0: ur r armin Tffjisy JUL JL4-&wA,w JL HArisUsi Liv^Mvy Covne IRew IPorfc Si 11 XHniversit£ Uibrar\> OF THE tate Collcae of Hgriculture *P.\.cd[!l 584 Cornell University Library S 501.T33 Our farming; or, How we have made a run-d 3 1924 001 006 927 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924001006927 Our Farming; OR, How We Have Made a Run-down Farm Bring Both Profit and Pleasure. Potato, Wheat and Clover Culture, Tillage, Til^ Drainage, Manure Saving, etc., etc. Treated Independently from A to Z. BY T. E. TERRY. Published by The Farmer Company, Philadelphia 1893 (Catered according to Act of Congress !n the year 1893, by The Farmer Company, iF ^ t ^ ie ^ ast c hapter you have the first beginning of our special farming. You cannot help but see it paid better than the regular diversified plan we had been following — the common way. If you will excuse me for saying it of myself, I had put a little study and thought into my work. Some- one has said : ' ' Work is the engine which draws the car of suc- cess." Well, that is a very good motto, but it can be improved on. Work, hard work, early and late, plenty of it, did not of it- self bring success to us. I,et me draw a picture for you. Here is a huge car labeled " Success." In front of it stands a power- ful locomotive, and written over it is "Work." Is the picture complete ? No. You want a skilled engineer in the cab with his hand on the lever and his eye looking ahead. Over him we will print in big letters "Thought." Then we have the corrected motto : ' ' Thought is the skilled engineer who directs the engine work which draws the car of success." In other words, well- directed labor pays. This is just as true on the farm as else- where. I am not claiming that my labor has been wonderfully well directed, but rather the more we studied and thought the better it paid. When we got up to an income of $ 1,000 or so a year, we were not satisfied at all, but rather stimulated to study harder. I knew then about what it cost me to raise each crop, and it was easy to see what ones paid best. I remember very well the first potatoes raised to sell. The first load was taken to town and traded for a supply of flour. The profit on them was large, even with our very crude methods of culture, and only growing them in a small way. The quality was good. My soil seemed well adapted to potato-growing. Akron, quite a good market, was within driving distance (twelve miles). I decided that I could make still more money by gradually working out of the cattle wintering and feeding business and devoting my entire strength and time to potatoes and wheat to sell. I first thought to continue keeping some stock winters, but soon found that to pay it must have my close personal attention, and if I grew pota- toes largely and wheat there would not be hay or other feed enough to make it worth my while, particularly as cattle-feeding was not paying nearly as well as formerly. Now, do not imagine for a moment that I made any hasty changes, or large ones. No, I had done well so far, and every new move was made with the (39) 40 — Our Farming. greatest caution and only after much figuring. After deciding on the potato business as the one I could do best with, I did not raise hardly any at first. My land was not ready. The lots were not in proper shape, nor were they cleaned up for tillage, and the much needed drainage was not done. But after a general plan was decided on every move counted toward the end in view. Meanwhile, something was being made out of cattle- feeding. When matters began to be in shape to promise reasonable success I put in some five acres of potatoes. That seemed like a big thing then. Of course, all the work was done the first year in a costly way. We had little experience. I led the horse while my man plowed out furrows with a one-horse plow. The seed was dropped and covered by hand, and they were hoed by hand. There were two acres of early potatoes, Early Rose, and about three of Peach- blow. In spite of the great cost of raising the crop, the early ones paid me some $20 an acre clear net profit above all cost of production and use of land. I figured closely, and knew to a half cent a bushel what they cost. This was quite encouraging, as I got good pay for all my labor and that of my horses, besides the profit. But I have a worse report to make of the Peachblows. They did well; I had a fine crop. They could have been sold readily for forty cents a bushel at digging time, and would have paid as well as the early ones or better, but eveiybody said, "You had better hold them. They will be much higher in the spring. I would not sell any for less than fifty cents a bushel." Well, I had no experience, but wanted all I could get, kept them, and never got out of them one-half what it cost to raise them. This was discouraging, but I had not gone into it very largely and could see it was a fault of judgment and not the business that made the trouble, and I pushed on. As I remember, some seven to eight acres were put in the next year, and I began to work and study over cheapening production. Well, we made a perfect suc- cess all around, selling and all, and an increased net profit. Thus the business grew, and we began also raising wheat after potatoes to seed with. Of course, we did not do the best possible at first, but we kept steadily figuring and working until there seemed to be no chance for further improvement. Our rotation at first was not the best, but was good. It was : 1. Timothy and clover. 2 . Timothy and clover. 3. Wheat. 4. Potatoes, mostly late ones. 5. Early potatoes. 6. Wheat. This was when we had the manure from animals wintered to put on potato land, or was expecting to have it. The sod fur- nished the wheat fertility enough ; manure, as far as we had it, What We Have Done. — 41 fed the potatoes, and we saved some injury from cut worms, etc., that we then had on a two-year-old sod. The manuring and cul- tivation of potato ground would bring a good crop of wheat the sixth year. All this has been greatly improved on, as you will find in chapters on Potato Culture elsewhere. My first crop of wheat yielded only twenty-three bushels per acre, but the next was much larger, as we came to know more about the business, and, by the way, we have never grown a smaller crop than that first one in all these years. Of course, as we increased the number of acres of potatoes planted, we did less at cattle-feeding, until one-third of our cul- tivated land was in potatoes each year, and one-third in wheat, and the same amount in timothy and clover or clear clover. When that point was at last reached, we had arrived at the condition of affairs we had long been aiming for ; and, friends, the actual cash returns surpassed the wildest figures I had ever put on paper. At first, of course, we did not do the best that could be done. I will give you the exact figures for two years after we got well under way. They are taken from our Ohio Agricultural Report for 1882 and 1883, and are for the years 1881 and 1882. The State Board offered a prize of $50 for ' ' The best accepted detailed re- port of the best and most profitably managed farm of 50 acres or more." We sent in a report of our farming and got the $50. These figures are from that Report, and are correct to a dollar, and actual cash sales, except where noted afterwards. 