The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1875-12-10
1onre, 9arm and garden
HIGH FARMING.

AAAoAA
The English Agricultural Gazette con-
tains the following admirable article on
farming:
"What are you giving for oats just
now, Mr. DrakeY' we asked, when en-
gaging a carriage at a livery stable.
'Thirty-four shillings a quarter, SIR"
was the reply. ''Thirty-four shillings a
quarterl Why, you can buy fair oats
for q shilling busllel less than that" a."
''Yes, sir, know that, too; but have
long since learned that it is never good
policy to buy or use a second-rate ar
ticle."
To what department of farming, we
wonder. does not this maxim apply, and
in what department does it not need en-
forcement? Second rate horses incur as
great daily cost, and yield much less in
return. Second-rate food for horses,
cheaper though it be, produces foot
pounds" of force per shilling of its cost.
Second-rate implements produce an in
ferior result at more expense of draught.
Second rate laborers often do but half
per shilling of their smaller wages.
Second-rate varieties Of wheat, oats,
barley, beans and peas extract and use
just as much fertility from the soil in the
production of their inferior yield. Sec
ond-rate cattle consume as much food,
yielding perhaps but pound of meat
or gallon vi .nilk a day, increasing
meanwhile little. sometimes nothing,
or even less than nothing, daily, while
first-rate stock, yielding a double or even
quadruple return, consume no more in
doing it. Second-rate management gen.
orally may be quite as costly as that
which is flrst-rate, differing from it far
more in its deficient yield than in the
expense at which tits directed.
Take the live stock of the farm for
example: How many head of stock on
most farms under listless management
are there not which are doing literally
nothing, making no progress. if kept as
growing or trorting stock, or improving
but a little compared with Others which
are prosperous and productive. They
are consuming just as much, and in the
one case are mere machines for destroy
ing farm produce, in the other way they
are machines for wasting it. We believe
that next to skill in choosing or in
breeding stock the profit of the stock
keeper depends on promptitude or reso-
luton in selling, parting with, dispatch
ing it as soon as 1t is seen that it is not
prosperiDg. OF course, if every one
acted on maxim of this kind the value
of such stock in the market would socn
reach the level which properly belongs
to its character, and the loss on sales
might then almost equal the loss in keep
ing; but in the meantime those who act
with greatest promptioude in wedding
out inferior stock certainly have the ad-
vantage. The fact that stock which is
not prospering is just machinery for
the destruction of farm produce ough.
to startle many a man who will read
these words. Let him remember, too,
that all live stock are inevit ably ma
chimes for destroying a certain portion
daily, which is as diiectly wasted and
burnt up in every animal that feeds as
1t had been put on the fire. How
much greater the premium then on keep
ing cattle, whose fattening is done in a
life time of 700 days. than on keeping
those whose fattening requires 200 days
or more. The wedding of the flock and
herd upon a farm il part of livestock
management which needs promptitude
and decision as much as the W, eding of
crops and fields.
And this brings us TO the other great
agricultural department to which Mr.,
brakes maxim especially applies. If it
be unquestionable policy to confine our
selves to first-rate articles when choosing
the individual animals or the best varie-
tics of the different crops we cultivate,
how much more obviously is it not neces-
sary that we avoid devoting the fertility
of our soil, or any portion of it, to the
growth of plants which not only are not
marketable, but which are mischievous
Why should weeds be, as they seem,
from almost universal practice and expe-
rience to be, a necessary part of farm
management They occupy the space in
which good plants would grow-they
consume the food on which good plants
would prosper-their worthless lives in
volve expenditure, which might other
wise have gone to increase the numb er
of valuable lives upon the farm, or the
ability of the farm to feed them The
fight with weeds costs far more on the
farm which is always foul than on the
farm which is always clean. And more
than that, we engage to say that, given
a farm overrun with thistles, bindweed,
couch and coltsfoot, at the commence
end of ten years finds he has succeeded
10 getting it and keeping it clean has
spent less in fallow work and wages than
the man who, having all these years
maintained an unsuccessful fight, at
length leaves the farm but little cleaner
than he found it.
If it be impolitic To bay or keep or use
a ssecond-rate article" as we learned
from the experience we have quoted. it is
unqdestionably the extreme of folly to
permit such mere incumbrance, worth
iessDess and wastefulness as we incur by
harboring weeds. And SO ends tor the
present this short agricultural homily,
founded on the text with which the max
i'm of the livery keeper furnished Us.
GOOD ROADS.
Mr.. Horace White, former editor of
the Chicago Tribune. is writing letters to
tn 1t paper from Europe, and in a recent
one we find the following sensible re-
marks about roads:
-sIf the State of Illinois would exchange
one half of her railroads for as many
dollars worth of good wagon roads, both
the farmers and the railway stockhold-
ers would be much better off than they
they are. I Travelled two days by stage
coach through the Black Forest in Ba-