Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1886-04-03
HOW ! BECAME A FARMER.
By A. B. Berry.
Massachusetts, Ploughman.
CHAPTER LII.

VII our way Ddck MT. EVANS cdlleu
my attention to the farms as we passed
along. The moving fields all looked
thin and starved; but the hoed crops
mostly looked better, especially the
corn crops, some of which were very
stout and rank and / remarked in
praise of them.
eyes," said Mr.. Evans, Fright
there lies the grand mistake of nearly
all farmers. They put their manure
or the land they are to pillow for corn
or other crops. Most Of them pillow
it in, and thereby lose the most of
the virtue of it. Year after year the
moving fields are stripped of their
burdens and nothing returned, only
as patches here and there are covered
over with all the manure that can be
got together, and then wonder why
it is our farms are running out"
"That," said l, sis the cry every
where. / have long opposed the plan
of blowing under manure; but you
go one step further"
eyes, my plan is, spread all the
coarse barnyard manure on the grass
land in the fall, from the first to the
middle of November. When 1 began
this system all my neighbors
laughed at me and said l was sim
pleton, for anybody ought to know,
they said, that the winter rains and
melting SHOWS, when the ground was
frozen, would was off all the virtue
there was in the manure into the
swamps and brooks. That is theory;
but theory is one thing and facts and
results another. You can see, and
my neighbors could see the wisdom
of my plan if they would. But hav-
ing eyes they see not, but hug their
pet theory and keep on in the same
practice their grand-fathers did when
the land was new and bore grass be-
cause it couldn't help it. All the nee
essary elements were in the soil. But
continual cropping with no adequate
return has reduced the best of farms
to barrenneSs.
81 make all my moving land fat
by heavy coats of manure in the fall
and there is no better condition for
good crops of any kind than such
land when plowed up, and all that is
necessary is little fertilizer in the
drill, and drill everything 1 plant,
corn, potatoes, beans, etc. The ma.
nure from my four horses, two cows,
and one or two hundred sheep, is all
spread on my grass land most in the
fall. One advantage of this is, fos.
ter no worms and grubs to eat and
destroy my crop, for nearly all these
great nuisances are bred from the
eggs of bugs, millers or fleas in the
fresh manure, and they ask no better
care than to be carted out and plowed
into the land. 1t is just what they
want"
"Do you not use commercial fertili
zers ~ / asked.
"Not now; didat firit, and SHOULD
continue to do 50 if had not had al
abundance of what is even better
the products of my poultry, hens anC
turkeys. keep the latter enclosed
at night, and my hens till two OF
three hours before sunset in the sum
mer time. There are no floors t
their enclosures, and these | keel
supplied with roadside scrapings anC
loan, muck and litter from othe
places; sometimes forty or fifty, o
even more loads, adding fresh occa
Sionally during the summer and
large supply in the fall for winter
Everything from them is dropped OF
this and scratched and dug over ant
mixed up daily, so that in the sprin!
when wanted it is in just the prOpe
condition for use and there is nothing
better for any crop"
"Did you say your farm was in tn
same condition as these about yo1
when you began" / asked.
at was the poorest and most eX
hausted by the old fashioned system
Of robbery of any Of them. 1t pre-
duced less than five tons of hay o.
thirty acres. Now fifteen acres pre-
duce forty tons year. That include
several tons of second crop"
"There is another mystery to me,
said l, "and that is, how it is tia
here in the country, apparently wit
little society, you manage to bring II
your children with as much culture
ease and politeness about them as
reared in the midst of the most II
fined society"
IHTO answer that OupStiOn Sha