Wichita eagle., 1886-09-07
FARMING In GERMANY.
RESULTS OBTAINED EY WORKING
UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES.


UPON SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES.
to the American Farmer-The Triumph
of System Buildings, Feeding, Etc.
Scientific Institutes.
The farm which l visited is owned by a
man who, until recently, has been tenant
farmer, but year ago bought for 10000 thai
ers about 200 acres of unentailed land from the
Tierstorff- -Cramm estate. He is a brother of
the widely known Professor Waldeyer, OF
Berlin, and found him not only typically
sturdy 'son of the soil, but man of unusual
intelligence and enterprise, who III the most
hosptab!e spirit offered to show me anything
and everything connected with German farm
ing. The morning we called upon him he
was bemoaning the partial destruction of his
rye by hail. The hail fell without wind and
only the dropping heads of the grain were
harmed His enthusiasm and his disappoint-
ment We're interesting. In the last ten or
twelve years the changes i'm the German eli
mate have been considerable; the insurance
rates were based on the former condition Of
things, and inasmuch as hail storms have in
crease in frequency and violence in the time
referred to by about 50 per cent, the COM
panies demand three days notice, which in
this country is regarded as peremptory. Mr.
Waldeyers grain covers nearly twO-thirds of
his farm, but among fifty other similar
farmers he is the only one who was insured.
TIE TRIUMPH OF SYSTEM.
The exactitude with which given amount
of fodder is estimated for individual animals,
is part Of a system which is an actual tri-
umph, because it is universal among all con-
siderable proprietors, and the intelligent Ger
man farmer makes estimates, in this and all
other matters, with something of the exacti-
tude of the managers Of an insurance CON-
pany, even to estimating the amount OF loss
per mile in driving to ''the village" in time,
and in wear and tear of material.
The talents of the German are almost un-
available without direction and discipline;
the inability in the way Of self-help is some
times quite amusing, but when Investigations
are made i'm a prescribed and scientific man
ner they are usually accurate.
The farm buildings having been erected by
q peasant it is Mr. Waldeyer's intention to
reconstruct them, as he already has his house
to some extent, from a civilized prejudice
against dwelling under the same roof with
his stock. The buildings are scattered, and
saw no ice house, no dairy and no corn crib.
They are however, not representative, yet
the stock barn was not impractical, the cattle
and horses being stalled around the sides of
large, airy, light rooms on each side of
main inclosed floor, upon which the food Is
cut by hand with an ordinary cutter, and
where the hay is dropped from above. Mr..
Waldeyer showed US his horses with some
pride. Most of them are more like fox hum
ters in their build than are American farm
horses, and look like good roadsters. In
feeding, each animal receives in the working
season fifteen German about seventeen
English pounds of strength food" ground
oats and bran, daily, together with five Ger
man pounds of hay At other times they re-
ceive the same quantity of hay and nine Ger
man pounds of cut straw, oats and bran, and
for six weeks in the summer, beginning in
June, each horse is given fifty-four English
pounds of cut clover daily.
This careful system is also carried into the
management of the soil. A hundred and thir-
teen pounds of manure is here worth ten cents
for the ammonia, phosphoric acid and potash
it contains. Six dollars worth of manure is
put upon each acre yearly. In what is called
s. ''intensive" farmng-scientific farming on n
strictly business basis-artificial dressing COM
posed of phosphoric acid and ammonia in the
proportion of to ) is used to the amount of
Sll.25 per acre yearly, and over and above
the usual supply there is an extra supply
provided at "Alihausen'' by purchasing twen-
ty-five or thirty extra head Of cattle every
autumn. Manure is drawn on to to the fields
all winter and plowed in at the first oppor-
tunity, and there is a constant reserve kept in
an open, water-tght compost vat.
SCIENCE AT ONES FINGER-ENDS"
Calling upon scientist as a lecturer for ad-
vice is characteristic, and it was easy to see in
conversation with Mr. Waldeyer that farm
ing as a practical science was fairly ut his
"finger-ends." In extent and appearance
aside from the marvellously finished appear
ance of the finely pulverized fields, German
agriculture does not compare with our own,
and naturally its possibilities are nothing
compared with a land in which a single state
produces over thirty million bushels of wheat
and in which a small part of one state can
produce more cotton than the world can use
at present; but, however talented and ver-
satile tho American agriculturist may be, tho
German farmer of the future will try titles
with him in some respects with methods az
nearly like the results of genius rs Won
Moltkes celebrated tactics. The constant
marvel is that, with such evident capacity,
such widespread higher education, such pre-
eminent ability in every walk of life, that
Germany has not done even more than she
has, and the world may look for as much
progress in the future as the unfortunate con-
ditions which inevitably prevail in Europe
will permit Nearly every German farmer is
q graduate of one of the higher schools, gym
nasia, or scientific institutes Subsequently
he has two years practical experience on q
farm, for which privilege he pays 80 thalers
year, and is fitted for two years course in
the excellent agricultural schools, which he
Invariably takes.
Naturally, the small peasant proprietors do
not enjoy all these privileges, but it is mainly
because they do not wish to. They are pro-
vided in the winter schools with all the agri-
cultural knowledge, including a system of ac-
counts, which the meager common school
education has fitted them to receive 1t will
be wondered that it does not enable them to
learn more, but the education of the newspa-
per does not reach them here as it does in
America There are no circulating libraries
in the smaller towns, and certainly no papers
in IA village of 5000 people like journals in
such places in America, which corresponds to
and imply general civilization and refine
ment of life unknown in such towns here 1t
is, however, not because the government does
not desire to elevate its subjects On the con-
trary, l believe there is no country with
such widespread higher education not only,
but where such persistent efforts are made to
promote universal intelligence and in it all
one of the most creditable features is the
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