Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1891 — FARMS AND FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

FARMS AND FARMERS.

Chicago Inter Ocean. FARM INSTITUTES. Slowly yet surely has a change come over the spirit, and philosophy of American agriculture. The farmer’s life and the distinctive methods of his business have been passing through a process of evolution, notably with the past decade. The object and purpose of this evolution is to intellectualize the farmer. Hitherto he has measured his business, mainly from the stand point of hard work, rather than hard thinking. The natural result has been that he has had more crude labor to sell than skilled effort. Skill is always and invariably the product of close thinking. The farm institute has been one of the great moving agencies in this process of evolution. Its first developement was seen in the agitation of the dairy industry. The dair farmers, at an early date, saw the value of meeting in conventions" and enriching each others judgment of practical dairy work on farm and in factory by clear sharp discussions. As a consequence the dairy industry has acquired organization, knowledge and strength beyond comparison with any other farm interest. No other product is as free from the control and combination of large capital as the product of the cow. By meeting in conventions, they learned to work together. Out of this grew dairy boards of trade, in which the dairy farmers were taught the processes that attend the shipment of butter and cheese clear to the consumer in Europe. By virtue of this knowledge they have retained vqry largely the control of the market. Surely knowledge is power. Seeing all this, how such grand results in the education and destiny of the dairy farmer had come from 'the holding of dairy institutes ; how he had become broadened in the intellect, and persuaded to put thought, judgment and skill where only crude, unthinking labor existed before the earnest friends of American agriculture believed that the same force would help the general farmer. It has done so grandly. Out of the farm institute has come a marvelous quickening of the farm intellect of the whole United States and Canada. Great lessons are yet to be learned in these farm schools. Here, better than elsewhere, will.ythe farmer learn that farming is not a hereditary business. That being born on a farm is just as good for the lawyer, doctor, merchant or editor as it is for the farmer. That to be successful in farming in these days a man must use his brain more than his hands; he must think out his task before he works it out. That if he would win the respect of the rest of society he must first master the principles of his profession. Every true farmer should uphold and advocate the farm institute. HOWTO MAINTAIN FERTILITY. There has never been a time in the history of American agriculture when as much good, honest thought was directed to the question of fertility as new. Western farmers, as a rule, have been living off the stored up fertility of the ages before settlement. But small crops and low prices haV# opened their eyes to the fact that they were burning the candle at both ends. Consequently we hear the question, “Men and b.’eth! ren, what shall we do to be saved” from the effects of our past folly? a great deal more than we used to. That is encouraging. The abandoned farms of Vermont and other New England States have come to their fallen estate through bad farming and a blind waste of -fertility-. The same fate will come sooner or later to the Western farmer unless he takes warning in time. A writer in the Rural New Yorker of August 15 gives some good advice on the question of crop management so as to strengthen a neglected farm. There is much of sound wisdom and good farming in the article. He says:

The chemical fertilizers and clover sod are not used in the same season, but each fills a place in the rotation. Starting this rotation on the farm described in these articles, the ground would be plowed and fertilized heavily with chemical manured in the drill. The potatoes would be dug early and the ground fitted for wheat and seeded with that grain and timothy. In the spring clover would be sowed. After the wheat crop had been harvested two years’ crops of grass would be cut. After haying the second year all the sthble manure on the place would be hauled out and spread over the grass sod. This causes a large second crop to grow, die, and rot down. In the spring the whole mass of grass, manure, anfl sod, with what other manure had been made on the place, would be plowed under and fined up for the corn crop. The next year, after the corn, the ground would again be planted iu potatoes, with another heavy dressing of fertilizer. The clover sod and the fertilizer do not come exactly together therefore —there is one season between them. The corn plant feeds on the sod and the manure plowed into the ground-. The substance it leaves in the soil is not unlike the manure made by an animal feCd on hay. The animal takes a portion of the nutriment in the hay to make growth ahd sustain /life, or provide milk, or perform iwork. What is left of the food passes away as manure in much the same condition as the grass and sod that have been acted upon by the heat. Trost, water, and the roots of the corn plants. By adding grain to the Jhay fed to animals more of the nutriment is passed away in the man-

ure, which is consequently made richer, and by adding soluble chemicals to the decayed sod the plantfood for the potatoes is perfected. Much of the objection that some farmers have for chemical fertilizers arises from the fact that they do not stop to consider that the elements that make stable manure “rich" are precisely the same as are found in fertilizers. Mitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash are the substances that give value to both. The solid parts of stable manure . are undigested food, the forces that have acted upon them being little or no stronger than the air, heat, cold, and moisture that work over the sod in the field. The plant food in liquid manures is digested and ready for immediate use. So is that in highgrade fertilizers, being found either in naturally soluble compounds or in substances that have been acted upon by powerful acids. The decayed sod, therefore, is stronger than manure made from hay, while the chemicals are more soluble than the undigested grain in the stable manure.

HOW TO COMPOUND A RATION. These are the days “so long foretold" when the close practical work of the experiment station is driving guess work out of farming, and men are beginning to hunt for a reason for the hope that is within them. Quite naturally the methods practiced at the stations involve the use of somewhat scientific terms, but the meaning of these terms are simple enough when understood. A revolution has taken place in the art of feeding animals, and we hear a great deal about compounding a well-baL anced ration and about figuring out the nutritive ratio of different foods. Men who have not made such things a study feel confused, and no doubt get discouraged in the work of determining theiy course under such direotions. The other day Mr. Munson, in a New York meeting, spoke a few plain words on this subject which are worthy of wide reading. He said: “It may be we shall be forced to buy some food in order to proper ly balance the ration for our animals. For instance: I have timothy hay, wheat, straw, and some corn; what shall I add, and in what proportion? I must first know what the chemical constituents are of the foods 1 have and those I am to buy to intelligently compound them. These constituents may be known by addressing a postal card to any of our experiment stations and asking for a bulletin giving the information. By refer ence to that I can easily determine what I must add to my straw, hay and corn, because I know that a good dairy ration should be as Ito 5. If we can learn this ourselves we shall not be under the necessity of writing to one of the agricultural papers or to the chemist of some station every time we want to make a change in our feeding rations. Besides, we shall find it much more satisfactory and much cheaper.