where _something_ might not be profitably done forthwith to secure
advantage from the artificial retention and application of water.
Wherever a brook or runnel crosses or skirts a farm, the question--"Can
the water here running uselessly by be retained, and in due season
equably diffused over some portion of this land?"--at once presents
itself. One who has never looked with this now will be astonished at the
facility with which some acres of nearly every farm may be irrigated.
Often, a dam that need not cost $20 will suffice to hold back ten
thousand barrels of water, so that it may be led off along the upper
edge of a slope or glade, falling off just enough to maintain a gentle,
steady current, and so providing for the application of two or three
inches of water to several acres of tillage or grass just when the
exigencies of crop and season most urgently require such irrigation. Any
farmer east of the Hudson can tell where such an application would have
doubled the crop of 1870, and precluded the hard necessity of selling or
killing cattle not easily replaced.
Of course, this is but a rude beginning. In time, we shall dam very
considerable streams mainly to this end, and irrigate hundreds and
thousands of acres from a single pond or reservoir. Wells will be sunk
on plains and gentle swells now comparatively arid and sterile, and wind
or steam employed to raise water into reservoirs whence wide areas of
surrounding or subjacent land will be refreshed at the critical moment,
and thus rendered bounteously productive. On the vast, bleak, treeless
Plains of the wild West, even Artesian wells will be sunk for this
purpose; and the water thus obtained will prove a source of fertility
as well as refreshment, enriching the soil by the minerals which it
holds in solution, and insuring bounteous crops from wide stretches of
now barren and worthless desert. Immigration will yet thickly dot the
great Sahara with oases of verdure and plenty; but it will, long ere
that, have covered the valleys of our Great Basin and those which skirt
the affluents of the savage and desolate Colorado with a beauty and
thrift surpassing the dreams of poets. And yet, its easiest and readiest
triumphs are to be won right here--in the valleys of the Connecticut,
the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac.
10. As to Commercial Fertilizers, I think I have been well paid for the
application of Gypsum (Plaster of Paris) to my upland grass at the rate
of one bushel per acre per annum, while my tillage has been supplied
with it by dusting my stables with it after each cleaning, and so
applying it mingled with barn-yard manures. Lime (unslaked) from burned
oyster-shells, costing me from 25 to 30 cents per bushel delivered, I
have applied liberally, and I judge, with profit. Bones, ground, (the
finer the better) I have largely and I think advantageously used; but my
land had been mainly pastured for nearly two centuries before I bought
it, and thus continually drained of Phosphates, yet never replenished:
so my experience does not prove that the farmers of newer lands ought to
buy bones, though I advise them to apply all they can save or pick up at
small cost. Pound them very fine with a beetle or ax-head on a flat
stone, and give them to your fowls: if they refuse a part of them, your
soil will prove less dainty. I am not sure that it pays to buy any
manufactured Phosphate when you can get Raw Bone; though I doubt not
that, for instant effect, the Phosphate is far superior. As to Guano, it
has not paid me; but that may be the fault of careless or unskillful
application. I judge that any one who has to deal with sterile sands
that will not bring Clover, may wisely apply 400 pounds of Guano per
acre, provided he has nothing else that will answer the purpose. After
he has produced one good stand of Clover, I doubt that he can afford to
buy more Guano, unless he can apply it to better purpose than I have yet
done.
I have a strong impression that most farmers can do better at making and
saving fertilizers than by buying them. Lime and Sulphur (Gypsum), if
your soil lacks them, you must buy; but a good farmer who keeps even a
span of horses, three or four cows, as many pigs, and a score of fowls,
can make for $100 fertilizers which I would rather have than two tuns of
Guano, costing him $180 to $200. If he has a patch of bog or a miry pond
on his farm--any place where frogs will live--he can dig thence, in the
dryest time next Fall, two or three hundred loads of Muck, which, having
been left to dry on the nearest high ground till November or later, and
then drawn up and dumped into his barn-yard, pig-pen, and fowl-house,
will be ready to come out next Spring in season for corn-planting, and,
being liberally applied, will do as much for his crop as two tons of
Guano would, and will strengthen his land far more. If he has no Muck,
and no neighbor who can spare it as well as not, let him at midsummer
cut all the weeds growing on and around his farm, and in the Fall gather
all the leaves that can be impounded, using these as litter for his
cattle and beds for his pigs, and he will be agreeably surprised at the
bulk of his heap next Spring.
