Mexico weekly ledger., 1914-11-12
NIMIZINGFARMLABO

leave most of the timothy to be cut
for hay. In the five-year rotation,
however, field No. 5 is depended up
on to furnish the principal supply of
hay for the horses and cows. There
should be some surplus, and this, of
course, can be sold. Late in the fall
the field is plowed for first year
corn, and in the following spring it
takes its place in the rotation as
field No. /.
The great merit of this system of
crop management is that there is no
rush season, and the available labor
is so distributed throughout the en-
tire year that the maximum acreage
is secured. by blowing one field for
corn in the fall, one man and three
horses are able to handle all the
spring work to get the corn in, cult
vate it, and produce a crop without
assistance.
The next operation is putting up
the hay, and here it is inevitable
that outside labor be called in. Com
pared with other systems of farm
management, however, the amount
of outside help required is very
small. Since the hogs harvest the rye,
there is practically no field work to
be done after the hay is in until early
in September, when one field of corn
must be cut and one field Of rye sown.
This period of about five weeks in
length is threshing time for the far
mer's neighbors, and he and his
horses should find it possible to do
work for them which can be returned
when extra help is needed to shred his
corn for bedding. In this way it has
been estimated that on a farm of 100
acres, the farmer will only have to
pay for about ten days hired labor
during the hay harvest,
1t is impossible that an even larg-
er farm might be worked in this
way, but when the fields exceed about
30 acres in extent, it is not probable
that this system will be found advan-
tageous.
On such a farm, as has already been
said, hogs furnish the principal in
come. They are turned in on the rye
as early as possible in the spring,
and there the fall shoats and spring
pigs remain as long as the pasturage
is tender. When the spring pigs are
from 6 to 8 weeks old they r wean-
ed and the brood sows taken to other
enclosures where they can be bred
for fall filters.
By the first part Of May it is prob
able that the rye no longer affords
good pasturage, and the hogs are
then turned into field No. A devoted
to first year clover and timothy.
There they remain, with the addition
of a reasonably liberal corn ration, un
til the middle of July, or two weeks
after the rye has ripened, when they
are turned back into the rye field
and allowed to hog it all down with
out other feed. Roughly speaking, it
may be said that if the rye yields II
bushels to the acre, six 100-pound
hogs will harvest an acre in 6 weeks.
Thus, by the time the rye is harvest
ed the corn is ready, and the stock
can be turned into field No. /. Here
they can be kept until all the corn is
hogged off, which will be approx
smately November l, if none of the
hogs are sold until the entire crop is
, gathered. In this way, with practi-
| cally no labor and very little atten-
ton, the entire herd is furnished with
pasture and grain feed throughout
the entire spring, summer and fall
As for the cash income per aero
. from such a system, it appears that
: the method of hogging down rye ul-
, timately brings the same returns as
: cutting, threshing and selling the
r crop; but in addition to the cash re-
, turns, the hogs build up the soil AM
save the cost of labor. This, it must
: be repeated, is the real purpose OF
1 such a system. With labor already
5 scarce, and becoming scarcer every
: year, some substitute must hs found
D In the opinion of specialists in the
t Department of Agriculture, the sys'
tenn which has just been described
0 seems to be sound and practical, a
least for a considerable proportion %
$ the farms in those sections to which
4 it is adapted.