1881. L'ot 1, 6 acres ; Crop, Early Potatoes, 531 bushels, sold for .... $471.00 Lots 2 and 3, 5 j£ and 6 acres ; Crop, Hay, 45 tons, two cuttings, sold, fed out on place, for $8 per ton 360.00 Lot 4, 6 acres ; 5^ acres Potatoes, 869 bushels ; }4 acre Squashes, sold for $80 967.00 Lots 5 and 6, 6 and 5^ acres ; Wheat, 38 bushels per acre, sold for $ 1. 50 per bushel, and Straw $92 747.00 Total receipts from 35 acres $2,545.00 1882. Lots i and 6 ; Crop, Wheat; 35 bushels per acre, sold for $1.15 ; 7 tons Rawen at $8, and Straw $587.00 LOTS 3 and 5 ; Crop, Hay, 30 tons at $8 per ton ; 6 acres Clover Seed . and Straw, $90 330.00 Lot 2 ; 5 acres Potatoes, 950 bushels, sold for $424 ; % acre Squashes, for $120 , 544.00 Lot 4 ; Potatoes, 1,180 bushels, sold for 571.00 Total receipts from 35 acres $2,032.00 1 88 1 was a very dry season, you will remember, when pota- toes were generally a failure in Ohio and wheat was pretty poor. 42 — Our Farming. The yield was not large, but they brought a large price. Those from I£ to 3 inches thick, the latter, I believe, being enough for horses even. I would use clean gravel and sand with no soil in it. I would lay right on the solid, settled earth, with- out any base of stones, as was once thought necessary. Of course, T;he floor must be dry and well drained, and it must be solid. If it settles in spots it may crack the cement. I have seen one thus injured. I would use best Portland cement myself. It costs more, but I believe will be cheapest in the end. I have seen good gutters behind cows laid of this grouting of gravel and sand and cement. The corners were rounded off a little. I laid a floor in my horse stable of pavement blocks (burned clay) bed- ded in cement (Portland) and cement in all joints. It is six inches thick. If a roof is kept over it, it will be there after I am forgotten, but it was unnecessarily costly. It cost, with expert labor hired to lay it, $20 per box stall of about ten feet by twelve. I could have built a floor of gravel and cement for half that, and good enough. But a cement floor costs money, even if one does the work himself. I might tell you how we did at first, when we had no money. That first winter when I came on the farm and had those nine cows, I fixed to save all my manure. I knew it was farm food, and my farm was sadly hungry. I went to the edge of swamp where there was some tough, blue clay, and dug out some, and drew up and spread over stable floor. Then I wet it slightly and tramped and pounded it — puddled it — until it would hold water perfectly, and then I covered it with old boards to shovel on and keep cows from displacing it. This was a pretty crude floor, but it saved the liquid manure all the same. The horse stable had a plank floor, in fairly good order, and I got some pine boards jointed and nailed down crosswise, so they practically prevented any waste of liquid when swelled, by keep- ing horses well bedded. But the clay floor was not very nice or lasting. It would dry up and crack in summer. My first ad- Vance was to build a floor for cows of lumber and gas tar. This 144 — Our Farming. was, of course, a temporary affair in our old barn. It was effective for about eight years. It was built right on ground in basement. Would last much longer up from the ground. Some such plan may be best to-day for a stable above ground. This floor cost me about $2 per cow for material and labor, about the same that a cement floor would cost now. But lumber would cost much less in some sections, and cement more, or gravel be hard to get. This made a real good floor, I can assure you, while it lasted, and paid for itself several times over. As we built it, A A were two-inch white oak planks, 12 inches wide; B B, 2 x 2-inch oak strips, spiked on planks and bedded in lead and oil; C C, 4 x 4-inch scantlings bedded into ground to nail boards to for the floor. The cross-boards in the gutter were of one-inch pine 26 inches long, which made gutter when finished about 8 inches by 24. For these cross-boards and for the floor I used pine barn boards, all 1 2 inches wide, which saved trouble in breaking joints. The boards running lengthwise, shown at E, were put in for convenience in shoveling. We put a coat of hot coal tar between each course of boards in the bottom and side of gutter, and between the two courses of floor, filling every crack T3 □ C C A Section of Stable Floor and Gutter. full, and this, together with care in breaking joints, made a water tight job. This floor and gutter was used with stanchions for fas- tenings. I preferred a deep gutter, as cows are not as apt to stand in it, and one can keep them cleaner, and in case of a bad storm we were not obliged to clean out stables every day. In fact, to save money, I did not often clean them every day, anyway. I found a man would be nearly as long wheeling out one day's manure as two, that is, getting at it and over it and all. It cost me about as much. I had to make labor count in those days and figured close. A little dry muck or land plaster used often will keep the manure from fouling the air. Mr. Gilbert, President of New York Dairyman's Association, who keeps many cows, told me last winter that he used a deep gutter, about three times as deep as this, and had an iron grate over it for cows to stand on. They work manure through the grate with their hind feet, and he only cleans this out when full. Now he makes fancy butter and gets high prices, and his stable must be sweet and clean. He uses land plaster on the floors and grate and in this gutter by the ton. This is the secret. There is no need whatever of cleaning a stable daily, or oftener, if one does not wish to, if he manages rightly. Manure Saving. — 145 Right here I may as well tell how I manage my horse stalls. They are not cleaned every day and are not filthy either ; in fact, they are nearly as sweet and clean as our house. I do not quite mean that, but I do mean they are so free from foul odors, even in hot weather, that coming in from out doors you would seldom notice any difference in the purity of the air. This is good for man and beast. We have box-stalls, but can tie up two horses in