Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1892 — FARMS AND FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

FARMS AND FARMERS.

i Editorial Notes. ' Chicago Inter Ocean. —■ Said •& farmer friend to us the other day: “It takes hard labor and everlasting watchfullness to succeed in farming, and all the books and agricultural papers and farmers’ institutes in the world are not worth a copper to take the place iof hard work.” We assented to the truth of his statement. It is all true, but it is not all the truth. There is where our friend deceived himself, and there are thousands of farmers just like him. What he said about the value of labor and watchfulness is just as true in the life of a successful lawyer, banker, or mechanic. Only this, that the farmer has the forces of nature behind him to assist him and they haven’t. If the lawyer makes a mistake in the preparation of his case he does not have the Lord behind him to give a partial victory at least, in spite of his blunder. The same is true with the banker and mechanic. ~.. .. .

There is a difference, of course between the farmer and other classes in the character of their labor, but there is a still greater difference in the way they look at labor. Hard work somehow and somewhere is the price demanded for success in every avocation in life- Too many farmers have given themselves up td the idea that farming was nothing but hard work and drudgery, and so they have surrendered the mind to the body, and not the body to the mind. There must be more intellect in farming, whether there is any less hard work or not. Other classes of men know to start with that they must study hard as well as work hard, or they will fail. They know that right over there is another fellow who will win the prize if they don’t. And so competition amongl themselves has brightened the wits, strengthened the power, and enlarged the rewards of labor and watchfullness among all these classes. — —-—■ The farmer has not been as wise in estimating the forces of life as have other classes in society. They believe in making a scientific study of their business, whereby to secure all the advantages that a* knowledge of scientific principles may give to their hard work. Farmers as a class do not 1 believe in a scientific study of farming. Like the man we quoted at the outset, they set crude labor and watchfulness higher than intelligent labor and watchfulness. To give a little time and study to the science of farming does not mean bhat the farmer will labor and care for his business any less. Education in the science of law or finance, does not make lazy lawyers, doctors or bankers. It simply adds to the effectiveness of their labor and watchfulness. To understand the meaning of agricultural science simply requires that the farmer shall direct his mind to a study of its principles. It will not make him any less a good worker or watcher to know, for instance, the meaning of the terms nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash. These three elements underlie all the fertility of his soil, and it will not make him a better farmer, but rather a poorer one, to refuse to understand them. He does need to go to school to learn about these things, provided he is a man of average, mind.....and can read* All he has to do is to encourage himself in a study of them through books and papers, which can be had very cheaply. Many farmers speak slightly of the study of agricultural chemistry, and ask: ‘‘What good will it do me to know about such things? I have to work, and cau’t spena any time on such matters.” All this amounts to saying: “What good" will it do me to know how to work intelligently. lam a great deal better off to work blindly. Take this little item, which we clip from an exchange: “A twenty-five-bushels crop of wheat takes from the soil thirty-one pounds nitrogen,eight pounds potash, and twelve pounds phosphoric acid. The straw takes up fourteen pounds nitrogen, twenty pounds potash, and six and one-half pounds phosphoric acid. In ten tons of good stable manure there are 146

pounds'nltro^en T niaety-onc pounds potash, and sixty-nibe pounds phosphoric acid. But if there was no waste and if the manure was up to the standard as it should be,it would take rather less than three tons of first rate stable manure to replace the loss of force by raising a moderate wheat crops.’ It required a study of agricultural chemistry on the part of some one to learn those important facts. Here we can see the practical value to the common farmer of a knowledge, toj some degree at least, of the wonder- | fill forces he is dealing with. He is asked to make a study of the principles of his own business because it ' will bring him a greater reward for j his labor, and so promote the great- ■ er prosperity of society at large. For these reasons he should bo the warm . friend of the agricultural school, the agricultural press, the farmers’ in- ■ statute. and all organized efforts for the spread cf agricultural knowledge. Sound Dairy Management. Probably nine hundred and ninety nine out of every thousand oi the average farmers who pretend to keep cows for profit will not agree with the following utterance of Professor Roberts, of the Cornell College Experimental Farm. We judge that they will not agree with him because their practice (and that is the way to tell what a man believes) is opposed to his ad viee.- Let us add that there is not a farmer in the land more intensely practical than Professor Roberts. He is altogether too practical to fool away his time with a poor cow, and to well posted to long remain in ignorance as to whether she is a loss or profit to him. That is the right kind of “practical,” and no farmer has a right to call himself a . practical man who handles his cows on any other theory. Professor Roberts says: “There is a cow at Cornell that made 450 pounds of butter last and one which made but 150 pounds and yet the man who milks them 1 cannot tell which is the best. The difference in cost ot keep of these two cows was comparatively nothing, and yet the 150-pound cow has a pedigree as long as a yardstick. Every dairy on these hills, if subjected to the crucial test, will pan out just the same. Why not? Tney do ever where, and why' should your herds prove an exception? When you have the scales and the tester and are about it, just weigh all the foods you give each cow, I know it will require time, but it will be found good business to do it. This year we are weighing every ounce of food given our herd, to know whore to look for profit and where for loss, so that we can charge up as well as credit up eneh individual account. They have all got to settle. If there shall be a satisfactory balance on the credit side the cow making it will stay and board with us; if it is found on the debit side out she goes to join in the long bologna sausage procession, no matter what she cost nor how extended her pedigree is. ■

The Dairy. A new device for cooling milk is to suspend a jar or bottle filled with pounded ice and salt, just below the surface of the milk, tightly closing the jar but leaving the can uncovered. A two quart jar is said to be sufficient to cool and prevent the of"tte" teii gallon cans most usedfin the large establishments. Canada cheese outclasses and out sells the States cheese in English markets, and Canada butter is fast going toward the front line. Is it all owing to their traveling dairy schools? If it is, the sooner all our butter making States start them the better for us. A large dairyman whose cows go above the “350 pound of butter a year" limit, advises milking all the heifers with their first calf clear up to the time of calving. It fixes the habit of milk production and they will continue in it. A cow that will allow herself to starve in order to gain a reputation for not being unruly will never ba much of a cow. And yet some pasturing farmers seem to demand that of their cows.