Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-07-16
FARM AND GARDEN.
DITCHTNG AND DRAINING WEI
PLACES

EARM AND GAkUEN.
DITCHEKG AND DRAINING WET
------.- PLACES. -
This dry summer affords an excellent
opportunity to use a team and pillow to
aid draining swamps or wet places in
any field that may need one or more
bitches. Some Of our latest land may
be practically valueless, because it re-
quires little draining to remove water
in the wet seasons Of the year. Now is
lifetime TO do tie needful in the way of
making excavations, SO that no stand
ing water will stop the pillow, or cause
sedge, flags or bullrushes togrow where
corn or hay might flourish.
ONE WAY TO STOP CHINCH BUGS.
A correspondent of the Prairie
Farmer writing from Southern Illinois,
thus describes his way to keep chinch
bugs from running his corn:
If the bugs are IN your corn, say a
few rows. make up your mind to give
them that amount, and between these
rows and the remainder of your corn,
and on all sides, If there is any propa-
bility of their coming in, pillow ditch,
with good sized pillow, as deep as you
can with one horse, throwing two fur
rows, one on side and the other oppo-
site, then hitch your horse to a log, say
eight inches IN diameter and seven feet
long. Mount your log and drag through
your ditch or bitches until the earth is
as dry and fine as -four In the bottom,
and on both sides. Keep it IN this con-
dition by dragging your log twice a
day. And the consequence will be that
few, very few, bugs VIII get over, the
fine earth on the sides affording no
foothold. This way is simple, easy and
sure, and if your chinch bugs can climb
the sides Of such ditch their powers of
locomotion are better than the breed in
Egypt.
Some Ohio farmers keep potato bugs
at a distance by planting mustard seed
with their potatoes. This pungent
weed is not to their liking.
HAY AS a COMMERCIAL STAPLE.
The AasericaR Grocer gives some in
structive figures showing the hay crop
for several years, and ventures an est
mate of the commercial value Of the
same, which will hardly stand the test
Of intelligent criticism. The following
Is its statement:
The hay crop of the entire country
for the past few years has been as fol
lows: 1870, 27,3l6,04S tons; 1871, d.
239, 400; 1872, ., 752, 92I; 1873, d..
go 3S. The crop Of last year was the
smallest for some years. New York
State stands at the head of the
list with t 81 $50 ions; then comes
Pennsylvania with 2,O70.50O tons, fol
lowed in succession by Illinois, Iowa,
Wisconsin, Ohio, and Vermont, each Of
the latter producing over one million
of tons. In view Of the fine prospect
for the coming crop, the price here now
ranges at the low figures Of from $50 to
S2+ per ton, as to quality. Comparing
the average market prices of the prin-
cipal trade centres for the past four
years, it is safe to say that S25 per ton
is a sufficiently low estimate of the mar
kct value Of hay. At this price the
value Of the crop Of 1873, light rs 1t
was, reaches the enormous figure Of
1913, OlO,970, exceeding either Of those
Of dairy products which is placed at
S5oD,oeO,OO0, Of cotton. which may be
estimated at 100000 or of wheat,
the value of which viii not equal cot
ton.
1t is a little remarkable that while
the United States census of 1870 re-
turned the hay crop at over twenty
seven million three hundred thousand
tons, the crop Of last year should be
guessed at nearly six million tons less
by professed statisticians. But pass
ing over the quantity annually raised,
as about as uncertain as uncertain can
be, let us enquire whether twenty mil
lion tons of hay, more or less, grown
and consumed on the farm by farm
stock, is really worth to the producer
twenty or twenty-five dollars a ton.
Had the editor Of the american Grocer
been raised on stock farm, he would
know better. Formerly, if New York
farmers, who raise over four million
tons Of hay year, got five dollars a
ton, when feeding hay to dairy cows,
sheep and young growing stock, they
were satisfied; and now if they get ten
dollars for home fed hay, they do bet
ter than the average Of farmers. East
or West. When a ton of Ohio hay
sells for twenty dollars in New York
city, the transportation Of this aple,
some seven hundred miles, has cost
considerably more than to produce the
article. Over three thousand million
dollars have been invested In railways
in the United States. Shall agriculture
have credit for the earnings Of this large
capital If not, then twenty million
tons Of hay produced in year, est
mated at ten dollars Il ton, (all that At
Is worth tothe country as a whole, gives
an aggregate # S200,OG0,000, instead
Of S5"0OOo,oUo These corrected
figures show that the nations hay
crop is worth about two-thirds as much
as its cotton crop.
We believe strongly in hay, and We're
raised on a farm that had one hundred
acres IN one meadow; bu1 there is "a
vas difference IN baling a staple FIR
market, worth at home only half cent
a pound, and one worth ten or fifteen