each, jf need be. Taking ofte of these box -stalls when cleaned out we will put in a lot of dry straw, say a foot deep. The straw is right overhead, kept there when we thresh, so it is dry and handy. The next morning, and every morning afterwards until it is full, we spread the manure, which maybe mostly in one place, around evenly with a fork, level the surface up well, sprinkle it with land plaster, a pint or so to a stall^ and then get clown fresh straw and spread all over. We do about the same at night. Thus treated, the top is always dry and clean, foul gases do not rise, to speak of; it is a soft floor for horses to stand on, the manure is all saved in a perfect way and can be wheeled out all at once some rainy day. It saves so much choring. No harm has ever come to horses' feet. Of course, the abuse of this plan might make a filthy mess of it. This is no sudden whim, but the way we have done practically for many years — the very best way I know of, for myself. I assure any reader without ex- perience in saving all the manure from his horses, and a very- few do, that we make about twice as many loads per horse in a year, by weight, and each load is worth nearly twice as much. This is just about the truth of the matter. After taking out to one side the top straw, which is dry, we wheel out heavy, solid manure, entirely saturated with urine, never fire-fanged in the least, all from having an absolutely water-tight floor beneath. When horses run loose in a box-stall they tramp it so that in connection with the wetting from urine, it heats scarcely at all in midsummer. If they were tied it would not do as well. Ours are always loose nights, if tied day times. We do not wheel out until the manure begins to be in the way or raises the horse too much for him to eat comfortably out of the manger. The man- gers were built with the bottom up a foot from floor. I have not found a single objection to this plan in practice and much in its favor. It would be impossible to keep a stable with cracks in floors as sweet if cleaned every' hour. Few tight floors cleaned daily are as free from foul odors. I once was on jury a week in a city hall that was built over a fire engine house. Great care was taken to keep the stables clean, but the stench in the hall above was worse than you will often find in my barn. I can hardly Speak too highly of the use of land plaster as an absorbent of gases. If you have not tried it you are missing something valuable. It costs here about $1 per barrel of 250 pounds and I always keep it on hand. It not only absorbs the gases, but 146 — Our Farming. saves them for a fertilizer. It takes but little. Two or three barrels will answer very well in our horse stable for one summer. But now we have the manure all saved from waste in the stable, what shall we do with it when we take it out ? If it is thrown out under eaves, or where much rain water will leach through it, we shall lose much of what we have worked so hard inside to save. Not a few say now, " Draw it directly to the field as you take it from the stable." Where the conditions are right this is a good practice. On land where there will be no waste from washing, and particularly to put on a sod for corn, this is an excellent way to do, and still I believe there is a better, as spoken of in the last subject treated, clover. I am very strong in the opinion that our manure can be used to best advantage on our renovating crop. I know there are advantages in drawing manure out fresh during the winter. Many would save loss in the yard and get work done and out of the way, and done when time was of little value, still it does not necessarily follow that this is the wisest plan. I certainly would never do it where there was danger of surface wash. There is danger on my farm, I know. I spread manure early in March, once, on land that is nearly level, and where the wash was across twelve acres of wheat below, also nearly level, and a large quantity of colored water reached the swamp below, when snow went off with a heavy rain. I waded around in it and could have kicked myself with a right good will for being such a fool. Some say the manure water, passing over soil, all fertility will be taken up. All bosh! This will do to talk, but a close observer in the field knows better. Possibly this might be the case if the wash was an even flow all over a field, but it is not often. It flows off in little rills, finally collecting into a larger stream usually; and most of the fertility goes with it, that is, what water can leach out. Some writers have claimed that colored water is not manure. Absorbents take up the urine in my stable and hold it. I draw the manure out and spread it Does any one doubt that rain falling on it will wash that urine out of the straw ? A neighbor manured a quite level clay field last spring. Late in March I rode by there in a heavy rain and a large stream of colored water was running off of the field and into a nearby creek. There is no question but that he was meeting with considerable loss. Some put the manure in small piles when they draw it out, partly to save washing. I haven't a word to say in favor of this practice. I would not do it. They will waste around the edges and the leachings will make the ground beneath over rich. There are farms where manure can be safely spread on the surface at any time, but there are many where it can not be, and I have one. I was obliged to save it in some other way, and I would not spread now in winter if I could, for reasons given in clover chapter. Now, how could I best save it in the yard until the suitable ime for me to get it out ? I first did it by careful piling, away Manure Saving. — 147 from the eaves and surface wash. But we must be careful when we pile manure, as it will heat and cause loss of ammonia. To prevent excessive heating I tramped the pile, or rather encouraged the cows to do it for me. All I had to do was to put a couple .of rubbing posts on top of the pile, which was broad, and while they were out in the yard they would patronize them every time. It made me some extra trouble in cleaning up around the pile. With care in cleaning up before a rain, we in this way saved our manure in the yard without much loss. There was some. It was not a perfect way, but it was the best we could do. For a time we composted it with muck, as will be told of in a chapter under that head. It was used in the fall to put on our next year potato land. Now we want to keep the manure till July, when it goes on the young clover where the wheat has been taken off. What we want is a simple, perfect way of keeping it in the yard until it is wanted, without loss. We have it in the shape of a roof over a small barnyard. It is simple, practical, perfect, and