Nevada County picayune., 1888-07-25
AGRICULTURAL.
East View Farm Papers,

dv pair of bellows, telling her It wao new and fashionable kind of a fan, and she created amusement in church next Sabbath as she sat dcIlb- erstsly blowing herself with the bel lows As she had never seen pair of hand bellows hefora, and there was no difficulty in raising a cooling brczee with them her mistake was pardonable. There arc hosts of farmers who. to use a metaphor, have been trying to raise the wind " by putting their farms to a Use for which they are not adopted, and al though they have been trying for years and have failed of success, they still persist in following the old plan. I have now in mind a farm of tolling land with about onc-fourth of it's area suited to the blow, and the balance excellent grass land. The former owner recognized the fact that his farm was suited to grass and kept it in good condition and made money. The small area plowed was we'll manured and thoroughly cultiya- ted and stock always in good condi- fnr about twenty years and left it better than he found it.
 The present owner has been on the farm but six years and both he and the farm have grown poorer with each passing year. And the reason has been not that he has not worked hard for he is industrious but he has been trying to run as hog farm one intended by nature for a dairy farm This year all the hill- sides and hollows are plowed, and on the farm therr is but six acres of pasture and not rod to cut for hay while now in June when the pastures ought to be flush, his is gnawed short, and his cattle are herdcd on the road; fortunately we have a stock law 70 they cannot be turned out to run at large. The result Is his farm is running down at a fearful rate and should the cholera take his hogs, he would be so discouraged and cramped that l should expect to hear of his selling out and going West Now if this was . solitary case, should not write about it, but the great cause of failure in farm ing it seems to me comes from mistak- es and blunders which ought to be avoided, and which it requires but little discernment to see.
 If l should ask the farmer of whom l write what the chaRco for a proita- lAe vidJ of corn on As vsrn hillside was. he would acknOwlcd gc that the season must be an exceptionally ia vorable one if on q good part of his land he got paid for his labor. Then if should ask him how long he could follow this system of farming without reducing the fertility ot his farm to a point where h" could not hope to mak living on il, l think he would at once acknowledge that il not be many years, yet for the want of thought and management he per sists in this plan of farming. The wheat on this farm for some year has averaged less ithan ten bushels per acre. Add the interest on the in ycstment. the cost of seed, the wear of machinery and threshing and Il does not leave a day wages for the  work done. Now if this farmer would only put half his farm in blue grass and one-fourth of the lano than he now does from the three fourths which he blows and his grair would cost less than half per hushe ,kon ;t ,,o,, Inn-
 We have taken long step toward making q good farmer when we can get the idea into his head that the
 est of farm prosperity is bushels mol acres under cultivation, and that sue cess is oftener result of thought ana wise planning than of hard work. believe that more farmers are poor because they do moi work according to wise plan than for any other reason. Paul eXhorts Christians to be able always to give reason for the hope that is within them; and say that Il farmer ought to always be able to give a good reason for the plan they are following. Onproliiio source of failure, l believe, to be that in determining what line of farming to follow, they are guided by the success of some one differently stt- uated. rather than by study of theil own soil. surroundings and capabili-