I am an intense believer in Home Production. We send ten thousand miles
for Guano, and suffer the equally valuable excretions of our cities to
run to waste in rivers and bays, poisoning or driving away the fish, and
filling the air with stench and pestilence. No farmer ever yet
intelligently _tried_ to enrich his land and was defeated by lack of
material. He may not be able to do all he would like to at first; but
persistent effort cannot be baffled.
11. Shallow culture is the most crying defect of our average farming.
Poverty may sometimes excuse it; but the excuse is stretched quite too
far. If a farmer has but a poor span of horses, or a light yoke of thin
steers, he cannot plow land as it should be plowed; but let him double
teams with his neighbor, and plow alternate clays on either farm; or, if
this may not be, let him buy or borrow a sub-soil plow, and go once
around with his surface plow, then hitch on to the sub-soil, and run
another furrow in the bottom of the former. There are a few intervales
of rich, mellow soil, deposited by the inundations of countless ages,
where shallow culture will answer, because the roots of the plants run
freely through fertile earth never yet disturbed by the plow; but these
marked and meagre exceptions do not invalidate the truth that
nine-tenths of our tillage is neither so deep nor so thorough as it
should be. As a rule, the feeding-roots of plants do not run below the
bottom of the furrows, though in some instances they do; and he who
fancies that five or six inches of soil will, under our fervid suns,
with our Summers often rainless for weeks, produce as bounteous and as
sure a crop as twelve to eighteen inches, is impervious to fact or
reason. He might as sensibly maintain that you could draw as long and as
heavily against a deposit in bank of $500 as against one of $1,500.
12. Finally, and as the sum of my convictions, we need more thought,
more study, more intellect, infused into our Agriculture, with less
blind devotion to a routine which, if ever judicious, has long since
ceased to be so. The tillage which a pioneer, fighting single-handed and
all but empty-handed with a dense forest of giant trees, which he can do
no better than to cut down and burn, found indispensable among their
stumps and roots, is not adapted to the altered circumstances of his
grandchildren. If our most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours
each per week from their incessant drudgery, and devote them to reading
and reflection with regard to their noble calling, they would live
longer, live to better purpose, and bequeath a better example, with more
property, to their children.
* * * * *
My self-imposed task is done. I undertook to tell What I Know of Farming
through one brief essay for each week in 1870; and, in the face of
multifarious and pressing duties, and in despite of a severe, protracted
illness, the work has been prosecuted to completion. Had I not kept
ahead of it while in health, there were weeks when I must have left it
unaccomplished, as I was too ill to write or even stand.
I close with the avowal of my joyful trust that these essays, slight and
imperfect as they are, will incite thousands of young farmers to feel a
loftier pride in their calling and take a livelier interest in its
improvement, and that many will be induced by them to read abler and
better works on Agriculture and the sciences which minister to its
efficiency and impel its progress toward a perfection which few as yet
have even faintly foreseen.
INDEX.
ACCOUNTS--ACCOUNTS IN FARMING, chap. xxxv, 207;
the causes of pecuniary failure, 207;
loss from waste of time, 207;
the author has found all successful farmers rigid economists of
time, 208;
farmers urged to keep a rigid account of how they dispose of their
time, 208;
keeping a diary recommended, 208;
what it should contain, 209;
accounts with neighbors, 209;
the farmer should keep an account of the expenses of his farm, and
the receipts therefrom, 209;
importance of keeping an account with the several fields and crops,
210;
complication and uncertainty in account-keeping considered, 210-211;
the advantage of keeping careful accounts, 211.
AGRICULTURE. _See_ FARMING: books on practical, referred to, 30.
ALABAMA, 50.
ALDER, 53.
ALKALIS, as fertilizers. _See_ FERTILIZERS, COMMERCIAL.
ALLEGHANY RIDGE, 39.
ALLEGHANIES, the, 45, 49, 79, 81, 156.
ALPS, 75.
ALPS, AUSTRIAN, 75.
AMERICA, 44, 170.
AMHERST. N. H., 52.
AMMONIA, 104, 306.
AMMONOOSUC, the river, 194.
ANTELOPE, 278.
APENNINES, 267.
APPLE, the, 53, 118, 129.
