The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-09-17
Mixed Husbandry.

The hole world cannot run TO spe-
cialties. If all gave their exclusive at
tention to raising stock, the world would
be surfeited with meat and starve for
bread. There are perhaps some farms
SO situated, and some persons so pecu-
liarly qualified, that stock exclusively
can be made the business of the farm
with the largest degree of profit. Bnt
with the average farm and the average
farmer, a mixed husbandry will be found
more profitable. Because the farmer
sees there is 10 escape from the eondi-
tions which compel him to raise more or
less grain or because he has no desire TO
abandon grain culture altogether, he
should not be driven to grain raising ex-
clusively, but should raise more or less
stock in connection with it, because he
can thereby increase the revenues of the
farm beyond the point they would 9TH
erwise reach. A strong, active man,
able and willing to work, may find grain
raising profitable, because it gives him
employmeot-because it gives a return
in money for the time which would 9TH
erwise not be used. II Is wise and pro-
fitable of course, to raise the grain. But
if the farm is a grain farm exclusively,
this mans labor and the capital invested
In the land must remain idle one-half
the year. If stock raising is pursued in
connection with 1.-THE farm is managed
upon the mixed plan-everything does not
come to a dead halt when frost comes in
the fall, and remain stationary until na
ture's forces are unloosed again by the
advancing spring. Under the care of
the intelligent husbandman, the stock
on the farm will be growing and thriv-
ing almost as rapidly during the winter
as in the simmer. The winter feeding
operations will have furnished him en-
ployment, and have brought as satisfac-
tory results as the summers work in
the field. The farmer running farm
exclusively to grain, mnst be idle one
half of the year, and worse than idle, for
he and his family are consuming the
products of the previous half years
work; while on the mixed farm some
thing is being earned all the time, and
summer and winter its wheels are NOV
ing and never still.
But the raising and feeding of stock
should be considered as one of the re-
gular departments of the farm--from
which steady and considerable income
may be derived-instead of one of the
accidental incidents of farm manage
ment. 1t should be considered "a busi-
ness, and conducted as such. Any farm
er in selecting farm, will look first al
the quality of the soil; 1t would be folly
TO attempt to argue with him that one
acre is as good as another; he knows bet
| ter; and that one acre of certain quail
ity of soil will produce as much as two
or three acres of another kind of soil.
And when he started out to select the
stock to be raised and fed on his fam
he should use the same sound practical
sense which he would employ if buying
land, for one acre is no more as good as
another acre. than one steer VI pig is as
good as another steer or pig. One acre
of one particular kind of soil will pro-
duce much more than an acre of anoth
er kind of soil, with equal cultivation,
and animals of certain particular kinds
will yield more on the same keep than
animals of other particular kind. AS the
farmer would select the land which will
produce the most, let him select the live
stock of the farm with the same end in
view.
Then, the farmer knows, that, by Civ
ing this crops certain kind of treat.
ment, by following certain rule of rota.
tion by the use offertilizers and by certain
modes of cultivation at different times
in different stages of growth, the product
of the land will be very largely increas
ed. Let him study the operation of the
same laws upon his live stock. Le
him pursue just those modes of treat
ment, feeding, and management general
ly, as will make the stock most produc