St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1916-01-05

New York Farm in Poor Condition
Was Made TO Pay Large Profit
By Good MANAGEMENT

| n FARM
New York Farm in Poor Condition
Was Made TO Pay Large Profit
By Good Management.
An example of what intelligent farm
management may accomplish on a so
called "worn-out" New York hill farm
is offered in the case of a place sur
veyed in Broome County, N. Y, which
was bought for 1852 per acre, ant
in two years was made to pay over 8.
per cent on the investment, is givel
in the Weekly News Letter of the De
partment of Agriculture.
This place was bought by farmer
who was already farming at a prof
in the valley below. 1t consisted O.
95 acres of gently rolling land. TIL,
land had been cropped with hay anC
buckwheat for years, and little or M
manure or other fertilizing materia
had been applied. Consequently the
soil was in very poor physical condi-
ton. There was a good farm house
on the farm, and a rather poor barn.
A tenant was engaged to live in the
house and do the work on the farm
under the owners direction. Under
the terms of the agreement the owner
furnished all the lime and clover seed
I
fertilizer. He also supplied a potato
planter and digger. The tenant fur
nished the rest of the machinery, his
own teams, and all of the labor. In
return he was to receive one-haIf of
the oats, buckwheat, and potatoes
raised, and the income from four cows
which he was permitted to keep. 1t
was provided. however, that he was
to feed all the hay and roughage on
the farm and to return the manure,
straw, etc, to the land. He was also
to do all the improvement work for
which he had time, such as picking up
stones and cutting hedgerows.
The new owner took possession on
April 1. The cropping system adopt
ed for the first season was necessarily
a makeshift, owing to the lack of
time for putting a definite plan for
improvement into execution.
Four acres of potatoes were plant
ed. The seed happened to be poor,
and, only 400 pounds of commercial
fertilizer being used, the yield was
only 80 bushels per acre. Five acres
of buckwheat yielded 116 bushels.
Lime and acid phosphate were applied
to one S-acre tract and from this field
300 bushels of oats were harvested.
of clover was obtained in the same
field. Ten head of young cattle were
pastured on a slope where the land
was rough and not available for TIL
lage. An old meadow was moved
yielding about a ton of rather poor
hay per acre.
During the summer permanent re-
pairs were made at cost of about
$500. At the end of the year the own
er's gross receipts amounted to $24O.-
80, of which $157.5O represented his
income from his investment.
The next year about acres of sod
land were plowed and put into pota-
toes. The tenant left some of the
seed potatoes exposed for several
days, and as a result, a very uneven
stand was secured. Three paintings
were made. The first, from freshly
cut seed, gave an even stand and
yielded $50 bushels to the acre. The
next and largest planting made very
poor stand, yielding only SO bushels
to the acre, while the last was good
and yielded $50 bushels to the acre.
From the whole field SIG bushels were
dug, an average of about 80 bushels
per. acre. These were worth dollar
bushel at the farm, however, which
part up LOT the lOW Jl6lu.
The clover sown the previous year
made a good showing. Over tons
of hay were taken from 2-acre piece.
while the remainder of the new seed
ing cut about a ton per acre. Eight
acres of oats, in which the usual seed
ing of timothy was made, yielded 186
bushels of grain. Lime and acid phos-
plate had been put on this field.
Buckwheat yielded 120 bushels of
grain on u acres. Thirteen head of
young stock were summered on this
pasture. An old orchard of about 2
acres, which the owner had reserved,
was renovated and sprayed at a cost
of $50.
At the end of the second year, al
though a number of fairly expensive
had been made, includ-
ing the repair of the barn at a cost of
500, the owners share of the gross
receipts of the enterprise amounted to
$906. This included $3.50 received for
apples from the orchard which he had
for his own use. His net in
come was $694.6O, or 32.5 per cent on
his investment.
In this case the owners labor as
is negligible, since he
was running his home farm and de-
voting only spare time to the hill farm
in question. However, even if the
owner We're allowed $500 for his super
and $40 for the use of the
few tools which he contributed, the
investment would still show a divi-
dend of 9 per cent. At the same time
the tenant made a comfortable living.
No strict record was kept of his re-
turns, but his share of the field crops
for the second year worth about
$500, while the four cows contributed
materially to the family living.
Old Friends In Living Pictures.
The many friends of ex-Gov. S. E.