Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-10-23
The Drudgery Of s'AIixed Farming.

My farming used to be mixed enough
to suit any one. / was advised when
began not to hire much help, but to
do what could myself and let the rest
go; to have good many irons in the
fire, and then would be sure to hit it
with some of them; not to pay out any
money for anything that could possibly
be raised on the farm, etc.
Not having had any practi al ex-
perience, l tried to do as was told to.
kept small dairy and made butter.
This was a good business enough, per-
haps, but having SO much else to q at
tend to, it was necessarily only half
done. After taking out interest on the
cost of the cows, depreciation, and the
value of the feed they ate, there was
nothing left to pay for the hard labor
performed by my wife and myself in
milking the cows and making the but
ter. We fed the skinned milk. mixed
with oil meal and wheat middlings, to
calves. We fused two to three hours
a day for months, mixing and warming
the feed, and giving it TO them, and
then fed them hay all winter that was
worth, in those days, from SIP to $50 a
ton. In the spring they would sell for
just about as much as first-class veal
calf six weeks old, or possibly little
more, but not near enough to pay for
the feed they had eaten, to say nothing
of the labor of taking care of them.
We kept pigs one summer ten of
them. We led them milk. meal, grass,
apples, etc. They cost to start on, in
the spring, about $40 leach. In the
fall our butcher, as a special favor,
gave me So head for part of them,
dressed and delivered at his market. I
think, perhaps, we got pay for the meal
fed them We win say nothing about
the milk, grass and apples, for we had
them-we did not have to pay out any
money for them. Then we had the
pleasure of carrying swill to them, three
times a day, and seven days in week,
of hearing them s1ueal. and of dressing
them. That was the profit.
We kept hens, of course, and the last
thing I remember of them was their
turning some $40 a bushel clover seed,
which 1 had just sowed on the wheat
field, into eggs worth ten cents dozen
in trade. We raised few oats and a
little corn, in fact did little of every
thing. We worked hard, early and late,
wife andsI,. and worried sbecauseFwe
Couldn't do more. After atine we be-
came sick OF this steady unprofitable
drudgefy and be- ansto cast around for
a. pleasanter and easier way of getting
living on farm, / said to myself.
WHY is it that a farmer must be,
drudge? Why must he be jack at all
trades, and particularly good at noneP
Why must ne scatter his energies in
stead Of concentrating them. and. ex-
ceiling in some one direction? .sYou
~ hou or OF in on
basket, 2 seemed to me an admission
that one was careless and unskillful,
and not lit to be trusted, with
eggs any way. This saying, as applied
to agriculture, l thought was ali right
when this country was new, wnens
there were no. railroads or markets, to
amount to anything, or money either.
1t was necessary for one to3raise pretty
much what he wanted for his own use
then, as had he raised too much of one
thing, he very likely couldn have
sold it, But nowit is altogether differ
ent, as almost anything one can raise
can he readily EXCHANGED for cash, and
with the cash he can buy almost any
thing he wants, aud many things
cheaper than he can raise them.
The old argument in favorlof mixed
farming bothered me for awhile; that
if it is a poor season for one crop. or
you have poor luck with it. some
other. crop may succeed. I finally
made up my mind that poor luck was
largely owing to the carelessness of the
farmer himself, and that this careless
ness was caused to a great extent by
his trusting to his mixed farming, and
the idea that some of his crops would
turn out well enough to keep him any
way. 1t seemed to me as though, if a
farmer did the best he could in every
respect, he had no more to fear from
poor luck or poor seasons, on the av-
erage, if he raised one or two crops for
which his soil was particularly adapt
ed, than he would il The raised ten or
twelve crops, some Of which, perhaps,
were not suited to his soil. and then,
by raising fewer crops, he would get
rid of great deal Of worry and clash
ing and Improbable drudgery, and he
could devote his time persistently to