trees that bore them, been eaten by animals to little or no profit, or
turned into cider that did not sell for so much as it cost, counting the
Apples of no value. Living immediately on a railroad that rims into this
City, wherefrom my place is 35 miles distant, I should be able to do
better with Apples than most growers; and yet I judge that half my
Apples were of no use to me. Many of them sold in this City for $1 per
barrel, including the cask, which cost me 40 cents; and, when you have
added the cost of transportation, you can guess that I had no surplus,
after paying men $1.50 per day for picking and barreling them. I sold
all I could to vinegar-makers at fifty cents per bushel for
cider-apples--the casks being returned. But they could not take all I
wished to sell them, there being so many sellers pressing to get rid of
their windfalls before they rotted on their hands that even this market
was glutted. That it was much worse for the farmer a dozen miles from a
railroad and a hundred from the nearest city, none can doubt. I have
heard that, in parts of Connecticut, cider was sold for fifty cents per
barrel to whoever would furnish casks, and that their size was hardly
considered. Manifestly, this left nothing for the apples.
If Apples could have been daily supplied to our poorer citizens in such
quantities as they could conveniently take, at from fifty to
seventy-five cents per bushel, according to quality and comeliness, I am
confident that this City and its suburbs would have taken Two or Three
Millions of bushels more than they have done; and the same is true of
other cities. But the poor rarely buy a barrel of Apples at once; and
they have been required to pay as much for half a peck as I could get
for a bushel just like them. In other words: the hucksters and middlemen
set so high a price on their respective services in dividing up a barrel
of Apples and conveying them from the rural producer to the urban
consumer that a large portion of the farmer's apples must rot on his
hands or be sold by him for less than the cost of harvesting, while the
poor of the cities find them too dear to be freely eaten.
Nor are Apples singular in this respect. I would like to grow a thousand
bushels of English (round) and French or Swede Turnips per annum if I
could be sure of getting $1 per barrel for them delivered at the
railroad. If the poor of this City could buy such Turnips throughout
their season by the half peck at the rate of $2 per barrel, I believe
they would buy and eat many more than they do. But they are usually
asked twenty-five cents per half peck, which is at the rate of $5 per
barrel; and at this rate they hold them too dear for every-day use. So
the Turnips are not grown, or the cattle are invited to clear them off
before they rot and become worthless and nuisance.
Quite often, a green youth undertakes to get rich by farming near some
great city. He has heard and believes that Cabbages bring from $5 to $8
and even $10 per hundred, Squashes from $10 to $25 per hundred,
Watermelons from $20 to $50, and so on. He has made his calculations on
this basis, and sanguinely expects to make money rapidly. But his
products, in the first place, fall short of his estimates; they are not
ready for market so soon as he expected they would be; and, when at
length they are ready, every one else seems to have rushed in ahead of
him. The market is glutted; no one seems to want his "truck" at any
figure; he sells it for a song, and quits farming disgusted and
bankrupt. May be, his stuff would have sold much better next week or
the week after; but he could not afford to bring it to market and take
it back day after day, on the chance that the demand for it would
improve by-and-by. I judge that more young men have on this account
turned their backs on farming, after a brief trial, than on any other.
They might have borne up against the shortness of their crops, hoping
for better luck next time; but the necessity for selling them for a
price that would not have reimbursed their cost, had they been ever so
luxuriant, utterly disheartens and alienates them.
I preach no crusade against hucksters and middlemen. I hold them, in the
actual state of things, benefactors to both producers and consumers. In
so far as they deal honestly and meet promptly their obligations, they
deserve commendation rather than reproach. What I urge is, that more
economical and efficient machinery of exchange and distribution ought to
be devised and set at work--machinery that would do all that is required
at a moderate, reasonable cost.
I would like to see one of our solvent, well-managed Railroads advertise
that it would henceforth buy at any of its stations all the farmers'
produce that might be offered, and pay the highest prices that the state
of the markets would justify. Let its agents purchase whatever came
along--a basket of eggs, a coop of chickens, a barrel of apples, a sack
of beans, a pail of currants--anything that could be sold in the city to
which it runs, and which would conduce to human sustenance or comfort.
