Year: 1877

stock should be stabled and penned of nights to save the manure. Ten good hands are sufficient as laborers, provided ou ha ve the most improved plow-and if the farm is owned by an active, ener- getic, progressive young man, hire your hands for money wages, and manage the whole yourself. But should the owner be advanced in life, and incapable of active superintendence, get the most reliable hands you can secure, and farm on share system, but keep an eye your selfto it's whole details. This is my system being old and infirm--and I have suc- ceeded as we'll as any, and l have hands that have been in my employment for four years. Now we will discuss the advantages of diversified crops. In the first place diversified crops afford the advantage of rotation and without rota- ting the crops it is impossible to keep up the fertility of lands, or keep them from washing or gullying. Corn and wheat draw more heavily from the land than any crops we plant, or in other words, they are the most exhaustiug crops, unless it be sugar cane and sol ghum- hence corn or wheat should never be planted ou any field but one year when IL ought to be followed for two years by seme other crops, say oats and cotton let oats follow corn, and cotton follow wheat, and corn follow oats, and then ten acres for truck farming can be rotated after corn but keep your lands

 under rotation all the while, so as to

 keep them from running down or wash. ing. Cotton is not exhausting to land as much as corn or wheat, but the long

 clean culture it requires subjects it to washing from rains even though the winter months, for there is neither grass or weeds left from the clean culture it receives to tie the land together and prevent its washing. A prudent farmer keeps an eye to the preservation and building up his lands, and to do SO he must adopt diver sifed crops and the rotating system. Again, no farm can be made self sustain. ing and success without raising all the supplies needed on it. Your bread, your meat, your milk and butter, your vegetables and stock of all kind must be the product of your farm. If you do this, fifty acres in cotton will give you more money of your own than 1000 acres in cotton, and no supplies raj, ed and how much more cheerful and pros porous farm looks, when we see on it, growing, corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, turnips, clover and grasses, fine garden, and fruit orchard, ana to see fine horses, colts, cows, calves, sheep, hogs and poul- try of all kinds. Such looks like farm ing, and what farming was intended to be, and when you see such farm, you will ascertain that it's owner is free and independent man, and lives in comfort, and all around him lives contented, and his cattle are all fat and sleek, thrift and prosperity is all around him. Such is the only farmer that prospers, and why, because he is the true farmer that understands his business and farms ac. cording to the rules of farming--he don't make farming a speculation, but he makes it practical success, relying on his farm for his support and income, and all who will adopt and pursue such a course will make farming prosperous. Farming must be diversified cotton, and no grain, giass, stock, poultry and gardens neglected will break any farmer that farms on such system.