SINGLE-CROP FARMING.Itis extensively the practice of large farmers, to put their whole force upon one staple article; a style of farming as full of risk, as it would be to invest a whole fortune in one kind of property. At the South, we have cotton plantations; nothing but cotton is raised. If the market and the season happen to be propitious, enormous profits are made. If markets, or the planting or picking season are adverse, the year is lost; for it was staked on one article; all the risks of the year, instead of being distributed, were concentrated. Another plantation cultivates sugar exclusively; and the ambitious planter has his pockets full or empty, according to chances which he cannot foresee, calculate, or overrule.At the North, some farmers put in nothing but wheat; others, nothing but corn. One relies on the hay crop; another makes or loses a year’s profits on cattle. In each case, if the staple raised happens tohit, in every respect profits roll in like a flood. But such operations leave no margin for those casualties, and annual changes, which are inevitable.Ireland, relying upon the potato as a support for a large mass of its poverty-stricken people, is visited with famine if this crop is shaken. The failure of the grain crop, in England, strikes panic into the whole nation.A perfect system of agriculture should have in itself, a balancing power. There should be such a distribution of crops that a farmer may have four or five chances instead of one. To be sure, a farmer cannot drive so large a business—cut such a swath—where five small or moderate operations take the place of a single great one. Five years of moderate profits are better than one gaining year and four years to eat it up. A farmer has 160 acres—sixty are in wood: of the one hundred cleared acres, saytwentyare used for home lots, pasture, corn, etc., andeightyare inwheat. The fall may be bad for planting, the spring may be bad, the fly may take the crop or the rust may strike it; escaping all these, the weevil may damage it; and, after all this, it may not bring a justifying price when got to market. Is it wise for a man to put his yearly support or gains upon one crop and that one crop depending upon six or seven contingencies? If there is a large cropandhigh prices, he makes largely. Eighty acres at thirty bushels the acre yields 2,400 bushels, worth, say, seventy cents, or $1,680 gross receipts. Elated beyond measure, the lucky fellow buys some forty acres more of cleared land, reduces his pasture, shaves of a portion from his meadow, plants a few acres only of corn, and puts every inch he can command into wheat; a good operation if he can find guaranty for as good seasons and as good market as before. But there are at least ten chances against for one in favor.A farm which depends for its profit on butter, cheese, fruit, timber, cattle, hogs, corn, wheat, potatoes, flax, etc., makes, perhaps, but a little on each crop; but the rains that come indropsare useful, while those that come intorrentsand raise freshets, leave great mischief behind.Ticks on Sheep.—A clergyman, who was early in life a regular-built shepherd, after the old-fashioned style, living with his flock, requests us to call the attention of all interested in sheep, to the prevention of ticks adopted “in the place he came from.” A trough, large enough to hold a sheep, was filled with a decoction of tobacco; as soon as the sheep are sheared, they are plunged all over in, except the nose and mouth (these organs being sacred to chewers and snuffers). The lambs are treated in the same way, and a world of trouble to the owner and yet more to the flock, is saved by this nauseous bath.
Itis extensively the practice of large farmers, to put their whole force upon one staple article; a style of farming as full of risk, as it would be to invest a whole fortune in one kind of property. At the South, we have cotton plantations; nothing but cotton is raised. If the market and the season happen to be propitious, enormous profits are made. If markets, or the planting or picking season are adverse, the year is lost; for it was staked on one article; all the risks of the year, instead of being distributed, were concentrated. Another plantation cultivates sugar exclusively; and the ambitious planter has his pockets full or empty, according to chances which he cannot foresee, calculate, or overrule.
At the North, some farmers put in nothing but wheat; others, nothing but corn. One relies on the hay crop; another makes or loses a year’s profits on cattle. In each case, if the staple raised happens tohit, in every respect profits roll in like a flood. But such operations leave no margin for those casualties, and annual changes, which are inevitable.
Ireland, relying upon the potato as a support for a large mass of its poverty-stricken people, is visited with famine if this crop is shaken. The failure of the grain crop, in England, strikes panic into the whole nation.
A perfect system of agriculture should have in itself, a balancing power. There should be such a distribution of crops that a farmer may have four or five chances instead of one. To be sure, a farmer cannot drive so large a business—cut such a swath—where five small or moderate operations take the place of a single great one. Five years of moderate profits are better than one gaining year and four years to eat it up. A farmer has 160 acres—sixty are in wood: of the one hundred cleared acres, saytwentyare used for home lots, pasture, corn, etc., andeightyare inwheat. The fall may be bad for planting, the spring may be bad, the fly may take the crop or the rust may strike it; escaping all these, the weevil may damage it; and, after all this, it may not bring a justifying price when got to market. Is it wise for a man to put his yearly support or gains upon one crop and that one crop depending upon six or seven contingencies? If there is a large cropandhigh prices, he makes largely. Eighty acres at thirty bushels the acre yields 2,400 bushels, worth, say, seventy cents, or $1,680 gross receipts. Elated beyond measure, the lucky fellow buys some forty acres more of cleared land, reduces his pasture, shaves of a portion from his meadow, plants a few acres only of corn, and puts every inch he can command into wheat; a good operation if he can find guaranty for as good seasons and as good market as before. But there are at least ten chances against for one in favor.
A farm which depends for its profit on butter, cheese, fruit, timber, cattle, hogs, corn, wheat, potatoes, flax, etc., makes, perhaps, but a little on each crop; but the rains that come indropsare useful, while those that come intorrentsand raise freshets, leave great mischief behind.
Ticks on Sheep.—A clergyman, who was early in life a regular-built shepherd, after the old-fashioned style, living with his flock, requests us to call the attention of all interested in sheep, to the prevention of ticks adopted “in the place he came from.” A trough, large enough to hold a sheep, was filled with a decoction of tobacco; as soon as the sheep are sheared, they are plunged all over in, except the nose and mouth (these organs being sacred to chewers and snuffers). The lambs are treated in the same way, and a world of trouble to the owner and yet more to the flock, is saved by this nauseous bath.