The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-27
OLD METHODS MUST GIVE PLACE
TO NEW ONES.

Success in farming does not now de-
pend so much on muscle as it did fifty
years ago. The most successful farm
er 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 ad-
vanced teachings of agricultural sci
ence.
There is a new and better way than
the old, and the young men of today
are better educated and better in
formed, as a Farming class, than their
fathers, whose life on the farm was
in the main one unceasing round of
continuous hard labor.
Half centuary ago the man who
could accomplish the most work be-
tween 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 furiously, was the
best farmer. AS a result his acreage
was broadened, while his own life
in the real sense of true living-as
we'll as that of each member of his
family, was. correspondingly narrowed.
By far too large a proportion of farm
ers' sons and daughters have LETT 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 cheerfully work
together, making the outlook for the
future one of hopeful promise The
benefcent action of congress in Gre
atlng the present experimental station
system has been largely instrumental
in aiding in the adoption of newer and
better methods of culture. Young
farmers are now availing themselves
of known facts 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 forg-
ing to the front with improved ma
chinery, with improved stock, with i'm
proved methods of feeding and i'm
proved methods of fertilization-suc
cessive cropping and rotation. He is
succeeding in securing greater yields
and more frequent ones on large acre
age, and in keeping up the fertility of
his soil, and IN conducting all his farm
ing operations with due regard to the
future.
In farming, as well as in other &C.
equations where professional services
are valuable, the young farmer will
results of scientific researches, and
conducts his farming operations on
business principles, also, that he will
distance all other tillers of the soil.
Professor W. ]. Sanborn. most eff
f1cient and painstaking worker in
the field of agricultural science, says
that the ''old assertion that knowledge
is power is more applicable to farm
ing 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 agri-
cultural science prove conclucively
that the microscope and chemistry are
the educated farmers strongest allies
One instance in point is the compare
lively recent discovery that a species
of microbe actually aids some plants
to grow by absorbing nitrogen, which
is their chief food. Their business in
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 efficiency of ordinary sta
BILE manure as a fertilizer in special
cases has been, until a discovery of
these microbes, a mystery that the
chemists were unable to solve. The
day may yet come when the farmer
with his microscope finding no mi
crbe on. the roots of his clover or
other nitrogen gathering plants, will
apply solution containing these mi
crobes instead of fertilizer to his soil
"Of one thing ! am certain
From the widest range of view,
Old-fashioned types must stand aside
And make way for the new"
Farm and Fireside.