FRUIT-TREES. THE APPLE, chap. xxix, 139;
fruit-trees form a distinguishing feature of Northern farms and
holdings, 139;
unequaled in that respect elsewhere, 140;
our country north of the Potomac excels, in its supply of
tree-fruits, all other portions of the earth's surface of equal
area, 140;
the Northern States admirably adapted to the apple and kindred
fruit-trees, 140;
effects of such adaptability, 140;
give an orchard the northern slope of a hill where possible, 140;
the one which blossoms latest, yields, on the average, most fruit,
141;
storing ice to place under trees, not recommended, 141;
importance of drainage, 145;
some reasons for choosing sloping ground for an apple-orchard, 141;
the soil for such, 142;
preparation of the soil, 142-3;
treatment and care of the land devoted to an orchard, 143-4;
MORE ABOUT APPLE TREES, chap. xxv, 145;
apple trees are planted too far apart, and allowed to grow too
tall, 145;
consequences, 145-6;
trees should be set diamond fashion, 146;
pruning should be attended to annually, 146;
sprouts valueless, 147;
the demands which apple-trees make on the soil should be supplied,
147;
apple-trees in the township of Newcastle, Westchester, N. Y., 147;
causes of their unproductiveness, 147-8;
caterpillars and their ravages, 148;
duties of farmers and fruit growers, 149;
the abundant apple-crop of 1870, 149;
establishes the capacity of our regions to bear Apples, 149, 191,
232, 291, 294;
the apple-crop of 1870, as an illustration of the imperfect means
of exchanging farm products, 297-8-9;
loss to consumers and producers, 299-300.
ARIZONA, 48.
ARKANSAS, State of, 25, 36;
the river, 73, 261;
the upper river, 274.
ARTESIAN WELLS, 77, 277-8, 316.
ASHES as fertilizers, 108-9, 127, 128;
use in preparing for an orchard, 142, 174.
_See_ also FERTILIZERS, COMMERCIAL.
ATLANTIC, the coast, 156, 178;
seaboard, 220;
slope, 76, 157, 213.
AUSTIN, 46.
AUSTRALIA, 138, 200, 238.
AUTUMN, 89, 97, 99, 116, 124, 173, 178, 179, 192, 193, 202, 262.
BABYLON, 266.
BALSAM FIR, 58.
BALTIMORE, 165.
BARLEY, 245, 265.
BARN, the use of stone recommended in building a, 216
BATAVIA YAMS, 271.
BATTENKILL, 75.
BEANS, 210, 271, 296.
BEECH, 19, 53, 60, 287.
BEEF, 37, 118, 220, 294.
BEETS. _see_ ROOTS, also 143, 232, 264, 271.
BELGIUM, 70, 238.
BERRIES, 90.
BIRCH, 60.
BIRDS--INSECTS, BIRDS, chap. xxii, 129;
birds our best allies against insects, 129;
the destruction of birds not the sole cause of insect ravages, 130;
birds should be protected and kindly treated, 132;
associations should be formed to do so, 132;
artificial nests, 133;
legal measures to protect birds, 133.
BLACK ASH, 30.
BLACKBERRIES, 90, 158.
BLACK WALNUT, 314.
BLACKWELL'S ISLAND, 87.
BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS, 81.
BOARD OF WORKS (London), 269.
BOISSIERE, E. V, DE, 253-4.
BONES. _See_ COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS, also 118, 119, 192, 317.
BONE-DUST, 174.
BONES, flour of, 121.
BONE FLOUR, 167.
BONES, raw, 317.
BOSTON, farm near, 15, 289.
BOTANY, 30.
BUCKEYE, 260.
BUCKWHEAT, 21, 189, 191, 210.
BUFFALO, 278.
BUFFALO GRASS, 153.
BURLINGTON, N. J., 166.
BUTTER, 38, 164, 167.
BRIDGES, 250.
BRITISH ISLES, 178, 245.
BROCCOLI, 271.
CABBAGES, 264, 271, 296, 300.
CACHE-LA-POUDRE, the river, 82, 262, 263.
CALIFORNIA, 26, 76, 80, 159, 181, 260.
CANADA, 48, 165, 289;
creek, 75.
CANALS, 105.
CAROLINAS, the, 166, 315.
CARROTS. _See_ ROOTS, also 143, 271.
CARSON, the river, 81, 83.
CATTLE, 15;
Pasturing, 19-20;
Soiling, 20;
treatment of herds of, in the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, 20;
rearing of, referred to, 35, 132, 150, 157, 219, 220, 224, 293.
CATSKILLS, the, 172.
CENSUS: the Seventh, 150;
the Eighth, 150;
the, of 1870, 286.
CHAMPLAIN, the, basin, 72;
lake, 279.
CHAPPAQUA, 62.
CHAUTAUQUA Co., N. Y., 287, 288.
CHEESE, 38, 164, 167.
CHEMISTRY, 30, 119, 196, 231.
CHERRIES. _See_ FRUITS, also 129, 139, 294.
CHESTER CO., Penn., 110.