answers for other uses besides saving the manure. We have sel- dom invested any money that gave more real pleasure. It comes next to taking the water out of a frog pond and making it produce a bounteous, useful crop. For forty years before I came here the drainage from the barnyard went down into a cat swamp near by. There is no drainage now, not a drop. The fertility goes where I want it. Do not get the idea that this roof is over a great large yard and is extravagant and not practical. We have about 34x70 feet covered, which is sufficient for our purpose. The stable doors open right into it, of course, and from them the ground is graded down slightly so the most of the yard is some 18 inches below the level of stable. This gives a chance for the accumulation of a good deal of manure before it is level full. It is spread all over the floor, of course, evenly, and we walk and drive right over it. It is -never piled. This gives us all the yard to use just as though no manure was there. I will give you plans and pictures in an- other chapter entitled Our Barn. The covered yard has a ground floor. A cement one is not needed, as no rain falls on manure and there is no leaching. When we begin to wheel out manure we cover ground with wheat chaff and put manure on it, which prevents any possible loss. Plenty of straw is always used in the stable to absorb all liquids. If manure is spread evenly, in thin layers, in winter, and tramped by any stock in yard, it will not heat any. So there is no loss upwards. In summer our horse manure needs a little sprinkling as it is spread, and then we use a little land plaster on top after it is all out, and take a horse and tramp it down some. A little dry straw is thrown over the top when all done, to make it clean to pass over and keep it from drying. This is a little work, but we do it rainy days, and it makes good manure. In the hottest weather there is no fire fanging whatever of manure in this shed. It is 148 — Our Farming. saved perfectly. But it must be handled as I say, and tramped. We manage so as to keep the air from it mostly. Pile it up and it would be steaming in a few hours. We do not dump the wheelbarrow all in a place, but spread the load with fork. It is worth the care to us. We have water in the yard, of course. The well dug by the old barn is 130 feet from the place where we wanted to draw water in the new one. We draw it that far readily, with pump. Particulars in another chapter CHAPTER XVIII MANURE (CONTINUED). F we kept cattle now we could turn out, say, ten head at once in our covered yard to drink and stir around a little. In any ordinary weather, I would prefer this to watering in the barn. A covered yard large enough to turn out forty or fifty head at once would be rather expensive. One can change his practices a little to fit new conditions. I did this way years ago, so as to have a small open yard and better save manure. It is quite a job to get out this manure after it has been tramped over so much, where long straw is used. It comes up harder than out of a pile. It would be worse yet if we fed long corn fodder. But all good things want to go together. With the covered yard I would put the corn in the silo, if I kept stock, or cut the fodder, at least. Then there would be no trouble with the manure, and it could be made to pay otherwise. The way I man- age to get manure out is to have my man shake it up with a fork while I am gone out to spread a load with the manure spreader. _ He can just about do this, and then it is in shape to handle faster. Two of us can load the spreader quickly. If taken up in tough, large flakes, the spreader could not handle it. Shook up fine in this way it spreads this strawy manure very well, well enough to not smother young clover. If stock are let out to run and exer- cise on the manure from day to day, it helps about the spreading. They break it up a good deal -by tramping. I have noticed that a load taken fresh from the stable did not spread nearly as well. There is a good deal in loading just right, too, as one will learn by experience. We have used a spreader ever since they first came around, some ten years, and could no more think of doing without now than we could rake hay by hand. It is just like this : The team can spread a load in about two minutes, while I am resting. I like that better than working hard myself for a much longer time. I would like to sit still and drive while the horses did the loading, too. But the machine spreads better than it is practicable to do by hand. It pays me in this line alone, and it spreads a load on just the same ground every time. If I set it for fifteen loads to acre, I get just that, no more or less. Again, it will spread a very light coat, even five or ten loads per acre. Who can do that practically by hand ? In top dressing I some- times want to make a little manure go a good ways. There is much in the spreading of manure very finely. Before I got a (i49) 150 — Our Farming. spreader, I always took great pains in this respect, and Harrowed and bushed after the best hand work. I would like to wear the manure all out, so you could hardly find a trace of it. One can thus make the most out of it, beyond all question. And still I see many fields roughly covered and plowed under in this shape. Often, I believe, I could get twice as much out of it. I want fine manure with fine tillage. I would like a trace of it in every square inch of soil, if possible. How very far short of this many come. The spreader does not seem to give satisfaction on very large farms, where they have a long distance to draw, as it does not hold load enough. However, I believe a larger size is now made than the one I have. It is all right in this respect on my little farm, with fields mostly right around the barn. It will not work well on side-hill farms, if they are too steep to go up and down. On ordinary rolling land it need not draw hard. My lightest horses will handle it readily. But it must be in order, or it may be a regular horse killer. It must be well oiled and cared for, and kept under cover when not in use. It is no small job to get it thoroughly oiled in every place, and some will not take the trouble. We get ours out under the covered yard some rainy day beforehand, and get it in perfect order when we are not in a hurry. This is not an advertisement, but a farmer's experience: I bought mine of an agent at wholesale price, for cash down, and have never met one of the firm or had a letter from them. Tools are sometimes sent me to try, but always with the agreement that I may say just what I think about them after trial, and many have been sent back, and the reasons given in my articles in the papers. Our yard is sheltered by barn and tool house on