Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1859 — A wORD TO FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

A wORD TO FARMERS.

I. For the Kjuis-clafr Gazette.

Mr. Davies: As I was wending my way to town, the other day, I came accross one of our largest farmers, and our road, for some distance, being the same, we fell into conversation. The bright sun was shining above and all around us nature lay smiling in her, beams. , It was natural, particularly at this season o( the year, that the interests of the husbandman should be our theme. “Well,” I remarked to my, companion, “I suppose you are busily engaged with the weak upon your harm!” ‘Mo, I am not doing anything yet. I should like to put in some oats and spring wheat, hut f can't; my land is yet too wet. I must wait until it dries." There it is! That is the grand secret why jt is. we so often fail in our crops. We must “waif until our land dries.” I ask any of my brother fanners, can this he anything hut a revicious practice, Our oats and whent

ought to have been in the ground two weeks ago, and would have been if during last fall, or in the winter, we had cut that drain in the fine field that has, for years past, been begging us to relieve it from its “dead and alive’’ condition. Yes we must wait oftentimes for two or three weeks past the regular season for sowing and planting, that our ground may dry sufficiently, and then, if we do not raise a lull crop, attribute our failure to bad luck, or the frowns of a benificent Providence. Broteher farmers, We must mend our ways! \V e never can succeed, as agriculturalist, in tiiis “slipvshod” way. We must take care ol out; farms or our farms will not take care of us. We must ditch more. We must save the two or three weeks we now loose in the spring. Suppose that our farms had been well ditched and drained last spring, would we have been in the half-starving condition we now are! Common sense and all experience assure us that we would not. Have you any wheat to sell, neighbor! Have you any corn, or anything else to feed man or beast, to sell! You need not answer. Look at th-at poor, miserable scallawag that you expect to help do your spring work—two of him would make a respectable shadow. Look at your milch cows and your work cattle—walking specimens of anatomy! Here is an answer that dives deeply into .your pockets, and ought to haunt your midnight dreams. \ou are robbing yourselves and your families by such miserable mismanagement. Fat cattle, sleek horses, well clad and well educated children, and happy homes, may all be had in Jasper, but you must ditch. There is a gold mine on every farm in our county to be 'had for ditching. We must ditch every pond, every marsh, every wet field, and th in, my word for can have lull garners and money in the till.

SNOOKS.