Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1875 — April on the Farm. [ARTICLE]

April on the Farm.

It is time now that wise and judicioxs plans were perfected lor the summer’s work. Don’t try to do too much. It is better to do things well than to do a great deal poorly. The prevailing fault with us is toying to do too much. Why is it that we see such varied success, so many failures in farming? Why do some farmers get on so much better than others? Farms equally well located, and having a soil, so far as we can see, equally good, will often present quite strange contrasts to the eye of even a casual -observer. How do you account for this? With land very nearly equal in point of quality, with nearly the same amount of labor, perhaps, how is it that results so widely differ? Is it not the difference in the quality of the labor? The one seems to be merely physical force, the other is guided by mind and thought, Calculation and energy. It might be

comprehended perhaps under the general head of “ The Methods of Farming.” There is many a hard-working farmer who is up early and down late, who seems to be trying to do his best, and yet he doesn’t seem to get ahead in the world. The neighbors would suppose he ought to be forehanded. They say there is s want of calculation somewhere, and so they let him plod on. But it is clear that he is rowing np stream, straining every nerve to do bis best, with the current against him. The trouble 19 not in a want of willingness to work, but he does at a loss what nature, a little more skillfully managed, would spontaneously do for him. Work as hard as he may, he does not do all that is necessary for the complete success of his labors. He loses half the result by omitting a third of the toil and he risks the loss of the entire crop by a little negligence in the preparation or perhaps in protection. He has adopted a wrong method. He is more ambitious of a large than a good farm, and he takes burdens upon his shoulders that he cannot safely or securely carry. The consequence is he has no time for that early, minnte aqd careful supervision of details that economy demands. He suffers all the accidents of things left to themselves. Fences, perhaps, are broken down, and crops or cattle injured. Orchards are planted and left to the borer, or, what is worse, to be browsed or broken by cattle. Tools and wagons and sleighs and sleds swell in the rain, shrink in the sun, till, like the Deacon’s old “ one-hoss shay,” they suddenly break down, to the stoppage of work and the damage of temper or property. Farming after this method is a kind of uphill business. And yet is it not too common? The earth is starved because of the wastes from the manure heap, till it is hardly able to hold up a ton of hay to the acre. Is that economy? We could point to many a fanner who lets things slide generally. If the trees are all loaded down with apples, no matter. In go the cows and browse and strip the lower limbs, eating bushel after bushel of Baldwins and Hnbbardstons or Winter Sweets and Porters, and perhaps he would say, if his attention were called to it, “Oh, never mind, don’t worry about that; they won’t hurt ’em any.” But this is only an illustration of his general management. The weeds grow up in dense masses in his corn and his potato patch, overtopping the crop, but if his attention is called to it the reply maybe, “Yes, the land is full of weed seed; it is no use to try to get it out” And so every weed sucks away at the vital elements of the corn and potato in the soil, reducing the yield from a splendid crop to one of only ordinary extent. Every weed stands in place of a potato or a stalk of corn, ripening its seed for another crop next year, and so it goes. There is a waste, a leak in the potatofield, a leak in the cornfield, a leak in the orchard. But there is the biggest kind of a leak in the barnyard! No cellar bursts with swelling fatness. The teaming pile of manure seldom feels the piercing tines of the fork to lighten it up to the air and to start the warm fermentation. No muck or loam or leaves reach it regularly to be mixed up so as to divide the richness of the heap and absorb and retain its evanescent virtues. Perhaps the rain pours down from the lofty eaves and washes awav the best soluble salts of the yard. Perhaps, now and then, at rare intervals, a spasmodic effort is made to get in a few loads of loam, bat no systematic and persistent plan of action is adopted and so there is a waste in the barn and a waste under the barn. If yon talk with such a farmer you may be sure he’ll maintain that there’s no profit in farming. He does not see the leaks that might be stopped, or, if he does, they seem so small as to be quite unworthy of notice, while in the aggregate they are eating up his substance, and are the source of all his embarrassments. And ten chances to one he will tell you he wants capital. Can’t farm it without capital. Can’t adopt the improved methods of fanning without capital. We are sometimes tempted to ask: Haven’t you hands and feet, bone and sinew, and brains ? And what are these but capital? What more did God give any man in the way of capital? They are more than money, for they can’t be taken away. If you don’t know how to use them, isn’t it time to begin to learn? Grapple the handles of the plow, the hoe or the ax. Your capital will soon begin to well up interest. Go to work with the capital you have. Stop the leaks about the place. Look after and cut oft the sources of waste on the farm. Save something out of what you earn, be it more or less. If you can’t make money on the capital you have, you couldn’t probably make it if you had a million to work with. A man who doesn’t know how to use bone and muscle, sinew and brains, wouldn’t know how to use gold. If you let such productive power lie idle, it would be the same with capital. The true way is to cultivate a little well rather than much indifferently well. The seeds of many plants, flowers and garden vegetables ought to be sown this month. Parsnips, carrots, peas and some others can hardly be planted too early after the land is dry enough to work. Beets will do as well a trifle later, and for a field crop of mangolds we think about the 10th of May is early enough. Where land was laid down to grass last fall it is a good plan now to sow on clover seed, and if the surface is dry and hard enough a roller will do it good. It presses the seed into the sou and the roots of the grasses that have been thrown a little by the frost. We must take “ time by the forelock,” and keep up even with the spring’s work so far as the weather will allow. Better drive a little ahead than be driven by the work itself.— Massachusetts Ploughman.