north and west sides, and planked up seven feet on east and south sides and then open five feet above to let in air and sun. It is about twelve feet high on one side and fourteen on the other (nearly flat roof, covered with tin), just high enough to answer our purpose. We had plenty of storage room in main barn , and had no need of moreover covered yard. Some farmers, if building one, might to advantage build higher and use room overhead for storing straw, fodder, etc. The method of supporting roof can be seen from picture given, which was published in The Practical Farmer a year or two ago. We have three posts in the middle, and the beams are sup- ported in other places by iron rods, three-quarters of an inch in diameter. Our tin roof has never troubled any, only needs to be kept painted. A light coat of boiled oil and Iron-clad paint is best, once in two or three years. It should not be too thick or it may peel. You should particularly notice that the yard is open to the east and south — the warm direction — and sun can and does shine in and across yard in the morning freely and part way across at noon. A dark, gloomy yard would not suit me, any more than a dark stable with no sunshine. Also remember that the manure 152 — Our Farming. within is covered with enough absorbent, always, to make it dry and decent. Thank God that I am out of the mud around my home. No more wading in filthy barnyards. Slippers can go now where once rubber boots were needed. Some have built a roof over yard and enclosed it entirely. For example, Hon. J. C. Thornton, near F,rie, Pa., has a large yard thus enclosed which I have visited. He has large sliding windows on the sides that can be opened in pleasant weather and give plenty of light, and then when it storms he can have a tight shed. He spreads manure from cattle in the yard, and keeps his sheep in there all the time, feeding in racks right on the manure. He has also a large skylight to make yard more pleasant, but it is perhaps four times as large as mine. I am often asked whether snow and rain do not come into ours. They do not so as to bother particularly. If we kept much stock we might enclose with large windows and leave them in the yard more. As it is, it is very satisfactory. The total cost of our yard was about $300, all material and labor counted. The tin roof is the great cost. I would not think of taking $1,000 for it, and agreeing to not build another, it is so convenient in many ways. One great advantage I will speak of in another chapter under the head of Care of Farm Tools. Briefly , this is a capital place to run tools, wagons, etc., under temporarily when we are using them and when no stock are in the yard, as there are not in the summer with us. Now it seems to me this roof over a small yard is the best pos- sible way for me to keep my manure over until proper time to put it on my land. Some advise a pit out in the yard. It would save the manure if built of cement, but there would be more water to draw out (what fell from the clouds) ; it is not so handy to draw manure from as from this yard, and it cannot be used for any other purpose, while the yard has many uses and shelters man and beast and prevents all mud, and work can go right on when it rains. For the same reasons I prefer the yard with, a roof over it to a manure cellar under the stable. Of the many visitors who have been in my yard, every one has been delighted and said it was just perfect. A description does not do it justice (see other pictures in Chapter XXIX). I can certainly point you to farms in this section where manure is kept over for wheat, where the waste around the barn in a wet season, as it is kept, would be more than 20 per cent, interest on the cost of my yard, and it would save all this loss, besides being worth as much more in various ways during the year. Just at this point I stopped to read my mail and found one letter from Chas. Hakes, of Oakwood, Ohio, asking all about ma- nure spreaders, and particularly about how many loads of manure one must have in order to make one pay. I get a letter of this kind about once a week, and often the writer wants to know whether he had better run in debt for one. This latter I never Manure (Continued).— 153 advise, although it might be wise sometimes . But one has no busi- ness advising a stranger to run in debt. As to the amount of manure one should have in order to afford a spreader, I cannot answer much better. I have given carefully the advantages above and prefer every one should figure for himself. One would save time enough in spreading 150 to 200 loads, on my farm, to pay interest and wear and tear, but the better, finer work is very important also. If I had shelter for it, and money to invest, I would not think of doing without, myself, with no more than one hundred loads of manure a year, or even less. Iyife is too short to put my strength against machinery. Ten dollars a year will cover interest and wear with me. L,abor saved, and better work, are safely worth ten cents a load to me. But, frankly, many persons buy spreaders and do not make them pay. I live in a dairy section, and there are many stable floors that leak, letting the best of the manure steadily go to waste, and worse than waste sometimes — go down into the earth to pollute the well water, or render the air impure about the premises. And then many of these very men buy fertilizers. Perhaps it was a little rough, but I have sometimes asked these friends what they would think of a dairyman who would milk his cows, set the milk, skim off the cream and throw it away, feed out the skim milk or make it into cheese, and then buy his butter to eat. Of course they could only say he was a simpleton. But how much different is it to waste the very cream of the manure and then buy fertilizers — buy back in bags what they have allowed to go to waste? They do not fully realize what they are doing, is one great trouble. Familiarity begets unconcern. They have always done so, and their fathers did, and they do not think anything about it, while beyond all question, sometimes a cement floor and manure saved and properly used afterwards would pay better than any other investment of equal amount they had made on the farm. An amusing instance of going along blindly without think- ing or studying was given by my friendj E. C. Ellis, at an insti- tute last winter. He happened by a field where a man was burn- ing straw before plowing, and stopped and had a talk with him. He finally drew out of him that he had bought a certain quantity of such a fertilizer to use on field. Then he got an estimate of number of pounds of straw burned, and then quietly told the man he had burned up forty dollars' worth of nitrogen and paid just forty-eight dollars