CHESTNUT, 54, 55, 60, 135, 136, 215, 314.
_See also_, TREES.
CHEYENNE, 262.
CHICAGO, 164.
CHICKENS, 295.
_See_ FOWLS.
CHLORINE, 114, 235.
CHLORIDE OF LIME, 128.
CHOLERA, 268.
CHURCHES, 250.
CINCINNATI, 156.
CLIMATES, American, for the finer fruits, 156.
CLOVER, 120, 153, 167, 318.
CLUBS. _See_ FARMERS' CLUBS.
COAL, 109, 288.
COLONIES, advantage of settling in, 28;
the course to adopt in organizing one, 28;
Union Colony, 262;
its location, 262;
the City of Greeley, its nucleus, 262;
irrigation canals of, 262-4;
fertility of the soil at, 264.
COLONISTS, English, 171.
COLORADO, 181, 206, 317;
river, 46.
CONGRESS, 46.
CONNECTICUT, 27, 171, 299;
river, 194, 279;
valley of the, 317.
COMO, lake, 75.
COMMON SCHOOLS, 196-7.
COMMUNISM: Differs radically from Co-operation, 248.
CONCLUSIONS, General, SUMMING UP, chap. lli, 308;
the facts set forth in the essays, 308;
common misrepresentations, 308-9;
object of the author in writing these essays, 309;
the propositions sought to be established therein, 310;
good farming must ever be a paying business, 310;
thorough tillage advocated, 310;
a location should be permanent, 310;
the too great haste in incurring responsibilities, 311;
the greed for land, 310;
common abuses in fencing and cattle-raising, 312-13;
tree-cutting and tree-planting, 314-15;
underdraining, 315;
irrigation, 316;
commercial fertilizers, 317-8-9;
shallow culture, 319-20;
the need for study and inquiry, 320-21;
concluding remarks, 321.
CO-OPERATION, reference to, in regard to wild lands, 24;
CO-OPERATION IN FARMING, CHAP. XLII, 248;
Co-operation is the word of hope and cheer for labor, 248;
its meaning, 248;
differs radically from communism, 248;
the difficulties of a young farmer who migrates to Kansas,
Minnesota or one of the Territories, 248-9;
the different circumstances consequent on settlement by
co-operation, 250;
advantages of co-operation not limited to colonizing distant
tracts, 250;
would benefit colored men, 250-1;
fencing as an illustration of the loss consequent on want of
co-operation, 251-2;
how co-operation would remedy it, 252;
further application of the system, 252-3;
Mr. E. V. de Boissiere's co-operative farming, 254-5.
CORN, 20, 21, 22
growing of bread-corn eastward of the Hudson, 37, 43, 67, 68, 81,
86, 88, 92, 94, 99, 103, 107, 113, 114, 115, 118, 147.
GRAIN GROWING--EAST AND WEST--chap. xxviii, 162;
hoeing is of no use to Corn, 162;
the best and cheapest way to cultivate corn, 162;
the fields of the Mississippi Valley are the most productive in the
world, 163;
the tillage, in some places, seemed susceptible of improvement, 163;
the West is the granary of the East, 163;
a change imminent, 163;
changes since twenty-three years ago when the author visited
Illinois, 164;
the course the West will ultimately adopt, 164;
exhaustion of the soil in New England and Eastern New York, 164;
in the Genesee Valley, 165;
Eastern Pennsylvania profits by a provident system of husbandry, 165;
the States this side of the Delaware will yet have to grow a large
share of their breadstuffs, 165;
can it be done with profit now, considering, also, if the East has
wisely, so largely abandoned grain-growing, 165-9;
the places not taken into account, 165;
the "Pine Barrens" of New Jersey selected to illustrate the profits
of grain-growing in the East, 168;
their nature, 168;
estimate of expenses thereon, 167;
the product anticipated, 167;
the favorable conditions the cultivator would enjoy, 168;
the money value of his crop, 168;
great economy could be achieved in the cost of cultivating, 169;
conclusions, 169;
also 177, 191, 192, 193, 210, 228, 238, 242, 246-7, 264, 265,
271-2, 290.
COTTON, 107, 200.
COTTON-GROWERS, Southern, 118.
COTTONWOOD, 261.
CREDIT, buying a farm on, 25.
CROPS, Fall, 97.
CURRANTS, 129.
DAIRYING, 288.
DANA'S MUCK MANUAL, 199.
DELAWARE, the State of, 165;
the river, 152, 165.
DENVER, 264, 277;
Pacific Railroad, the, 262.