Its object should be Freight--the rapid and vast increase of its
transportations, not extra profit on the articles transported. But let
its agents be ready to buy at fair prices whatever was offered, paying
cash down, and pushing everything purchased directly into market, so as
to have the money back to buy more with directly. The Railroad Company,
thus owning nearly everything edible it brought into market, would buy
and sell at uniform prices, and not bid against itself, as a crowd of
hucksters and middlemen will often do. I am confident that a Railroad
that would inaugurate this system on a right basis, saying to every
farmer living near it, "Grow whatever your soil is best adapted to, and
bring it to our station: there, you shall have cash down for it, at the
highest price we can afford to give," would rapidly double and quadruple
its freights, and would thus build up a business which has no parallel
under the present system.
It is urged, in opposition to this proposal, that a Railroad so managed
would monopolize markets, and deal on its own terms with the producer
and consumer. If there were but one railroad entering a great city, and
no other mode of reaching it, this objection would be plausible, but not
in the actual case. Whoever chose would be at liberty to start an
opposition, and to use the railroad or dispense with it as he found
advisable.
LI.
WINTER WORK.
THE dearth of employment in Winter for farm laborers is a great and
growing evil. Thousands, being dismissed from work on the farms in
November, drift away to some city, under a vague, mistaken impression
that there must be work at some rate where so much is being done and so
many require service, and squander their means and damage their morals
in fruitless quest of what is not there to be had. When Spring at length
arrives, they sneak back to the rural districts, ragged, penniless,
debauched, often diseased, and every way deteriorated, by their Winter
plunge. For their sakes not only, but for the sakes also of those who
will employ and those who must work with them hereafter, this drifting
to the cities should be stopped.
In its present magnitude, it is a very modern evil. Far within my
recollection, there was timber to cut and haul to the saw-mill, wood to
cut, draw, and prepare for the year's fuel, with forest-land to be
cleared and fitted for future cultivation, even in New-England. Those
who chose to work with ax or team were seldom idle in Winter. Now, there
is little timber to cut, little land to clear, and coal is rapidly
supplanting wood as fuel. So a larger and larger number of farm laborers
is annually turned off when the ground freezes to live as they may for
the next three or four months.
I recognize the right of the farmer, who has given twelve or more hours
per day to the tillage of his acres and the saving of his crops
throughout the genial months, to take the world more easily in Winter.
He should now have leisure to return visits, to post and balance his
books, and to improve his mind by study and reflection. Having worked
hard when he must, he ought to rest and recuperate when he can. But he
gravely errs who supposes that, the ground being frozen, there is no
longer work to be done on the farm until the ground is fit to plow
again. On the contrary, he who realizes that the farmer is a
manufacturer of food and fibrous substances from raw materials of far
inferior value must see that, so soon as one harvest has been secured,
the cultivator should devote his attention to the collection and
utilization of the elements wherefrom a larger crop may be obtained from
the same acres next season.
And first as to Muck. No one who has not valued and sought it is likely
to know how generally abundant and accessible this material is. I have
found it in inexhaustible supply on the land of a pretty good cultivator
who, after working a fair farm ten years, sold it because (as he
supposed) it was destitute of this basis of extensive fertilization.
"Seek, and ye shall find," implies that those who do not seek will
rarely find; and such is the fact. Where rock abounds, Muck is rarely
wanting. It covers many thousand acres of Jersey sands, where rock is
unknown; but show me a region ridged or ribbed with rock, and I shall
confidently expect to find Muck on it, though none has been known or
supposed to exist there. And he who either has or can buy a bed of Muck
within half a mile of his barn, his sty, his hen-house, may dig and draw
from it all Winter with a moral certainty that it will generously reward
his outlay. Begin as soon after haying as you can spare the time, and
cut an outlet so deep that you may thereafter work dryshod; thenceforth,
dig and pile on the nearest accessible spot of dry ground, to be drawn
away to the barn-yard and out-houses as opportunity presents itself.
