The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-06-30
To Make Farming Pay.

To Make Farming Pay.
A celebrated writer on financial mat.
ters gave the following as the two great
rules for successful business: First,
cut short your losses; and secondly.
let your profits run on" These rules
are to be applied to farming as well as
to other business, and to carry them
out efficiently, a well-conducted system
of weighing and measuring must be
adopted. The tape line and the weigh
ing scale become important agents. The
farm must be well laid out, with all its
fields measured and recorded, as
basis for satisfactory operations. The
crop in each field should be easily
measured, to give the product per acre.
Each load of hay is weighed on the
scale. A graduated corn-crib and gram
airy will give at glance an accurate re-
port of their contents. The farm scale,
which manufacturers now furnish ut a
moderate price, will tell the number of
bushels in every load of grain, and it
may be employed with great advantage
to give the rate of growth and the in.
crease in fattening all domestic animals,
and what kinds OF feeding are most
profitable. This branch of the subject is
of great Importance, and is worthy of
q treatise itself.
A leading aim with the farmer should
be to raise the largest amount of
farm products with the least expense.
We do not mean that he should
half till his fields to save the cost
of cultivation, which would be the
most protitless course he could pursue.
For if by SO doing he would get but 800
bushels of corn from ten-acre lot. the
whole of which must be plowed and
cultivated, the grain would cost him
much more than to raise the 800 bushels
on five acres with half the blowing and
diminished amount of cultivating.
Beside, the rich and mellow soil of the
five acres would be more easily plowed
and worked than the hard, poor ground
of the ten acres, to say nothing of the
struggle with weeds in the neglected
field. The great principle, therefore,
should be well understood-never to cuk-
tivGte more land than can be done IN the
best manner; and no more than can be
gradually improved and enriched in
successive years. Rather than pursue
superficial course, sell the rest of the
farm, seed it down to grass, or do as a
successful manager did few years
ago, who let out the farm which he
owned in poor region of country, and
rented another where land was rich,
and received more after paying his
rent than he had obtained entire from
the farm he owned, with harder labor.
Crops are reduced and labor greatly
increased by profuse growth of weeds.
An important point is meCer to Gtte,nps
their destruction in cultivated fields by
hard labor. 1t is too expensive. 1t would
be cheaper to fallow one entire season,
by sweeping broadcast with pillow and
harrow, as the weeds are successfully
about to appear, than to pull them olt
by millions with thumb and finger, OF
to cut them up laboriously with an
hand-hoe. But it is not necessary to
lose an entire season with the fallOw.
A repetition of the blowing or harrow
ing as often as the green points of the
weeds are seen peeping at the surface,
from May till September, will do much
toward giving a perfectly clean field,
and will bring the soil into admirable
condition for sowing winter wheat.
This subject is worthy of some further
detail. For the longer fallow to pre-
cede winter wheat, one blowing and
subsequent borrowings may be sutfi-
cient; but more thorough work would
be made by blowing two or three times
at long intervals, and narrowing often
between. The pillow would throw up
the seeds of weeds which will not ger
inmate when buried deep, and as they
sprout and grow the harrow would de-
stroy them.
1t will be observed that the ground
will soon become SO mellow that the
labor of each stirring will be greatly
decreased, and its fine condition for the
succeeding crop will be better than any
field ever receives by ordinary treat
ment. We have seen Canada thistles,
quack and other perennial rooted weeds
totally destroyed in a single season with
an equal or less amount of labor and
less narrowing; but to clear the soil
thoroughly Of the seeds of annual
weeds, an occasional deep stirring and
more frequent surface stirring are re-
quired.
We have given these details, as we
regard an easy and cheap method of
extirpating weeds, apd securing we'll
pulverized surface soil for all cultivated
crops, as one of the most important
means tor making farming pay. There
are many other essentials which we can
only allude to, and which are, perhaps,
better understood generally, such as
thorough undertaking. the use of
superphospates, the selection of the
best seeds, and, not the least in impor-
lance, obtaining the most profitable
breeds of animals. The subject is al
most endless in the suggestions it
affords; and to show that the present
eagerness for large domains and whole
sale farming by machinery, in the in
sane eagerness which pervades nearly
all kinds of business to heap together
large fortunes, is not necessarily at
tended with satisfaction or success, we
give the substance of an account fur
nished by correspondent of the Cou,a-
try Gentleman of the 5O-acre farm of a
man who does everything UeN. He has
a snug cottage of eight rooms, large
barn with the really useful improve
ments, fences all post and rail, bushes
and weeds in eternal exile, and the
whole place fair to look upon as we'll as
to live on. All manure and droppings
are absorbed and saved; his corn goes
to pork, his carrots and turnips to beef,
and more manure. Manure and thor
ough tillage give good results. This
man lives we'll; eats turkeys, eats eggs,
eats lamb, and the best fruits and vege-
tables. He dresses well, rides in car
rage, has a good pew in church, and
sends his children to good schools His
wife is not worked to death, and has a
piano in the parlor. He pays about $50
year for help. and does much of his
own work. No rich uncle ever left him
any property; he began by owning
about half his farm, which is now worth
over $1,000. Is not his life greater
success than that of the man who wears
himself out in trying to get very rich on
5000 acres, fails, and dies poor?-Cor.
Country Gentleman.
French Cake.-Out of two pounds