Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1886-02-05
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.

STOCK BREEDING vs.. GRAIN hAiSiN"'
A farmer who for long term OF years
has good paying crop four seasons out
of five may consider himself in average
luck, and this fact has induced 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 demand for beef cattle, how
ever, 1t seems somewhat surprising that
q great number of farmers do not turn
their attention to stock-breeding. Beef
Is q commodity with which it would
seem impossible to glut the market. As
the quality improves the consumption
increases, and II its prices decline per-
ceptibly, it straightway begins to take
the place Of some other staple article OF
food, so that its consistency is immedi-
ately and in most cases permanently
rendered broader.
Why is it that farmers will year after
year 20 on cropping their farms to death
and reaping very meagre returns 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 determine. The establish
ment of cheese factories has done much
to correct or rather lessen the tendency
to overcropping, but even dairy-farm-
ing is not 40 well calculated to restore
land to a state of fertility as is stock
raising. The manure from herd Of
cattle amply compensates the land for
all that the cattle can by any possible
means take from 1t, while experience
has always shown that those farms
whose only marketed product is live
stock steadily increase in fertility.
The result OF grain-farming and stock
farming may be summed up as follows:
The grain farmer spends bis energies
in getting all he can out of his land dur
ing the short space intervening between
the beginning of springs work and the
end of harvest, or perhaps he may have
few acres of wheat, which he sOws in
the fall, aud after sprouting waits till
the advent Of spring to renew its growth.
In any event, his farm lies unproductive
during the greater portion of the year,
while his taxes, the interest on his in
vestment and his family and household
expenses are going on all the time. And
with all this his farm is every day be-
coming less productive.
The stock breeder has his work at his
hand the whole year around. Some
fields must be cropped with coarse grains
for winter feed, and these are more than
fortified BY the product of manure ev-
cry year. These fields have to be Guilt
waited by farmers, but his pasture land
only requires cultivation at long inter-
walls, while, as for the rest of the work,
the herd manures the land, reaps the
crop, and carries i. to market. The
crop of the intelligent and thrifty stock
farmer is growing from the LIST of Jan
uary to the 3lst of December, night and
day, hour by hour increasing in value,
while every year sees his farm more
productive and his breeding herd more
richly bred and valuable
1t is not necessary, for the farmer Of
small means who would turn his atten-
ton to dairying to have a herd Of Jer-
seys, Holsteins or Friesians to start with.
Let him who would breed beef cat
tie make beginning with what he
happens to have, and improve his herd
just as rapidly as his means allow him
to do so. In the far Northwestern Ter
ritories some full-bloOded and pretty
thoroughly uncivilized Indians are
wealthy stock-owners, and there are
certainly few Canadian farmers who are
not i'm position to make as extensive
beginning as they did.-Es.
GATE IN BARBKD WIRE FENCE.-An
Iowa correspondent of the Germantown
Telegram describes the way in which
he makes gate for occasional use in
barbed wire fence. The farmer some
times has need of a gate in barbed
wire fence and which is used but sell
dom: he must nevertheless put upa
substantial hinge or slide gate. l have
seen good gate put in a barbed wire
fence with very little trouble in this
manner. Build the fence without ref
erence to the gate; then select the loca-
ton for a gate and staple the wire Sc
curely to the gate so it cannot slip. Cut
the wire at one of the posts aud fastcn
the ends to light piece of wood as
high as the post. Set one end Of this
piece Of wood in shallow hole beside
the post and place wire loop over it
and your gate is finished. 1t can be
opened in moment, and for occasional
use Is as good as hinge gate.
j. Eggborn, Esq, Boston, Culpeper
Co., Va, say. he used Powell's Fertil-
izer last fall on his wheat. Very much
pleased with the result. His crop was
unequaied by any in the neiglfborhcOd.
Write for descriptive phamphlet to
Brown Chemical Co., Baltimore, Md.
have heard a COOL story of an old