But, even though you have done nothing till the ground freezes, do not
say it is now too late, but set to work. You can often team in Winter
where you could not at any other season; and, in digging Muck from a
swamp or bog well frozen over, you are not apt to be troubled with
water. Draw all you can; but dig much more; for no money at lawful
interest pays so well as Muck left to dry and cure for months before you
draw it. I think I do not over-estimate the average value of a cubic
yard of Muck, well cured and mixed with warmer fertilizers before
application to the soil, at one dollar; and I think there are few
farmers in the Old Thirteen States who cannot obtain it for less than
that.
Where Muck is not to be had, I believe the tiller of a sandy or gravelly
farm who can get access to a bed or bank of clay may profitably dig and
draw this, to be used as he would use Muck if he had it, and even for
direct application to the soil. I do not think this method the most
advisable; yet I feel sure that clay spread over a sandy or gravelly
field that has been laid down to grass is worth fifty cents per cubic
yard wherever Hay is worth $12 per tun; but I would wish to apply it not
later than December.
He who has fit places of deposit should draw all his Lime, Plaster, and
other commercial fertilizers, in Winter, so as to be ready for use when
required. Mix your Lime while fresh from the kiln with Muck, at the rate
of a bushel of the former to a cubic yard of the latter, and the Muck
will be ready for use far sooner than it otherwise would be. Be careful
_not_ to mix Lime with animal manures in any case, since it expels
Ammonia, whereas the sulphur of Plaster combines with that volatile
element and fixes it. There are some farmers who do, but twenty times as
many who do not, use Plaster enough about their stables and pig-pens.
They ought to realize that a bad smell implies a waste of Ammonia, which
a farmer, unless very rich, can hardly afford.
Fences should all be scrutinized as Winter goes off, and put into
thorough condition for next season's service.
Fruit-trees should be relieved of all dead or dying branches, all
suckers, and cut back where towering to high, or spreading too wide. It
may be better for the trees to do all pruning in May or June; but the
farmer who defers it to that season is very likely to be hurried into
postponing it to another year--and another.
There is scarcely a forest of second or later growth which would not pay
for thinning and trimming, if well done. That which is out may be turned
to good account as bean-poles, pea-brush, Summer fuel, etc., while that
which is left will grow faster, taller, and more shapely, to reward you
doubly for your pains.
--These are but suggestions. Any farmer can add to or improve upon them
if he will give an hour's thought to the subject. The best laborers can
be hired for a full year at a price not very much exceeding that which
will secure their services for eight or nine months. In the interest
alike of good crops and good morals, I urge every one who can to resolve
that he will henceforth hire by the year, or in some way manage to
employ his laborers in Winter as well as in Summer.
LII.
SUMMING UP.
In the foregoing essays, I have set forth, as clearly as I could, the
facts within my knowledge which seem calculated to cast light upon the
farmer's vocation, and the principles or rules of action which they have
suggested to my mind. I have been careful not to throw any false,
delusive halo over this indispensable calling, and by no means to induce
the belief that the farmer's lot is necessarily and uniformly a happy
one. I know that his is not the royal road to rapid acquisition, and
that few men are likely to amass great wealth by quietly tilling the
soil. I know, moreover, that what passes for farming among us is not so
noble, so intellectual, so attractive, a pursuit as it might and should
be--that most farmers might farm better and live to better purpose than
they do. Of all the false teaching, I most condemn that which flatters
farmers as though they were demigods and their calling the grandest and
the happiest ever followed by mortals, when the hearer, unless very
green, must feel that the speaker doesn't believe one word of all be
utters; for, if he did, he would be farming, instead of living by some
profession, and talking as though his auditors did not know wheat from
chaff. I regard the Agriculture of this country as very far below the
standard which, it should ere this have reached: I hold that the great
mass of our cultivators might and should farm better than they do, and
that better farming would render their sons better citizens and better
men. If a single line of this little work should seem calculated to
cajole its readers into self-complacency rather than instruct them, I
beg them to believe that their impression wrongs my purpose.
