Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1884-11-14
farmtrs' Column.
Give fools their gold 4 knaves their power
Let fortunes bubbles rise and fail,
Who soyvs a field trains a flower,
Or plants q tree. is mn ore than all.
Stock Breeding VS. Grain Raising.

A farmer who for a long term of
years has good paying crop four sea-
sons out of five may consider himself
in average luck, and this fact has in
duced many to turn their attention
from grain growing to dairy farming.
Though the prices of butter and cheese
are subject to very wide fluctuations,
it is not often that farmer. having
once embarked in dairy farming, ever
goes back to the growing of grain for
market. In view of the present de-
mand for beef cattle, however, it seems
somewhat surprising that a greater
number of farmers do not turn their
attention to stock breeding. Beef is a
commodity with which it would seem
impossible to glut the market. As
the quality improves the consumption
increases, and if its price declines per-
ceptibly, it straightway begins to take
the place of some other staple article
of food, so that its consistency is i'm.
mediately and in most cases permanent
ly rendered broader.
Why is it that farmers will, year af-
ter year, 60 on cropping their farms to
death, and reaping very meagre re-
turns, till they or their children are
driven into other lines of business,
while the old homestead is reduced to
all but desert, is difficult to deter
mine. The establishment of cheese
factories has done much to correct or
rather lessen the tendency to overcrop-
ping, but even dairy farming is not 50
we'll calculated to restore land to a
state of fertility as is stock raising
The manure from herd of cattle am
ply compensates the land for all that
the cattle can by any possible means
take from it, while experience has al
ways shown that those farms whose
only marketed product is live stock
steadily increase in fertility.
The results Of grain farming and
stock farming may be summed up as
follows: The grain farmer spends his
energies in getting all he can out of his
land during the short space interven-
ing between the beginning Of springs
work and the end of harvest, or per-
haps he may have few acres of wheat,
which he sows in the fall, and after
sprouting waits till the advent of spring
to renew its growth. In any event,
his farm lies reproductive during the
greater portion of the year, while his
taxes, the interest on his investment
and his family and household expenses
are going on all the time. And with
all this his farm is every day becoming
less productive.
The stock breeder has his work at
his hand the whole year around
Some fields must be cropped with cease
grains for winter feed, and these are
more than : iertilized by the product
of manure every year. These fields
have to be cultivated by farmers, but
his pasture lands only require cultiva-
ton at long intervals, while, as for the
rest of the work, the herd manures
the land, reaps the crop, and carries
it to market. The crop Of the intelll-
gent and thrifty stock farmer is grow
ing from the first of January to the
thirty-frst of December, night and day
hour by hour increasing in value, while
every year sees his farm more produc-
tive and his breeding herd more rich
~ bred and valuable.
1t is not necessary for the farmer of
small means who would turn his at.
tention to dairying, to have a herd of
Jerseys, Holsteins or Friesians, to start
with, nor for him who would breed
beef cattle to make his commencement
with Polled Angus, Hereford s,or Short
horns. He can makes beginning with
what he happens to have, and improve
his herd just as rapidly as his means
will allow him to do so. In the far
Northwestern Territories some full
blooded and pretty thoroughly unciv-
ilized Indians are wealthy stock own
ers, and there are certain few Canadian
farmers who are not in a position to
make as extensive beginnings as they
did.-Canadiun Stock Breeder.