efficiency in agriculture. When heated by fervid sunshine throughout the
day, they retain a portion of that heat through a part of the succeeding
night, thereby raising the temperature of the soil, and increasing the
deposit of dew on the plants there growing. When generally broken so
finely as to offer no impediment to cultivation, they not merely absorb
heat by day, to be given off by night, but, by rendering the soil open
and porous, secure a much more extensive diffusion of air through it
than would otherwise be possible. Thus do slaty soils achieve and
maintain a warmth unique in their respective latitudes, so as to ripen
grapes further North, and at higher elevations, than would otherwise be
possible.
The great Prairies of the West, with a considerable portion of the
valleys and plains of the Atlantic slope, expose no rock at their
surfaces, and little beneath them, until the soil has been traversed,
and the vicinity of the underlying rock in place fairly attained. To
farmers inured to the perpetual stone-picking of New-England, and other
hilly regions, this is a most welcome change; but when the pioneer comes
to look about him for stone to wall his cellar and his well, to underpin
his barn, and form the foundations of his dwelling, he realizes that the
bowlders he had exulted in leaving behind him were not wholly and
absolutely a nuisance; glad as he was to be rid of them forever, he
would like now to call some of them back again.
Yet, the Eastern farmer of to-day has fewer uses for stone than his
grandfather had. He does not want his farm cut up into two or three-acre
patches, by broad-based, unsightly walls, which frost is apt to heave
year after year into greater deformity and less efficiency; nor does he
care longer to use them in draining, since he must excavate and replace
thrice as much earth in making a stone as in making a tile drain; while
the former affords shelter and impunity to rats, mice, and other
mischievous, predatory animals, whose burrowing therein tends constantly
to stimulate its natural tendency to become choked with sand and earth.
Of the stone drains, constructed through parts of my farm by foremen
whose wills proved stronger than my own, but two remain in partial
operation, and I shall rejoice when these shall have filled themselves
up and been counted out evermore. Happily, they were sunk so low that
the subsoil plow will never disturb them.
Still, my confidence that nothing was made in vain is scarcely shaken by
the prevalence and abundance of stone on our Eastern farms. We may not
have present use for them all; but our grandsons will be wiser than we,
and have uses for them which we hardly suspect. I reinsist that land
which is very stony was mainly created with an eye to timber-growing,
and that millions of acres of such ought forthwith to be planted with
Hickory, White Oak, Locust, Chestnut, White Pine, and other valuable
forest-trees. Every acre of thoroughly dry land, lying near a railroad,
in the Eastern or Middle States, may be made to pay a good interest on
from $50 up to $100, provided there be soil enough above its rocks to
afford a decent foothold for trees; and how little will answer this
purpose none can imagine who have not seen the experiment tried. Sow
thickly, that you may begin to cut out poles six to ten feet long within
three or four years, and _keep_ cutting out (but never cutting off)
thenceforward, until time shall be no more, and your rocky crests, steep
hillsides and ravines, will take rank with the most productive portions
of your farm.
In the edges of these woods, you may deposit the surplus stones of the
adjacent cultivated fields, in full assurance that moth and rust will
not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal, but that you and your
sons and grandsons will find them there whenever they shall be needed,
as well as those you found there when you came into possession of the
farm.
I am further confident that we shall build more and more with rough,
unshapen stone, as we grow older and wiser. In our harsh, capricious
climate, walls of stone-concrete afford the cheapest and best protection
alike against heat and frost, for our animals certainly, and, I think,
also for ourselves. Let the farmer begin his barn by making of stone,
laid in thin mortar, a substantial basement story; let into a hillside,
for his manure and his root-cellar; let him build upon this a second
story of like materials for the stalls of his cattle; and now he may add
a third story and roof of wood for his bay and grain, if he sees fit.
His son or grandson will, probably, take this off, and replace it with
concrete walls and a slate roof; or this may be postponed until the
original wooden structure has rotted off; but I feel sure that,
ultimately, the dwellings as well as barns of thrifty farmers, in stony
districts, will mainly be built of rough stone, thrown into a box and
firmly cemented by a thin mortar composed of much sand and little lime;
and that thus at least ten thousand tuns of stone to each farm will be
disposed of. It may be somewhat later still before our barn-yards, fowl
inclosures, gardens, pig-pens, etc., will be shut in by cemented walls;
but the other sort affords such ample and perpetual lurking places for
rats, minks, weasels, and all manner of destructive vermin, that they
are certain to go out of fashion before the close of the next century.