I am fully aware that others have treated my theme with fuller knowledge
and far greater ability than I brought to its discussion. "Then why not
leave them the field?" Simply because, when all have written who can
elucidate my theme, at least three-fourths of those who ought to study
and ponder it will not have read any treatise whatever upon
Agriculture--will hardly have yet regarded it as a theme whereon books
should be written and read. And, since there may be some who will read
this treatise for its writer's sake--will read it when they could not be
persuaded to do like honor to a more elaborate and erudite work--I have
written in the hope of arousing in some breasts a spirit of inquiry with
regard to Agriculture as an art based on Science--a spirit which, having
been awakened, will not fall again into torpor, but which will lead on
to the perusal and study of profounder and better books.
In the foregoing essays, I have sought to establish the following
propositions:
1. That _good_ farming is and must ever be a paying business, subject,
like all others, to mischances and pull-backs, and to the general law
that the struggle up from nothing to something is ever an arduous and
almost always a slow process. In the few instances where wealth and
distinction have been swiftly won, they have rarely proved abiding.
There are pursuits wherein success is more envied and dazzling than in
Agriculture; but there is none wherein efficiency and frugality are more
certain to secure comfort and competence.
2. Though the poor man must often go slowly, where wealth may attain
perfection at a bound, and though he may sometimes seem compelled to
till fields not half so amply fertilized as they should be, it is
nevertheless inflexibly true that bounteous crops are grown at a profit,
while half and quarter crops are produced at a loss. A rich man may
afford to grow poor crops, because he can afford to lose by his year's
farming, while the poor man cannot. He ought, therefore, to till no more
acres than he can bring into good condition--to sow no seed, plow no
field, where he is not justified in expecting a good crop. Better five
acres amply fertilized and thoroughly tilled than twenty acres which can
at best make but a meager return, and which a dry or a wet season must
doom to partial if not absolute failure.
3. In choosing a location, the farmer should resolve to choose once for
all. Roaming from State to State, from section to section, is a sad and
far too common mistake. Not merely is it true that "The rolling stone
gathers no moss," but the farmer who wanders from place to place never
acquires that intimate knowledge of soil and climate which is essential
to excellence in his vocation. He cannot read the clouds and learn when
to expect rain, when he may look for days of sunshine, as he could if he
had lived twenty years on the same place. Choose your home in the East,
the South, the Center, the West, if you will (and each section has its
peculiar advantages); but choose once for all, and, having chosen,
regard that choice as final.
4. Our young men are apt to plunge into responsibilities too hastily.
They buy farms while they lack at once experience and means, incur
losses and debts by consequent miscalculations, and drag through life a
weary load, which sours them against their pursuit, when the fault is
entirely their own. No youth should undertake to manage a farm until
after several years of training for that task under the eye of a capable
master of the art of tilling the soil. If he has enjoyed the requisite
advantages on his father's homestead, he may possibly be qualified to
manage a farm at twenty-one; but there are few who might not profitably
wait and learn, in the pay of some successful cultivator, for several
years longer; while I cannot recall an instance of a youth rushing out
of school or a city counting-house to show old farmers how their work
ought to be done, that did not result in disaster. It is very well to
know what Science teaches with regard to farming; but no man was ever a
thoroughly good farmer who had not spent some years in actual contact
with the soil.
5. While every one says of his neighbor, "He farms too much land," the
greed of acquisition does not seem at all chastened. Men stagger under
loads of debt to-day, who might relieve themselves by selling off so
much of their land as they cannot profitably use; but every one seems
intent on holding all he can, as if in expectation of a great advance in
its market value. And yet you can buy farms in every old State in the
Union as cheaply per acre as they could have been bought in like
condition sixty years ago; and I doubt their selling higher sixty years
hence than they do now. No doubt, there _are_ lands, in the vicinage of
growing cities or villages, that have greatly advanced in value; but
these are exceptions: and I counsel every young farmer, every poor
farmer, to buy no more land than he can cultivate thoroughly, save such
as he needs for timber. Never fear that there will not be more land for
sale when you shall have the money wherewith to buy it; but shun debt as
you would the plague, and prefer forty acres all your own to a square
mile heavily mortgaged. I never lifted a mill-stone; but I have
undertaken to carry debts, and they are fearfully heavy.
