The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-04-13
AGRTCULTURE.

Congress as means of adding to their
personal popularity among their constit-
uents, so that the original intent Of the
law authorizing the procuring of valu-
able new plants for thinly settled
country has been abused and its bene.
fits annulled. Time to stop it alto
gether.
The enormous agricultural resources
of the long undeveloped South are bound
to assert themselves and good times for
that people seem just at hand. For
them there are many elements of en-
couragement, while business recovery in
the States further North will be mo re
tardy. Excepting in cotton, the South
has never heretofore been, truly speak
ing, an exporter.
In 1893 Tennessee raised four times as
much corn as New York, and Kentucky
more than it's more robust neighbor
| across the Ohio river. This is develop
ment in region where it was hardly ex-
pected, and promises much for the back
ward Southern States. Never before
has any part of the South raised more Of
the cereals than she could use.
The unprecedentedly low prices at
which wheat has been selling for the
past year are in no small degree attribu-
table to the competition from the Argen.
tine Republic. Western Europe has
taken advantage of the prices, and
bought freely of South American wheat.
1t has cut greater figure in the specu-
lative market than either Indian or Rus
sian grain.
While all authorities agree that silage
cannot be excelled as food, yet any
farmer who cannot go to the expense,
or has not room to build a silo, can vir-
tually accomplish the same result by
shocking his fodder at the proper time.
placing it under shelter and cutting it
up properly as his needs may require
There is an absolute necessity that the
farmers use his corn fodder by feeding
it.
Uncle Sans 70 millions of acres of corn
last year produced 144 million tens of
fodder. Modestly estimated at S. ton,
the product is worth 100 million dollars.
It is safe to say that two-thirds OF this
was wasted, either by cutting ft improper
time. feeding in an improper manner. or
because left to stand and fall where it
grew. Can this Nation afford this?
Final reports explode the mortgage
scare pretty thoroughly. Only about
one-fourth of the taxed acres of the
country are mortgaged. Not one-fifth
| Of the farms are thus bound. Take the
| country over, there is mortgage on each
acre taxed of about 1888, though on
the acres actually under mortgage it
amounts to So.
Twenty eight per cent. of the farms of
this country are occupied and titled by
tenants. This is not bad showing.
Thirty -four out of every hundred families
living on farms are tenants, but the ex-
cesses are such in that they are hired
assistants who are helping make life
easy for the farmer and the farmers
wife.
Blue grass is especially adapted to
| rolling lands which are unsuited to the
| pillow, as when once set with it there will
be no further loss from washing. 1t
| makes late and early pasture, and there
is no failure Of crop. A pasture once
set is for life, and there is no renewal of
expenses or labor as with the other
grasses.
The more fully farmer can combine
the business of manufacturer with that
of growing crops from the soil, the more
certainly will he be able to retain within
his own hands the ultimate profit which
accrues between the raw product and
the finished. 1t is better to make meat
and butter than to sell the grain and
grass.
The marketing of the products of the
dairy and the garden may be combined
to great advantage. especially in the
home market, where the farmer is his
own salesman. If winter darying is
followed, the work of the two depart
ments will be just what is needed to
keep all hands busy the year around.
and labor economically handled.
Upon snail plots of the rich garden
soil heavy second crops of turnips, cab.
bage and swedes may be grown, which
will greatly help out the winter feeding,
while all vacant places, if sown with rye,
will give desirable early bite of pasture.
How to supply and preserve nitrogen
in the soil, which is SO necessary for the
completion of plant, whether for for
age. fruit, seed or fibre, has long been
leading study with agricultural chem
lists. 1t is settled that the pod produc-
ing plants, peas. beans. clover, alfalfa,
ETC., absorb nitrogen from the air, and
there is fuller growth of the cereals
which follow them.
| STOCK.
Progress impels us to effort. Newly
developed lines make the old uproftable