As to blasting out Stone, too large or too firmly fixed to be otherwise
handled, I would solve the problem by asking, "Do you mean to keep this
lot in cultivation?" If you do, clear it of stone from the surface
upward, and for at least two feet downward, though they be as large as
haycocks, and as fixed as the everlasting hills. Clear your field of
every stone bigger than a goose egg, that the Plow or the Mower may
strike in doing its work, or give it up to timber, plant it thoroughly,
and leave its stones unmolested until you or your descendants shall have
a paying use for them.
A friend deeply engaged in lumbering gives me a hint, which I think some
owners of stony farms will find useful. He is obliged to run his logs
down shallow, stony creeks, from the bottom of which large rocks often
protrude, arresting the downward progress of his lumber. When the beds
of these creeks are nearly dry in Summer, he goes in, with two or three
stout, strong assistants, armed with crowbars and levers, and rolls the
stones to this side and that, so as to leave a clear passage for his
logs. Occasionally, he is confronted by a big fellow, which defies his
utmost force; when, instead of drilling and blasting, he gathers dead
tree-tops, and other dry wood of no value, from the banks, and builds a
hot fire on the top of each giant bowlder. When the fire has burned out,
and the rock has cooled, he finds it softened, and, as it were, rotten,
on the top, often split, and every way so demoralized that he can deal
with it as though it were chalk or cheese. He estimates his saving by
this process, as compared with drilling and blasting as much more than
fifty per cent. I trust farmers with whom wood is abundant, and big
stones superabundant, will give this simple device a trial. Powder and
drilling cost money, part of which may be saved by this expedient.
I have built some stone walls--at first, not very well; but for the last
ten years my rule has been: Very little fence on a farm, but that little
of a kind that asks no forbearance of the wildest bull that ever wore a
horn. The last wall I built cost me at least $5 per rod; and it is worth
the money. Beginning by plowing its bed and turning the two furrows
together, so as to raise the ground a foot, and make a shallow ditch on
either side, I built a wall thereon which will outlast my younger child.
An ordinary wall dividing a wood on the north from an open field of
sunny, gravelly loam on the south, would have been partly thrown down
and wholly twisted out of shape in a few years, by the thawing of the
earth under its sunny side, while it remained firm as a rock on the
north; but the ground is always dry under my entire wall; so nothing
freezes there, and there is consequently nothing to thaw and let down my
wall. I shall be sorely disappointed if that wall does not outlast my
memory, and be known as a thorough barrier to roving cattle long after
the name of its original owner shall have been forgotten.
XXXVII.
FENCES AND FENCING.
Though I have already indicated, incidentally, my decided objections to
our prevalent system of Fencing, I deem the subject of such importance
that I choose to discuss it directly. Excessive Fencing is peculiarly an
American abuse, which urgently cries for reform.
Solon Robinson says the fence-tax is the heaviest of our farmer's taxes.
I add, that it is the most needless and indefensible.
Highways we must have, and people must traverse them; but this gives
them no right to trample down or otherwise injure the crops growing on
either side. In France, and other parts of Europe, you see grass and
grain growing luxuriantly up to the very edge of the beaten tracks, with
nothing like a fence between them. Yet those crops are nowise injured or
disturbed by wayfarers. Whoever chooses to impel animals along these
roads must take care to have them completely under subjection, and must
see that they do no harm to whatever grows by the wayside.
In this country, cattle-driving, except on a small scale, and for short
distances, has nearly been superceded by railroads. The great droves
formerly reaching the Atlantic seaboard on foot, from Ohio or further
West, are now huddled into cars and hurried through in far less time,
and with less waste of flesh; but they reach us fevered, bruised, and
every way unwholesome. Every animal should be turned out to grass, after
a railroad journey of more than twelve hours, and left there a full
month before he is taken to the slaughter-pen. We must have many more
deaths per annum in this city than if the animals on which we subsist
were killed in a condition which rendered them fit for human food.
