The Portland daily press., 1879-01-24
AGRICULTURAL.
Advantage of STEADY Farming.


Farmers, as class, are probably as staid and
conservative as the average of their fellow-men
but there is withal vast deal of speculation
In the management of too many. Part of
this is inevitable. Success in some branches
depends upon accidents that cannot be FORE
seen or prevented Thus our every.ether-
year crop Of apples, with little or no market
value, is usually put in this class. But in
many other crops speculation is conscious
one year farmers rush into the business, grow
an immene crop and glut the market. Thus
this crop, like apples, has become biennial
and only occasionally remunerative. The
same is true of wheat, barley, and other kinds
of grain as well as of sheep, swine and cattle.
This year the dairy business has been over
done. 1t is almost certain that within two
years butter and cheese will pay as well as
other farm products.
In series OF years uniform rotation of
crops always yields the greatest profits. The
farmer who adopts this misses occasional
lucky hits but he misses also still more fire.
quent failures. With variety of crops he
will be pretty sure every year to get good
price and make profit on some. As rule,
too, the expenses of running farm are small
erin proportion to sales where a variety of
crops is produced. The work comes at differ
ent times, and larger share can be done by
the farmer himself The farmer who grows
only one or two crops is under the necessity
of hiring most of the work done at the busiest
season. Years ago when wheat was grown
In Western New York, to the exclusion of
nearly everything else, large gangs of men
were employed In harvest time at high wages.
Necessarily wages were high then, not only
because OF urgent necessity, but because the
farmer could only give them one or two weeks
work in the year. With the change in our
system of rotation, growing large variety of
crops, many farmers do all their harvesting
with the help of the reaper and regular month
hands hired for the season. The policy is
better for the workman as well as for the far
mer. They can afford to work more cheapy
through the season than they could for one
or two weeks in the hurry of harvest. 1t is
better for the farmer not only because his
harvesting is less expensive, but quite as much
because with steady help he is able in less
busy seasons to make improvements on the
farm that would not otherwise be thought
possible. The origin Of farm improvements
in this section dates back to the general fail
ure Of the wheat crop about 1864 5vS1 and - Do
ers ceased growing xhsS'as u system Of mi mixed ed
-aaSSddeIdraining and comparatively little i'm
proved stock and farming utensils.
Mixed husbandry Is not less advantageous
to the soil than to the farmer. Itcould lard-
ly be the latter without being the former.
Constant cropping with any kind of crop rap
idly exausts fertility. 1t gives no chance for
releasing the mineral food OF plants locked up
in the earth. Successive wheat crops so ex-
hausted Western New York soils of pdosphor-
ic acid that little wheat is now grown without
Ino uoo VI guam, eupol puvspnalc, oull-r
manure containing this element. Our best
wheat soils now are low fields and farms that
have been underdrained and were formerly
too wet for wheat growing. 1t is not always
entirely because low lands are naturally most
fertile that they produce 80 largely after being
drained. Part of the effect is due to the fact
that their fertility has not been exhausted by
frequent cropping. lido not believe that far
mers will 60 on exhausting these new lands as
they did the virgin soil forty, fifty, or sixty
years ago. We grow more clover, we keep
more stock, make more manure, and in case
of need have learned the use of commercial
fertilizers. I think it very probable that with
In few years we shall be able to grow more
wheat than when that crop was sown to the
exclusion of every other.-Corr. of Country
Gentleman.