for nitrogen in his commercial fertilizer. Mr. Ellis was then inspector of fertilizers, and knew about their in- gredients pretty well. I saw myself last winter not a few straw stacks burning. Often to hasten the job they had pulled the stacks to pieces and scattered them around some. In regard to the matter of fertilizers I do not care to say much. I do not use them and never have except by way of ex- 154 — Our Farming. periment. These experiments have been full and careful and carried on in quite a large way for several years. They have never done me one particle of good. I have used a complete fertilizer containing all the ingredients needed for plant growth in proper proportion, as we are told, and at the rate of as high as tooo pounds per acre without any result. I might just as well dump a carload of fertilizer in the fence corner as put it on my field. And I have met plenty of others who have had the same experience. This is no doubt largely due to the fact that my clover sod on which I plant has fertility enough in it, and any more is simply excess. Pretty good for clover, isn't it ? I asked Prof. Thorne, of our Experiment Station, what he thought of this idea the other day, and he said: " For three years past neither corn nor wheat when put on clover sod has shown us any benefit from fertilizers If we continue same field in corn or wheat, fertilizers show after- wards more and more as effect of clover passes away." But I do not ever continue them in same crop, but put in clover again and get more fertility, and hence fertilizers never get a chance to show. Fertilizer men are often claiming, or saying positively, that their fertilizer is not a stimulant, but a plant food just as much as stable manure. This cannot be practically true. Analysis may show the same ingredients, but they do not show same results. Analysis shows my muck to be worth about the same as manure, but practically it is not. I have no land on my farm so rich that a load of my manure will not show every time where it is put, even when spread quite thinly. It will show on any crop grown. If it fails from drouth on first crop put out, it is there on the next. If fertilizers are just as truly plant food, why do not they show just the same ? I have put two handfuls of complete manure around a strawberry plant, part at a time and worked it in, and manure around another, and the former had no effect what- ever, and the latter did. As it might be lack of water, I watered thoroughly several times, both alike, and the other plants they were compared with, and the experiment was duplicated. I have asked many wise men, chemists and professors, to explain this. Prof. Lord, our State chemist at the time, said it might be owing to the lack of vegetable matter where the fertilizers were used. I tried them on soil where a heavy crop of clover was plowed under with the same result. Knowing these facts, it is useless for any one to tell me that fertilizers are just as much plant food as manure. They do seem to be on some soils, but they are not always so. They do pay beyond all question on some soils and under some circumstances. On many they do not. The farmer who takes for granted that they are as safe and actual food as stable manure, under all circumstances, may get badly sold. Perhaps you may think I got poor samples to test. Fearing this might be the case I sent to the manufacturers direct for special Manure (Continued). — 155 sacks, two or three times. It will be wise to experiment with them in a small but accurate way, and be governed accordingly. Had I not done so I might have lost hundreds of dollars. I am of the opinion, from careful observation, that fertilizers have not paid our Ohio farmers, as a whole. It is worthy of notice that our Experiment Station, in tests at different points in the State has not, on the average, found that they paid. Director Thorne has lately issued a pamphlet entitled : ' ' Forty Years of Wheat Culture in Ohio." To this subject he has given a vast amount of patient study and thought, and he is an exceedingly careful man. He concludes with, "These statistics indicate that the wheat crops of Ohio have been slightly increased by the use of commercial fertilizers, but it appears that the average cost of this increase has equaled its market value, and that a general improve- ment in the methods of agriculture has contributed more largely to the increase of Ohio's wheat crops then the use of purchased fertility." Now I would not for anything lead any one wrong, but this I believe : That you may save manure because it has paid someone else to do it every time, but you must not buy fertilizers because some one else advises it ; nor would I have you drop them or leave them entirely alone because I say so. Know certainly that they pay you on your farm, and then go ahead. But you need never wait to know about saving manure if you use what you save properly. Manure is anything that fertilizes land. We may save fer- tility or manure by paying attention to what we are selling off from the farm, or what we are bringing onto it by way of pur- chased feed. Wherever stock keeping in any line is a leading feature, I would buy fertility if I wanted it in the shape of wheat bran, oil meal, or cottonseed meal, raising on the farm the proper coarse food to go with this — hay, corn fodder, ensilage, etc. With good business management one should get nearly or quite the cost of his feed back in money and an increased value to his manure. With cement floors and other good care of manure, this plan can hardly fail to pay. I would bring a farm up in this way every time, if I were starting on a poor one, in preference to using fertilizers. I believe I could get real fertility cheaper, particularly if I kept dairy. I do not hesitate at all about advising the pur- chase of fertilizers in this shape, providing the purchaser will do his part in the way of saving and using the manure. You will remember I purchased some fertility in this way when I began. I would buy it to-day in this way to use on a farm that was run down so I could not get clover to grow well. I would buy ferti- lizers, too, if they would help me as I knew to get a good stand of clover ; I would use them as a starter but not as a dependence. I could do better. But now in regard to what we sell off the farm. Some pro- ducts carry off fertility much faster than others. I paid a good 156 — Our Farming. deal of attention to this. For example, in selling one ton of but- ter I would take off but forty -eight cents' worth of fertility, and my friend William H. Gilbert says : "You need not sell even that much if you do not get any manure in the milk . ' ' Above all others , this is the product to sell when one wants to bring up a farm, leaving out all other considerations. Let me give you a table to study over lately brought out by Geneva, N. Y. Experiment Station, showing the fertilizing value per ton of different articles. This value is based, of course, on the value of fertilizers in market. Cottonseed meal $28.68 Linseed meal, ... • 21.42 Wheat bran, IJ - 6 5 Clover hay, • . 