Ultimately, our fresh Beef, Mutton and Pork, will come to us from the
Prairies in refrigerating cars: each animal having been killed while in
perfect health, unfevered and untortured by days of cramped, galled, and
thirsty suffering, on the cars. This will leave their offal, including a
large portion of their bones, to enrich the fields whence their
sustenance was drawn and from which they should never be taken. The cost
of transporting the meat, hides, and tallow, in such cars, would be less
than that of bringing through the animals on their legs; while the
danger of putrefaction might be utterly precluded.
But to return to Fencing:
Our growing plants must be preserved from animal ravage; but it is most
unjust to impose the cost of this protection on the growers. Whoever
chooses to rear or buy animals must take care that they do not infest
and despoil his neighbors. Whoever sees fit to turn animals into the
street, should send some one with them who will be sure to keep them out
of mischief, which browsing young trees in a forest clearly is.
If the inhabitants of a settlement or village surrounded by open
prairie, see fit to pasture their cattle thereon, they should send them
out each morning in the charge of a well-mounted herdsmen, whose duty
should be summed up in keeping them from evildoing by day and bringing
them safely back to their yard or yards at nightfall.
Fencing bears with special severity on the pioneer class, who are least
able to afford the outlay. The "clearing" of the pioneer's first year in
the wilderness, being enlarged by ax and fire, needs a new and far
longer environment next year; and so through subsequent years until
clearing is at an end. Many a pioneer is thus impelled to devote a large
share of his time to Fencing; and yet his crops often come to grief
through the depredations of his own or his neighbor's breachy cattle.
Fences produce nothing but unwelcome bushes, briers and weeds. So far as
they may be necessary, they are a deplorable necessity. When constructed
where they are not really needed, they evince costly folly. I think I
could point out farms which would not sell to-day for the cost of
rebuilding their present fences.
We cannot make open drains or ditches serve for fences in this country,
as they sometimes do in milder and more equable climates, because our
severe frosts would heave and crumble their banks if nearly
perpendicular, sloping them at length in places so that animals might
cross them at leisure. Nor have we, so far north as this city, had much
success with hedges, for a like reason. There is scarcely a hedge-plant
at once efficient in stopping animals and so hardy as to defy the
severity, or rather the caprice, of our Winters. I scarcely know a hedge
which is not either inefficient or too costly for the average farmer;
and then a hedge is a fixture; whereas we often need to move or demolish
our fences.
Wire Fences are least obnoxious to this objection; they are very easily
removed; but a careless teamster, a stupid animal, or a clumsy friend,
easily makes a breach in one, which is not so easily repaired. Of the
few Wire Fences within my knowledge, hardly one has remained entire and
efficient after standing two or three years.
Stone Walls, well built, on raised foundations of dry earth, are
enduring and quite effective, but very costly. My best have cost me at
least $5 per rod, though the raw material was abundant and accessible. I
doubt that any good wall is built, with labor at present prices, for
less than $5 per rod. Perhaps I should account this costliness a merit,
since it must impel farmers to study how to make few fences serve their
turn.
Rail Fences will be constructed only where timber is very abundant, of
little value, and easily split. Whenever the burning of timber to be
rid of it has ceased, there the making of rail fences must be near its
end.
Where fences must still be maintained, I apprehend that posts and boards
are the cheapest material. Though Pine lumber grows dear, Hemlock still
abounds; and the rapid destruction of trees for their bark to be used in
tanning must give us cheap hemlock boards throughout many ensuing years.
Spruce, Tamarack, and other evergreens from our Northern swamps, will
come into play after Hemlock shall have been exhausted.
As for posts, Red Cedar is a general favorite; and this tree seems to be
rapidly multiplying hereabout. I judge that farmers who have it not,
might wisely order it from a nursery and give it an experimental trial.
It is hardy; it is clean; it makes but little shade; and it seems to
fear no insect whatever. It flourishes on rocky, thin soils; and a grove
of it is pleasant to the sight--at least, to mine.
