Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-04-16
Growing a variety Of Crops.


THE leading staples which experience
has shown TO bo well adapted 10 various
sections will probably never be entirely
abandoned. The time will never come
when the Central Western States win
not grow immense amounts Of Indian
corn, or whom cotton will not be the
leading staple of the South. Whatever
changes are made will be in addition
and supplementary 10 the staples now
grown Forty years ago wheat was not
only the chief but almost the exclusive
staple OF this part of Western New
York. Monroe County produced more
wheat in 1888 than any other county in
the United States, as shown by the CEN
sus Of 1910. Other crops were grown
even then; but they we're produced on
limited scale, and mainly for home
consumption. Now apples and other
fruits, potatoes, corn and coarse grains,
and dairy products, form large share of
the sales of Monroe County farmers.
This county is still as eminent in agri-
cultural products as it was forty years
ago. Its aggregate production is GER
tainly much more valuable now than
then; but no single crop attracts atten-
ton as wheat formerly did.
The tendency to diversified farming
Is a good one. 1t not only pays better,
but It requires more skill and fore
thought. The culture of a single staple
Is apt to become a matter Of routine,
and tends to repress activity of thought
Flowing, sowing or planting, and har-
vesting become merely mechanical. In
a regular, unchanging rotation of one
OF two crops there is little chance for
skill or forethought. But the farmer
who grows a variety Of crops, who
adapts his rotation to the changed neces-
stiles of each year, must keep his wits
about him and his hands and brain busy
if he would succeed. 1 think it also re-
quires harder work. The operations of
haying and harvesting in former days,
occupied only small proportion of the
year During this busy season extra
help was hired, and the work
was done by larger number of men,
but at little greater expenditure of
| labor for each one than now. Men
work as hard as they can in the hay and
harvest-field at the present time, while
for all the rest of the year the farmer of
| to-day works harder with body as well
as brain than did the farmer of forty
or fifty years ago. There is no time
from early spring until late in the fall
which farmers can take for rest and re-
creation without interfering with the
regular programme of farm work. l
am not sure that winters, even in our
northern latitudes, will long be left for
rest. Some of our best farmers find
winter fattening of sheep and cattle full
as profitable as any thing they can do
| in the summer, and those who succeed
best say that it is work which more than
any thing else demands their personal
care and attention. The ordinary farm
help can not be trusted, where so much
depends on regularity and close atten-
ton, as well as good judgment.
But it is not to be inferred that be-
cause modern farm work is a constant
hurry, it is therefore constant
drudgery. The variety of employment,
which keeps farmers always busy, fur
nishes also a necessity for incessant ac-
tivity of thought and brain. Work needs
more thought, partly because it is not
so much in ruts, and partly because it
is done so largely by complicated ma
chinery, which requires careful and con-
slant supervision. The greater variety
of crops farmer grows the more need
he has to plan and contrive so as to bring
his work around at the proper time.
This thinking promotes intellectual ac-
tivity; and it is by this process that the
farmers of the present day are beoom-
ing yearly more observant aud thought
full, while those who try to farm in the
old ruts are falling to the rear VIM. j..
Fowler, IN Examiner and Chronicle.