8.20 Crushed oats, 8.17 Cornmeal 6-31 Timothy hay, 5-48 Oatstraw 2-58 Wheat straw, 2.21 Butter 48 Potatoes 2.02 Milk, 2.80 Wheat 7-09 Cheese, 20.83 Fat sheep 8.14 Fat calves, 10.55 Fat oxen n.8o Fat pigs, ... • • • 6.92 It is an amusing fact that a noted advocate of fertilizers gave this table in The Ohio Farmer last winter with all the figures divided by two, as much as to say they were twice too high for practical use. He forgot, or did not think, this was virtually saying that fertilizers were only worth half market price. Com- paratively speaking, these tables are correct. Now notice, first, the great value as a fertilizer of the cottonseed meal, linseed meal and bran that I have just spoken of. Notice how much faster cheese will run your farm down than butter, if you sell it. I sell potatoes and wheat. The potatoes are mostly water — a pretty good thing to sell, only $2.02 worth of fertilizer in a ton, and I get usually not less than $13.20 a ton for them, and sometimes twice that or more. Suppose a man sells timothy hay. He may think he is doing as good farming as I. Thousands of tons are sold in Ohio as low as at $6 a ton. At one institute where I was, the statement was made that over 2,500 tons of timothy hay had been shipped from that station during the last eighteen months, bring- ing the farmers on an average $6 per ton. An average yield, or rather a good yield, we will call two tons per acre. This brings $12. It contains $10.96 worth of fertilizer. Two and a half tons would be a big yield. This would bring $15 and contain $13.70 of fertilizer. My average crop of potatoes is nearly six tons per acre, say. These sell on the average for about Manure (Continued). — 157 $100 at the station. The fertility carried away is $12.24 per acre. This is not materially different in amount from what a large crop of timothy would take from the farm ; but where the timothy man gets $1.30 per acre over fertility sold off, I get $87.76, a tremendous difference. Itis aruinous business, Ishould say, when one gets but little more than the fertilizing value of his products. I have known men to sell clover hay for much less than its fertilizing value, actually. I will turn mine under every time rather than to sell off the farm, and use it to feed crops that I can sell, so as to get a good deal more than the mere fertilizing value. I averaged about a ton of wheat per acre for a long term of years. This takes off $7.09 from an acre, and last year (1891) brought over $33 a ton. I get a good deal more than market value for the fertility I sell. Again, there has been a great deal said by certain persons because I did not keep more stock. I hold that I am actually doing better farming, drawing on the vast store in the soil and subsoil less, than a great many who keep stock largely. Men should know that they are right before they find fault with those who do differently. I think I know what I am about, at any rate I have studied over it hard enough. Now, if I were to grow corn instead of potatoes, and feed it with clover to beef cattle, and sell beef off the farm instead of potatoes, no fault would be found with me. That would be good farming, selling concentrated pro- ducts, feeding out what you grow, etc. Well, I suppose for a ton of the very finest fat cattle I might get $80 in these days, and it has been about the same for a good while. That is putting it full high, though. I mean $80 at the station here, of course. And with every ton sold $11.80 of fertilizer would go. With $80 worth of potatoes less than that amount of fertilizer is sold off the farm on the average. Selling beef cattle would remove from the soil per $100 worth sold less potash than sell- ing potatoes, but my soil is abundantly supplied with this, so much so that an application of ashes shows no effect whatever so far. The selling of potatoes removes from my soil less phosphoric acid than if I sold fat cattle, and this is the ingredient I think that my soil has the smallest supply of. The amount of nitrogen sold is. not materially different in either case. But that is the substance that I care least for, as I can or do at least get enough of that from clover growing and careful saving — not letting man- ure heat, keeping some growing crop on land as nearly all the time as possible, etc. I think now you can see where I stand on the manure ques- tion. No man does or can save what he has any more carefully than I. It is plant food. We are not likely to ever get enough, say nothing of too much. But unless we sell butter mainly, one cannot farm without selling off quite a quantity of fertilizer yearly. I propose to sell enough to live well and make money as 158 — Our Farming. long as this does not materially reduce the yield of my crops at least ; but I will manage every time so as to sell what will bring me the most money in proportion to fertilizer sold. As my farm easily yields four times as much per acre now as when I took hold of it, does it not look as though I had cared for it pretty well while making money for myself? CHAPTER XIX. PREPARING FOR POTATOES. N my farm can be found almost every variety of soil, from muck and sand to heavy clay. The land that, one year with another, brings the largest crop of potatoes, and has for many years, I would class as a rather heavy loam. You could not call it a sandy or gravelly loam. It is heavy enough to not be leachy, and to stand drouth well, and still is light enough to drain fairly well. It is just about on the line between soil that will pay for draining with tiles, and that which will not. The subsoil is moderately heavy, of course, like the soil, but not so as to hold water long unless puddled. This land would be seriously injured by being tramped by stock when wet, or being worked too wet. In such a season as the present unusually wet one, it would be better if all tile-drained. I could give you the percent- age of clay in it, but this description will be better, I think. Next in value comes my gravelly loam. This has more gravel in. it than the other, and drains quicker and better. In a very wet season it is the best, and grand. I have dug at' the rate of 400 bushels per acre in such years, on the small gravelly spots. But in a dry, hot season they will burn out and not produce half as much as somewhat heavier, cooler soil. My sandy loam, which is considerably lighter than the best land, from a greater percentage of sand, is