DEPOPULATION, (RURAL)--RURAL DEPOPULATION, chap. xlviii, 286;
the alleged decrease in the relative population of rural districts,
286;
no increase since 1859 in the number of farmers in the State of New
York, 286;
probable slight decrease in that of New England, 286;
consolidating farms, 286;
small farmers are selling out and migrating, 287;
reasons therefore, 287;
the changed character of the tillage, 287-8;
the general use of coal has reduced the demand for labour, 288;
labour-saving implements, 288-9;
the supposed degeneracy of the New England Puritan stock, 289;
the migration from New England, 289-90;
the assumption that Americans prefer other pursuits to farming, 291;
the rock and bog of New England form a discouraging impediment to
agricultural progress, 290;
compensation therefor, 291.
DIARY, the keeping of one recommended, 31.
DICKINSON, Andrew B., 105, 106.
DISTRIBUTION (of farm products). _See_ EXCHANGE.
DOCK, 232.
DOGWOOD, 314.
DOGS; their depredations on sheep, 203-4.
DRAINING--
DRAINING--MY OWN, chap. x, 62;
the author's farm, 62;
situation of the land thereon requiring drainage, 62-3;
difficulties it presented, 63;
blunders, 66;
how repaired, 66;
condition of the marsh before draining it, 61;
how success was retarded, 67;
evidence of success, 67;
the crops of 1870 on the reclaimed land, 68;
DRAINING GENERALLY, chap. xi, 69;
general conclusions from the author's experience, 69;
extent of land to be drained, 69;
_all_ swamp lands and nearly all of some other kinds must be
drained to be well tilled, 69;
the many uses of underdrains, 69-70;
no one should run into debt for draining, 70;
tile and stone drains, 71;
draining by a Mole Plow, 72;
general direction, 72-3;
covered mains recommended, 73;
the question of labor, 73;
a case where the rudest surface drains would have changed bog into
decent meadows, 152;
the stone drains on the author's farm, 214;
the author's summing up on, 315.
DROUTH--habitually shortens our Fall crops, 98;
A LESSON OF TO-DAY (1870), chap. xxxii, 189;
the popular view of hot and cold seasons, 189;
the Summer of 1870, effects of the drouth, 189-190;
general character of each Summer, 190;
proof that drouth need not be feared by those who farm prudently,
190;
the author's observations during a trip through Warren Co., N. Y.,
191-2;
results to be attained there by right cultivation, 192;
the inquiry: how are the people there to obtain fertilizers? 192;
answered, 193;
irrigation might be applied profitably, 194.
EARTH CLOSET, 123.
EASTERN STATES, pasturing in, 19.
EASTERN STATES, the, 23, 25-6, 37, 179, 189, 204, 215, 279, 311.
EDINBURGH, 269.
EGGS, 294-5.
EGYPT, 164, 167.
ELECTRICITY, 285.
ELK, 278.
ELM, 59.
EMERSON, R. W., 44.
ENGLAND, 70, 89, 164;
(Western) 170, 178, 268.
ERIE Co., Pa., 23.
EUROPE, 35, 74, 156, 163, 170, 171, 178, 180, 219, 238.
EXCHANGE: EXCHANGE AND DISTRIBUTION, chap. l, 297;
the machinery for disposing of surplus farm products imperfect, 297;
the abundant apple crop of 1870 as an illustration thereof, 297-8-9;
apples should have been as common as bread or potatoes, 298;
the actual facts, 298;
cause of both the waste and dearness of apples, 299-300;
consequent loss to producers and consumers, 299-300;
turnips as a further illustration, 300;
disappointments of inexperienced farmers, 300-1;
hucksters and middlemen, 301;
suggestion to have a railroad purchase and sell farm products, 301-2;
results to be expected, 302;
an objection answered, 302.
EXHIBITIONS (AGRICULTURAL)--AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITIONS, chap. xxxviii,
225;
author has attended at least fifty, 225;
concludes they were not what they might and should be, 225;
the reform must begin with the people, 225;
the lot of the public speaker, 225-6;
what is needed to render our annual Fairs useful and instructive
detailed, 226;
each farmer should hold himself bound to make some contribution to
his, 226;
an interesting and running commentary should given, 227-8;
liberal premiums should be given for proficiency in farming, 228-9;
need for improvement in the character of the public speaking, 229;
counties should be canvassed to enrol exhibitors, 230;
all in a locality should feel a common interest in their fair, 230.
EYE-SMART, 125.
FABRICS, 200.
FAIRS. _See_ EXHIBITIONS.
FALL, the, 126, 173, 174, 193, 318.