The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1877-12-20
AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT.


Thomas Meehan, the agricultural edit
or of the Philadelphia Press who is now
on a visit to England, has written several
interesting letters TO that paper, Ifom
one of which We make the following ex-
tracts. After speaking OF the prejudice
AGAINST improved machinery among the
jaborcrs, especially the moving machine
and hay tedder, he says:
There are some few very large farms
operated by very wealthy owners, where
saw steam plows, steam threshers and
other laber-saving farm machines, but
they are not generally difiused- indeed
not at all diffused- among the general
cultivators asked a farmer Of some
$50 acres why he had not some Of these
machines, and he thought his farm Was
too small. He was astoniShed when
told him that farmers Of much less than
100 acres with US depended mainly on
these machines. Another farmer told
me he would have long ago had some
of them, but he was afraid the labOrers
would burn down his stacks and barns
II he introduced them. The farmers, i
find, are very much at the mercy OF the
farm laborers, much more 10 than they
are here. They hesitated TO Introduce
machinery out OF sympathy with the
laborer, and now they have not any
sympathy with him. was on one farm,
looking about with the owner, when
three hired laborers anne in a half hour
after the time agreed IN for work, and
the farmer expOstulated, but In quite
mild terms l thought, but as we were at
tea, he was called out by the men, who
wanted their immediate pay. They were
mot going 10 work for a nan who
talked TO them in that way" They were
paid and my friend declared that he had
said AS long a he could get one man
in England to NOW he would never have
a Yankee mower about" He is cured
now and the mower is in his hands.
Still tho influence ef good example
tells. Sir Robert Peel once told his
~tenantry he would give them the iron
plows il they would discard their old
clumsy wooden ones. He found them
q year or 30 after rusting in waste pla-
ces. They excused themselves "They
make the weeds grow. They went deeper
than the old plows, and brought up old
seed that had been waiting years for a
chance to grow" But | was pleased to
zee on a visit to Tamworth that Sir Roberts
efforts had done good for certainly the
farming here is above the average of En-
glish farming especially in the matter
of freedom from weeds. In the matter OF
cleanliness, freedom from weeds, Ameri>
can farming is far ahead Of English.
Thousands Of acres are 10 filed by butter
cups, which no cattle will touch, that not
IA tenth part Of the ground can be grazed
by cattle. The yellow charlock, a sort
of mustard, is 80 abundant that grain
fields are Of such golden yellow with them
that the lustre can be seen for many
miles away, aud the person not knowing
that the grain was beneath would think
the weeds were the crop, and the crops
the weeds that should be torn out. Pop.
pies, blue bottles and corn cock es, with
numerous other things abound, and / am
not wrong insaying that one.tenth of all
the farm land of England is given up
to weeds. The American would admit
OF the hoe and harrow, and in this way
in a season or two, get rid Of the whole
stock, but here such machinery would
interfere too much with the rights OF
labor. In many cases where these weeds
had been cleared from the growing grain
they had been taken out by the hand
labor of women and children.
| cannot 20 into details in a short letter
like this, but ] will say that, except in a
few cases, not enough to be p%erceptible
to the general locker on, English farming
lisa long, long way behind America farm
ing. With the same amount of cash
capital per acre, the American farmer
will produce double the results. And ]
say this after going to England with the
contrary impression.
There are a great many excellent things
we might copy from the English to adj
vantage, but English beer-drinking, Eng
fish railroaiing, and English farming are
not among them.-- Western Farm Jour
nal.