The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-08-15
AGRICULTURE.

n crop OIL common n6lQ DEANS Is d
good thing to put in if you have piece
OF land to spare. They require neither
very rich soil nor much cultivation,
though they can not make Roadway
against weeds. After harvesting they
must not lie upon the ground if it is
wet. They should pay as we'll as wheat,
and they distribute the labor over the
year.
The result of the proper cultivation of
the corn field is not exhausted this year,
by any means, and this should encour-
age one in the effort to till it we'll. The
plant food now broughtin to availability
by cultivation does not expend itself
wholly on the present growing crop. but
is effective for years to come.
Draining, manuring, cultivating and
clovering are four means to the same
end of almost equal worth; they each
mean the growing of better crops and
the surety of better profits from our
work. The farmer who neglects either
one of these overlooks his best inter
ests.
Cutting and husking corn is about the
worst drudgery of the harvest season.
Although it is not quite the slow process
it once was, we have not yet the ma
chine which will cut the corn in bun
dies as the reaper does the wheat; but
| our better modes of feeding it are a
great relief.
A single experiment in agriculture is
not conclusive, and it is not we'll that we
must wait until our experiment stations
can repeat process year after year.
Better to duplicate the trials upon diff
ferent soils at different places. and bet
ter yet, if farmers can take up the expe-
riments upon their own hook. At least
! should sub.stations be ex ended,
One of the most important duties of
the farmer is to constitute himself a
weed killer. Neither upon nor about
his farm should weed be allowed to
mature it's seeds. Not many will persist
in living long if their stocks are kept cut
down, especially il cut now. A day thus
employed now will save many days
work in the future.
An outlay for lot of cheap boxes or
( crates at the beginning of the season is
we'll made. In sending butter, fruit,
eggs and vegetables to market, sales
will be made more readily If the goods
are put up in neat, attractive small
packages, such as the buyer can carry
home and which need not be returned.
Butter and eggs are oftener the reaoy
money products of the farm than any
thing else, and yet sometimes the profit
is hardly discernible. A little better
care in making and handling the butter,
and in the care for the poultry, would
lead to an almost doubled profit, and
one which would be sufficiently evid5nt
to make one rel )ice.
The wages of farm laborers have not
! declined much; even during the seasons
of the greatest agricultural depression.
Stranger still, wages are highest where
the most agricultural machinery is used
although there was so much opposition
to it's introduction that only few years
ago they frequently destroyed threshers,
reapers and such new tangled imple-
ments of labor.
High feeding on the forcing plan will
produce more pounds of butter from a
| given amount of food than will the
gradual or ordinary plan, but is it posi-
BILE that it wears out the milk machine
more rapidly; and it is equally true that
we'll bred animal, having the same feed
and care, means at least so per cent
more profit than scrub. Only those
believe this who have tried it.