Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-09-13
Some Hints for Farmers.

! Men naturally wants tbs earth, or at
least that part of it which adjoins his
particular estate, but he makes a great
mistake when he eng ages In farming on
an extensive scale.
Prince Kgapotkine, who has made q
careful study of the subject in France,
gives number Of instances in the coan-
try districts around Paris, where com
paratively ignorant farmers have made
small market gardens enormously pro
ductive. One farm is mentioned by him
of two and seven -tenths acres which pro-
duces annually 125 tuns of market vege
tables of all kinds. The owner of this
farm by building walls TO protect his
land from cold winds, by whitening the
walls TO secure all possible radiated heat,
and by the constant and iudicious use
of fertilizers has his little farm in a pro-
ductive conditions from the 1st of Janu-
airy to the last of December. By sim pie
and inexpensive means he has partically
located his farm in the tronics.
French gardner does not care what
kind of soil he starts with. He would DE
satisfied with an asphalt pavement, be
cause he makes his soil, and SO much of
it that he has to sell it to keep his place
from being gradually raised above the
level of the surrounding country. When
q farmer Onco understands the laws of
chemistry he has no difficulty IN making
soil that contains all the materials needed
for plant life.
Prince KrapotkIne speaks of one gar
dener who has covered half an acre with
glass roof, and run steam pipes supplied
by small boiler under the ground shelf
cred by this covering. The result has
! been that he has cut every day for ten
months from 1000 10 1000 large punches
OF asparagus, q product which under or
binary conditions would require sixty
acres of land. Bot this result has been
surpassed by an English farmer, who has
made a one-acre mushroom farm yield
him an annual income of $4,000.
Under the French method of culture 1t
would be possible to make one square
mile support 1000 human beings. On
SUCH scale of productive capacity this
| country would support a population of
| 3,000,O00,000. Even when we knock off 2
fair per centage for mistakes, exagera-
! tions and unfavorable conditions, it will
be seen that we al in no danger of having
an overcroWded population for many CEN
turtles TO come. There is no reason why
our eastern farmers should go west for
more elbow room. Their great drawback
is aot the want of more land; it is the
possession of too much land.
In some localities in Switzerland the
traveller on the plains or in the valleys
looks up 30 towering precipice 1900
feet above his head. When he laborous-
ly climbs to the summit, expecting TO
| find nothing but bare rock, he sees be-
fore him the smiling expanse of produc-
tive fields, with pretty cottages dotting
the landscape. The peasant propriet0rs
started with only the naked rock under
| them. They carried the rich soil Of the
valleys in baskets on their backs up the
steepmountain side, and went to work
with a will until they transformed their
sterile patches into blooming gardens.
The success of European farmers with
ali the forces of nature against them
should be an inspiring lesson to our til
lers of the soil. The American small
farmer has only to unite brain work with
hand work to make himself independent
and COM Portable if not rich.
But without this union of the brain and
hand there can be no great and perman
ent success.