Locust is more widely known and esteemed; but the borer has proved
destructive to it on very many farms, though not on mine. I like it
well, and mean to multiply it extensively by drilling the seed in rich
garden soil and transplanting to rocky woodland when two years old.
Sowing the seed among rocks and bushes I have tried rather extensively,
with poor success. If it germinates at all, the young tree is so tiny
and feeble that bushes, weeds, and grass, overtop and smother it.
That a post set top-end down will last many years longer than if set as
it grew, I do firmly believe, though I cannot attest it from personal
observation. I understand the reason to be this: Trees absorb or suck up
moisture from the earth; and the particles which compose them are so
combined and adjusted as to facilitate this operation. Plant a post
deeply and firmly in the ground, butt-end downward, and it will continue
to absorb moisture from the earth as it did when alive; and the post,
thus moistened to-day and dried by wind and sun to-morrow, is thereby
subjected to more rapid disintegration and decay than when reversed.
My general conclusion is, that the good farmer will have fewer and
better fences than his thriftless neighbor, and that he will study and
plan to make fewer and fewer rods of fence serve his needs, taking care
that all he retains shall be perfect and conclusive. Breachy cattle are
a sad affliction alike to their owner and his neighbor; and shaky,
rotting, tumble-down fences, are justly responsible for their perverse
education. Let us each resolve to take good care that his own cattle
shall in no case afflict his neighbors, and we shall all need fewer
fences henceforth and evermore.
XXXVIII.
AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS.
I must have attended not less than fifty State or County Fairs for the
exhibition (mainly) of Agricultural Machines and Products. From all
these, I _should_ have learned something, and presume I did; but I
cannot now say what. Hence, I conclude that these Fairs are not what
they might and should be. In other words, they should be improved. But
how?
As the people compose much the largest and best part of these shows, the
reform must begin with them. Two-thirds of them go to a Fair with no
desire to learn therefrom--no belief that they can there be taught
anything. Of course, not seeking, they do not find. If they could but
realize that a Farmer's Fair might and should teach farmers somewhat
that would serve them in their vocation, a great point would be gained.
But they go in quest of entertainment, and find this mainly in
horse-racing.
Of all human opportunities for instruction in humility and
self-depreciation, the average public speaker's is the best. He hurries
to a place where he has been told that his presence and utterance are
earnestly and generally desired--perhaps to find that his invitation
came from an insignificant and odious handful, who had some private ax
to grind so repugnant to the great majority that they refuse to
countenance the procedure, no matter how great the temptation. Even
where there is no such feud, many, having satiated their curiosity by a
long stare at him, walk whistling off, without waiting or wishing to
hear him. But the speaker at a Fair must compete with a thousand
counter-attractions, the least of them far more popular and winning than
_he_ can hope to be. He is heard, so far as he is heard at all, in
presence of and competition with all the bellowing bulls, braying,
jacks, and squealing stallions, in the county; if he holds,
nevertheless, a quarter of the crowd, he does well: but let two jockeys
start a buggy-race around the convenient track, and the last auditor
shuts his ears and runs off to enjoy the spectacle. Decidedly, I insist
that a Fair-ground is poorly adapted to the diffusion of Agricultural
knowledge--that the people present acquire very little information
there, even when they get all they want.
What is needed to render our annual Fairs useful and instructive far
beyond precedent, I sum up as follows:
I. Each farmer in the county or township should hold himself bound to
make _some_ contribution thereto. If only a good hill of Corn, a peck of
Potatoes, a bunch of Grapes, a Squash, a Melon, let him send that. If he
can send all of these, so much the better. There is very rarely a
thrifty farmer who could not add to the attractions and merits of a Fair
if he would try. If he could send a coop of superior Fowls, a likely
Calf, or a first-rate Cow, better yet; but nine-tenths of our farmers
regard a Fair as something wherewith they have nothing to do, except as
spectators. When it is half over, they lounge into it with hands in
their pockets, stare about for an hour, and go home protesting that they
could beat nearly everything they saw there. Then why did they not try?
