kept in excellent
condition and health, are perfect speci-
mems of their several races.
The crops raised last year were $50
acres of grass, 35 of oats, 40 of barley,
10 of wheat, 40 of corn, 10 of fodder
corn, 5 of potatoes, 40 of roots, 6of
cabbages, of vetches or tares, 60 of
rye and 10 of rape. Of these crops
none are sold, all being consumed upon
the farm. The produce sold consists
of butter, which brings rs cents pound
on a yearly contract, wool, pork, which
brings IS cents pound, occasionally a
carcass of beef, and mainly live stock
for breeding purposes. The sales from
the farm the past year were $18, 900, an
increase from $4,000 for last year.
Stock is shipped from Beacon Farm to
every State in the Union and to Canada,
and some other foreign countries occa-
sionally. The crops raised are what
would be premium crops anywhere.
Two hundred and four bushels of ears
of corn per acre have been measured off
from the field, and thirty-eight tons of
mangels, without weighing the heavy
and vigorous tops, which all go to make
feed. The barley and corn are
boiled for the hogs. The corn-fodder
and hay are used for winter feed, cut
and steamed, with sliced roots, meal,
and bran, (the latter purchased) for all
the cattle, horses and sheep; the cab
bage, rape, vetches, and rye, are used
for the summer feed for COWS or for
sheep, fed inside of movable hurdles
upon the growing crops. The rotation
is corn, roots, oats, or barley, rape or
other green crops fed off by sheep, and
rye or wheat sown with grass seed, of
which orchard and timothy are the main
varieties, and which are always cut
when in blossom. a .'rl5usa
The blowing upon this farm is
probably excelled nowhere. The famed
English ploughing is not more accurate
in the line, more even in the width, nor
more regular in the depth of the fur
row than the plowing upon Beacon
Farm. The plowing, eight inches
deep, is done by Scotch plows or Eng
lish plows of the Scotch pattern, the
narrowing by the chain harrow, also of
English pattern; the cultivation by
long-tined grubbers, which stir the soil
to depth of twelve inches, and which
are of English make. The roller is
used to finish the surface when the
fields are laid down to grass.
The barns 'and stables are built in
quadrangles, each with a spacious yard
in the centre. The main barn is go feet
by 48, with basement, in which are a
grist mill, circular saw, shafting
to run the fodder, hay, and root cut
ters, which are upon the main floor,
and the steam-chest for preparing the
food. At short distance from the barn
is the steam-engine, boiler, and tanks.
The engine is 20-horse power, and, with
the boiler and attached machinery, to
which motion is communicated by q
wire rope running over the pulleys, cost
about $4,000. The cattle-sheds, OF
which there are two, each $50 feet long,
and others of less extent, are furnished
with capacious loose boxes for bulls,
young stock, or incoming cows, and
with stanchions for the milking COWS.
Two pens, of over 100 feet in length,
each with a spacious yard, are provided
for the pigs, in which they earn good
| ,,nrtion of THAR living nv work iuo mr.