6. I know that most American farms east of the Roanoke and the Wabash
have too many fields and fences, and that the too prevalent custom of
allowing cattle to prowl over meadow, tillage and forest, from September
to May, picking up a precarious and inadequate subsistence by browsing
and foraging at large, is slovenly, unthrifty, and hardly consistent
with the requirements of good neighborhood. It is at best a miseducation
of your cattle into lawless habits. I do not know just where and when
_all_ pasturing becomes wasteful and improvident; but I do know that
pasturing fosters thistles, briers, and every noxious weed, and so is
inconsistent with cleanly and thorough tillage. I know that the same
acres will feed far more stock, and keep them in better condition, if
their food be cut and fed to them, than if they are sent out to gather
it for themselves. I know that the cost of cutting their grass and other
fodder with modern machinery need not greatly exceed that of driving
them to remote pastures in the morning and hunting them up at nightfall.
I know that penning them ten hours of each twenty-four in a filthy yard,
where they have neither food nor drink, is unwise; and I feel confident
that it is already high time, wherever good grass-land is worth $100 per
acre, to limit pasturage to one small field, as near the center of the
farm as may be, wherein shade and good water abound, into which green
rye, clover, timothy, oats, sowed corn, stalks, etc., etc., may
successively be thrown from every side, and where shelter from a cold,
driving storm, is provided; and that, if cows could be milked here and
left through night as well as day, it would be found good economy.
7. I know that most of us are slashing down our trees most
improvidently, and thus compelling our children to buy timber at thrice
the cost at which we might and should have grown it. I know that it is
wasteful to let White Birch, Hemlock, Scrub Oak, Pitch Pine, Dogwood,
etc., start up and grow on lands which might be cheaply sown with the
seeds of Locust, White Oak, Hickory, Sugar Maple, Chestnut, Black
Walnut, and White Pine. I know that no farm in a settled region is so
large that its owner can really afford to surrender a considerable
portion of it to growing indifferent cord-wood when it would as freely
grow choice timber if seeded therefor; and I feel sure that there are
few farms so small that a portion of each might not be profitably
devoted to the growing of valuable trees. I know that the common
presumption that land so devoted will yield no return for a life-time is
wrong--know that, if thickly and properly seeded, it will begin to yield
bean-poles, hoop-poles, etc., the fifth or sixth year from planting, and
thenceforth will yield more and more abundantly forever. I know that
_good_ timber, in any well-peopled region, should not be _cut off_, but
_cut out_--thinned judiciously but moderately and trimmed up, so that it
shall grow tall and run to trunk instead of branches; and I know that
there are all about us millions of acres of rocky crests and
acclivities, steep ravines and sterile sands, that ought to be seeded to
timber forthwith, kept clear of cattle, and devoted to tree-growing
evermore.
8. I do not know that all lands may be profitably underdrained. Wooded
uplands, I know, could not be. Fields which slope considerably, and so
regularly that water never stagnates upon or near their surface, do very
well without. Light, leachy sands, like those of Long Island, Southern
Jersey, Eastern Maryland, and the Carolinas, seem to do fairly without.
Yet my conviction is strong that _nearly all land which is to be
persistently cultivated will in time be underdrained_. I would urge no
farmer to plunge up to his neck into debt in order to underdrain his
farm. But I _would_ press every one who has no experience on this head
to select his wettest field, or the wettest part of such field, and,
having carefully read and digested Waring's, French's, or some other
approved work on the subject, procure file and proceed next Fall to
drain that field or part of a field thoroughly, taking especial
precautions against back-water, and watch the effect until satisfied
that it will or will not pay to drain further. I think few, have drained
one acre thoroughly, and at no unnecessary cost, without being impelled
by the result to drain more and faster until they had tiled at least
half their respective farms.