How can we have good Fairs, if those who might make the best display of
products save themselves the trouble by not making any? The average
meagerness of our Fairs, so generally and justly complained of, is not
the fault of those who sent what they had, but of those who, having
better, were too lazy to send anything. Until this is radically changed,
and the blame fastened on those who might have contributed, but did not,
our Fairs cannot help being generally meager and poor.
II. It seems to me that there is great need of an interesting and
faithful running commentary on the various articles exhibited. A
competent person should be employed to give an hour's off-hand talk on
the cattle and horses on hand, explaining the diverse merits and faults
of the several breeds there exhibited, and of the representatives of
those breeds then present. If any are peculiarly adapted to the
locality, let that fact be duly set forth, with the simple object of
enabling farmers to breed more intelligently, and more profitably. Then
let the implements and machinery on exhibition be likewise explained and
discussed, and let their superiority in whatever respect to those they
have superseded or are designed to supersede be clearly pointed out. So,
if there be any new Grain, Vegetable, or Fruit, on the tables, let it be
made the subject of capable and thoroughly impartial discussion, before
such only as choose to listen, and without putting the mere sightseers
to grave inconvenience. A lecture-room should always be attached to a
Fair-ground, yet so secluded as to shut out the noise inseparable from a
crowded exhibition. Here, meetings should be held each evening, for
general discussion; every one being encouraged to state concisely the
impressions made on him, and the improvements suggested to him, by what
he had seen. Do let us try to reflect and consider more at these
gatherings, even though at the cost of seeing less.
III. The well supported Agricultural Society of a rich and populous
county must be able, or should be able, to give two or three liberal
premiums for general proficiency in farming. If $100 could be proffered
to the owner or manager of the best tilled farm in the county, $50 to
the owner of the best orchard, and $50 to the boy under 18 years of age
who grew the best acre of Corn or Roots that year, I am confident that
an impulse would thereby be given to agricultural progress. Our premiums
are too numerous and too petty, because so few, are willing to
contribute with no expectation of personal benefit or distinction. If
we had but the right spirit aroused, we might dispense with most of our
petty premiums, or replace them by medals of no great cost, and devote
the money thus saved to higher and nobler ends.
IV. Much of the speaking at Fairs seems to me insulting to the
intelligence of the Farmers present, who are grossly flattered and
eulogized, when they often need to be admonished and incited to mend
their ways. What use or sense can there be in a lawyer, doctor, broker,
or editor, talking to a crowd of farmers as if they were the most
favored of mortals and their life the noblest and happiest known to
mankind? Whatever it might be, and may yet become, we all know that the
average farmer's life is not what it is thus represented: for, if it
were, thousands would be rushing into it where barely hundreds left it:
whereas we all see that the fact is quite otherwise. No good can result
from such insincere and extravagant praises of a calling which so few
freely choose, and so many gladly shun. Grant that the farmer's _ought_
to be the most enviable and envied vocation, we know that in fact it
_is_ not and, agreeing that it should be, the business in hand is to
make it so. There must be obstacles to surmount, mistakes to set right,
impediments to overcome, before farming can be in all respects the
idolized pursuit which poets are so ready to proclaim it and orators so
delight to represent it. Let us struggle to make it all that fancy has
ever painted it; but, so long as it is not, let us respect undeniable
facts, and characterize it exactly as it is.
V. If our counties were thoroughly canvassed by township committees, and
each tiller of the soil asked to pledge himself in writing to exhibit
something at the next County Fair, we should soon witness a decided
improvement. Many would be incited to attend who now stay away; while
the very general complaint that there is nothing worth coming to see
would be heard no more. As yet, a majority of farmers regard the Fair
much as they do a circus or traveling menagerie, taking no interest in
it except as it may afford them entertainment for the passing hour. We
must change this essentially; and the first step is to induce, by
concerted solicitation, at least half the farmers in the county to
pledge themselves each to exhibit something at the next annual Fair, or
pay $5 toward increasing its premiums.
VI. In short, we must all realize that the County or Township Fair is
_our_ Fair--not got up by others to invite our patronage or criticism,
but something whereto it is incumbent on us to contribute, and which
must be better or worse as we choose to make it. Realizing this, let us
stop carping and give a shoulder to the wheel.
XXXIX.
SCIENCE IN AGRICULTURE.