The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1895-12-12
MODERN FARMING.
How it is Aided by Scientific Methods
Improved Stock and Machinery.

"Success i'm farming does not now
depend so much on muscle as it did
fifty years ago. The most successful
farmer of today is the one who reads
most, thinks most, and intelligently
aims to secure the best results by the
adoption and putting in practice the
most advanced teachings of agricultu-
raj SCIENCE" says writer in Farm and
Fireside.
"There is new and better way
than the old, and the young men of to-
day are better educated and better in
formed, as farming class, than their
fathers, whose life on the farm was in
the main one unceasing round of con-
tinuOus hard labor. Half century
ago the man who cauld accomplish the
most work between daylight and dark,
and whose driving of his hired men
and his own boys was like that of John,
the son of Nimshi, who drove furious
ly, was the best farmer. AS a result
his acreage was broadened, while his
own life--in the real sense of truly
living-as we'll as that of each member
of his family, was correspondingly mar
rowed. By far too large proportion
of farmers sons and daughters have
left "the best of all occupations" and
sought freedom from the aimless
drudgery common to the Old-time
methods, and engaged in occupations
where the brain and hand could cheer
fully work together, making the out
look for the future one of hopeful prom
Use. The beneficient action of congress
in creating the present experiment
station system has been largeley in
strumental in aiding in the adoption of
newer and better methods of culture.
Young farmers are now availing them
selves of known fact in science with
the view of reaping pecuniary benefits
therefrom by which the comforts and
attractions of their more suburban-like
homes can be increased. The young
farmer of today is forging to the front
with improved machinery, with inn
proved stock, with improved methods
of feeding and improved methods of
ertilizatiOn-successive cropping and
rotation. He is succeeding in securing
greater yields and more frequent ones
on less acreage, and in keeping up the
fertility of his soil, and is conducting
all his farming operations with due re-
gard to the future.
"In farming, as we'll as other occu-
pations where professional services are
valuable, the young farmer will find
that if he avails himself of the results
of scientific researches, and conducts
his farming operations on business
principles, also, that he will distance
Nfb of ~ prNfocoNr /
w. Sanborn, a most efficient, judicious
agricultural science, says that "the old
more applicable to farming than any
other vocation, since it involves more
lines of information and the use of
more of the faculties than any other
calling" The most recent discoveries
in agricultural science prove cOnclu-
sively that the microscope aud chemis-
try are the educated farmers strongest
allies. One instance in point is the
comparatively recent discovery that a
species of microbe actually aids some
plants to grow by absorbing nitrogen,
which is their chief food. Their bust
ness i'm life is to change this food into
nitric acid so that it can be taken up
by the tissues of the plants which are
not able to consume the nitrogen in the
crude. The inefficiency of ordinary
stable manure as a fertilizer i'm special
cases has been, until the discovery of
these microbes, mystery that the
chemists were unable to solve. The
day may come when the farmer with
his microscope, finding no microbes on
the roots of his clover or other nitrogen
gathering plants, will apply solution
these microbes instead of a
fertilizer to his SOIL"