Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1892-04-28
FARMING IN OLD ENGLAND.
Every Month of the Year Is
Devoted to Labor of
Some Sort.
Quite a Contrast Between The
Condition of Farmers
Here and There.

Information of Interest To
Many People. = Local
News Brevities.
A careful reading OF an English agri-
cultural almanac, or year book, shows
that the work of an English farmer and
that of an American farmer is at present
vastly different. The English tiller of
the soil is tenant, as rule. HIS land is
owned by the arlstocracy, either through
the laws of inheritance or the laws that
have permitted the followers of the other
occupations to amass excessive wealth,
which wealth is invested in land. The
English farmer is allowed the privilege
of paying the highest price sharp COM
petition imposes, for the privilege of
working the soil and extracting there
from the modicum of living, while the
profit of his skill and labor goes to the
land holder. There are exceptions Of
course, there being many independent
land.owning farmers in England. But
the average farmer in England is a ten.
ant today, and the average farmer in
America, under the operation OF the
same kind of laws which have made his
English cousin hired man, is becoming
the same kind of personage-if the in
creasing mortgage indebtedness OF the
country is an indication.
But at present the average farmer of
the United States knows little or nothing
of the devices by which his English
cousin wrings living out of the soil. In
that country an acre of land is taxed
to it's very utmost to produce some
thing that people can eat or
that can be eaten. The great
struggle for food. the struggle for exis-
tence, never ceases during any month in
the year on the average English farm.
And the farmers of this country may
we'll hope that they may never be COM
PEELED to pay for their living by such
arduous and pro6tless toiliDg. As an
acre of English land ls precious, 90 is
every hour of sunshine. Every day of
rain too much or too little, clouds the
farmers face in that island with anxiety.
Weather there means everything to him.
Necessity, however, has sharpened his
wits, and dame nature is studied with
close interest to discover If she has hid.
den any secrets which, if known, would
make her soil yield bushel more,
or her animals an additional pound of
flesh. The soil is coaxed TO do it's ut.
most continually, until it would seem
that it's ingredient properties we're worn
threadbare in the eager. strain put upon
them.
The yearly round of an English farmers
life is plainly shown in his year book, a
guide for farm work, and it seems q ne
cessary one for various reasons. The
wrestle with nature, and the fight for the
price of a living, begins in January, the
first of the year, when on an arabic farm
the work Of finishing stubble plowing is
to be done, and the continual, expensive,
laborious process Of of'fertilizing exhausted
soil commenced. Hauling manure from
yards and boxes, to be placed in heaps in
the field, or plowed in at once, is re-
quired. No scrap of fertillzing nature is
wasted on the English farm. Road mend.
ing ls another occupation, as we'll as
grubbinR and making fences, carting
lime, digging and spreading mari, which
is one of the. long list of fertilizers used
by English farmers. In January the
late threshing of corn, (wheat, rye, oats,
etc., is also to be done, while draining
and building occupy a portion of the
time. In live stock the constant atten-
tion needed throughout the year begins
promptly in January. Sheep must be fed
in folds on turnips. Cattle fsttened in
stalls, or houses or yards. The dairy
COWS are never to be overlooked They
must be fed on meal, oil cake, mangles
and parsnips, with hay. Steers or calves
receive chaff Of hay and straw with few
turnips. Every particle Of nutriment
from crops that stock can utilize is
boarded up and fed. The care taken to
make the stock the most profitable is un.
remitting and the work is often the re.
suit Of long experiment and scientific
knowledge. No part Of the garden ls
- u -