The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-01-11
S11,2S5.OO
Farm Leaks.

Correspondence New England Farmer.
The impression is still rife that farming don't
pay" Farmers boys think SO. and farms are
left to be carried on by rheumatic labor, or to
pass into other hands at low figures Farm
labor is yearly becoming more scarce and unsat-
isfactory. Old deserted farmhouse are multi
plying, fields once fairly fertile are turned to
grazing growing pines or birches On farms
where large stocks of cattle were kept, within
the memory of the writer, now there are only
one or two cows and horse The average
price for such farms fifty years ago was forty to
fifty dollars per acre, now it is only fifteen to
twenty-bui1dings included We would like to
briefly enumerate some of the causes that have
caused this depreciation of country real estate
viz. a long series of Farm Leaks"
As manure and its right application is the base
of all successful farming. it is leak to suffer
the winters accumulation horse manure espe-
ciallyl, to lay in a big heap and fire fang, send
ing off all its ammonia into the air. 1t is leak
to pitch out the manure against the side of til .
barn, to be leached and burned by the. early
spring and rain. when it should be housed
in barn cellar. 1t is a leak not to use abb
sorbents in the cattle stables to catch and hold
the liquid manure the most valuable ammoniacal
and heterogeneous part, but to let it run through
the cracks of the floor. not to be reached again.
tits leak to let the cattle lay in the open barn
yard in summer, causing the manure to be
nearly worthless 1t is a leak to suffer manure
to be wasted in any form and buy commercial
fertilizers, because they are more easily applied
1t is leak to overstock pastures to gain few
dollars from stock taken in, giving poor salts
faction, half starving the farmers own stock
and feeding the pastures so close as to exhaust
the soil and bring up an inevitable growth of
lamb poison, pitch pines, or something worse.
1t is monstrous leak to Craze the moving fields
and rob the grass roots of their natural prctec-
ton from drought and FROST and the manure
that the rotted aftermoath will annually create
for the grass crop. Tt is a leak to spread winter
manure on the snow to be 1eached into the hol-
lows and Starve the hills, losing the nitrogen by
exposing TO the elements. 1t is a leak to pillow
manure in deep sod ground for corn where
the roots can not reach it, as they seldom run
more than four inches deep, and spread out on
the surface. Tt is a leak not to pillow two or
three inches deeper on stubble ground to gradu-
ally deepen the soil and make it last longer for
grass 1t is a leak to attempt to harrow manure
in on the surface of sod land, or to plow it or
harrow itin at all wet land that is not drained
1t is a leak to rake corn stubs off stubble and
haul them into the road instead of into the hog
lot to rot and make manure of the best quality.
1t is leak to sell hay at the barn for fifteen dol
lars ton, when a ton of hay takes over sixteen
dollars worth of chemicals out of the soil, tif
chemists make mistake in trying to tell the
TRUTH It is leak for the farmer to team wood
every winter for lumber SPECTATORS at going
wages and run all the manure off the farm into
the highway, which is worse than selling hay.
Lastly, it is a leak to hand-hoe crops when they
can be horse hoed with the horse hoes of the
present day equally as We'll If not better, at
one-eighth of the expense. There are many
more 'sleaks" that have seen in my more than
forty years experience.