Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1875 — Fall Farming. [ARTICLE]

Fall Farming.

If every farmer could do just as well as he knows how to do farming would be a different tiling from what it now is. It is a very easy thing to say to a farmer: “Here, if you know how to raise heavy crops, why don’t you do it ? If you know that blooded stock is more profitable than scrubs, why don’t you manage to get blooded animals* Why don’t you have the best of fruit and lots ot it to sell? Why don’t you have big piles of compost in every field ready to spread out over the hungry soil? Why don’t you have a fat steer, hog or sheep to sell in October, November, December, January, February and March S" These and many other questions are easily asked; and almost every fanner would, make ready answer, but the reasons would be as varied as the circumstances of each, or the condition ot the land on which each man operates. While the rules and laws of farming are to a certain extent of general application; while the American farmer studies Liebig and Johnston, the experiments of Lawes* and Gilbert as well as the writings of his own countrymen and the practical tests made in his own climate, yet he finds that he can use only a certain portion of the truths and tests and examples brought out. Plowing the land for crops, or cultivating it in some way to a given depth to give plants a foot-hold, is a general-necessity, a universal - practice; but are all soils equally benefited by working at any certain season? Is fall plowing equally beneficial and profitable on all soils? Fall plowing of clays and clay-loams seems to be the readiest and cheapest way of getting such soils into a fine condition for receiving the seeds of spring grains. The frequent freezings and thawings act upon the physical structure of the soil in a way similar to that of the harrow or cultivator, in reducing the mass to a fine tilth, and, very little labor is needed in preparing in the spring this fall-plowed land.

'As sandy lands are not tenacious, and are so easily brought into a fine condition, fall plowing is not considered so important; yet there are reasons which are worth considering in favor of fall-plowing of all lands; (1.) The weather is cool and teams are strong and in good flesh for work—neither too thin nor too fat. (2.) The land is nearly always in just {the right condition as to moisture and dryness to work to the best advantage. (3.) Fall plowing is destructive of the cut-worm, which so often takes the first planting of corn. (4.) It completely destroys sorrel by exposing its roots to the frost and sun. (5.) It enables the farmer to get Ids spring crops into the ground earlier than he possibly could if the plowing had to be done in spring. These are important considerations and deserve attention now. Fall pasturing of meadows is practiced by some farmers, and we are sure it must lie done contrary to their better knowledge and judgment. Meadows pastured in the fall prove failures in the following season in all cases,we may venture to assert. We know of nothing so hurtful as dose cropping of grass lands in the fall. Nothing can redeem the practice from the stigma of bad fanning but spreading over them just before winter a good coating of rotted manure and then the lands to be harrowed in the spring. Though corn is hardening up finely during the present warm, dry weather, yet the husking and storing of this crop will lie late at best,-owing to the green and soft condition it was in when the first frosts seared the leaves. It will not be safe to crib it until cool weather comes, except irf rare cases of early ripening. Fall dairying proves one of the most profitable interests of the farm. The fine butter which the rich clover with pumpkins and a little bran and corn-meal turu out makes a very attrtictive product in market and yields a very fair profit indeed. But to make a salable article one wants good butter cows as well as to be a good butter-maker. — Detroit Tribune.