good. The potatoes come out nice, bright, and clean. It is easier worked than any other soil we have. The crop on it is quite uniform, but not as large as on rather heavier loam. If I had unlimited quantities of manure I would take the sandy loam. If the sandy loam had a heavier subsoil it might be stronger. Mine has a light subsoil. The ideal potato farm that I would pick out would average rather heavier than what is com- monly called sandy loam, enough heavier so that a good farmer would think it wise to tile drain parts of it, and then I would tile every rod. Yes, I Would, after this year's experience. Of the last eight weeks in May and June it has rained almost constantly during seven. With my land all tiled two rods apart, sandy loam and all, I would have, been able to go through even this season all right, or with slight loss. We have heavier land than the loam mentioned. Perhaps the next grade might be termed clay loam. In this the percentage of clay is larger, and tile drains are needed every time for potatoes, or wheat or clover. Well drained two rods apart, this does fairly well. Some years it will (159) 160 — Our Farming. grow a great crop. But in an excessively wet time, long-con- tinued, although the drains may prevent a drop of water stand- ing on the surface, the crop doesn't look quite right, and the yield is apt to be disappointing. They are more apt to rot, too. Then we have some heavy clay soil, some we would like to give away if we could get it out of the lot and not spoil the shape. On this potatoes never pay any profit. It would be exceptional to get ioo bushels per acre from this land. I presume it might be lightened up by plenty of vegetable matter, but I haven't tried much to make potato land of it. It will grow clover and wheat, as fine as need be, and usually potatoes will grow so as to not look badly, but it is too solid for good results. And it is a gr-at deal of work to prepare it for a crop and work it during the sea- son. A friend of mine was here lately who has all heavy clay soil. He said he did not believe he ever in his life had more than ioo bushels of potatoes per acre. He came here with the idea of going into potato growing more largely, buying a planter, digger, etc., and making more of a business of it. He has his land tile- drained, and he has a fine herd of Jersey cows. He thought that by plowing under clover he could lighten his clay soil enough for potatoes. Well, I discouraged him from trying. I told him to not only not go into the business, but stop growing the two or three acres that he now did. There had been no money in it for him, and with great labor there never would be any certainty of good profits. He had better by far grow products for the dairy, and push that further and higher. That pays him and is better suited to his soil. In these days, where one has an outlet to good markets, as most do in this State, it is far wiser to grow what one's soil is best fitted for, and a good deal of it, rather than partly something in which there is no profit to him, but which may pay another man, on suitable soil, grandly. If you haven't a soil reasonably suited for potatoes, don't go into the business; don't be led into it at all by what you read of my success, for you will only meet with disappointment if you do. The most of my soil is fairly well fitted for the business. Rather say to yourself : ' ' Terry had a potato farm and he found it out and pushed it and made it pay. Now what can I do best on my farm, and push as he has his potatoes? " With this spirit read on and get all the inspiration you can, and success to you. Except for raising very early potatoes for selling green, I would prefer that part of my land that has an easterly slope, or even a northerly. Some years the crop with a southern or southwestern - exposure suffers more from the heat. Really I fear an excessively hot week without rain, say when the thermometer gets to 95 or more often, than I do six weeks without rain if it is only moder- ately warm. Extreme heat is bad for the potato, and one is powerless to do any thing to help in such a case, as he is in the case of extreme wet ; but with proper preparation, we can stand Preparing for Potatoes. — 161 dry weather very well now. I honestly believe that I can grow ioo bushels of potatoes per acre on my land (except the clay) without a drop of rain, from planting to digging time, if not excessively hot. With plenty of vegetable matter in the soil and fertility and tillage we are quite independent. When extreme heat comes the eastern and northern slopes will stand it best. Some southern growers have told me that 95 ° to 98 ° in the shade was death to their potatoes very soon, wet or dry. On my farm I do not fear heat with plenty of rain. I would not select very rolling land for a potato farm, but rather nearly level, or just a gentle slope. Side hills wash too much, and such tools as planter and digger and manure spreader do not work as well. It would be easy to get a farm better than mine in this respect. Our main trouble, however, is with washing. We have lost probably $30 worth of potatoes during the past week by the washing of a sandy loam side hill, and not a very large one, either. Short rotation helps, but we cannot entirely stop it, and such washing will keep land poor. Does the kind of soil they are grown on have anything to do with the quality ? Certainly. On such soil as I have advised, you can grow the very best quality, provided the manuring and tillage are of the right kind. On a muck soil they are generally of poor quality, and I think on most black soils. The clay pota- toes are not as good to my taste. You can notice in market that in a year of scarcity and high prices, which is apt to be a dry year, muck potatoes go pretty well. Anything sells then. And they are better in a dry year. But when potatoes are cheap and plenty buyers are particular about quality. And I think the method of manuring has much to do with quality. I do not believe you can grow as fine quality on fresh manure as on rotten or on clover sod. Apply the manure to young clover and let the clover feed the po- tatoes, I believe to be one of the best ways, if it is fresh. If rotten you may safely apply to a clover sod the fall before planting. But I believe it wiser to use the fresh manure to grow the renovating crop, as I have explained about elsewhere. Fresh manure put on a clover sod for corn and then sowed to rye in the fall and plowed under in the spring would be in excellent shape for potatoes. There are many good ways that one might manage. But bear in mind some general facts. Fresh manure does not make best quality and is apt to make scab worse and perhaps the rot. Manure fed to clover loses these objectionable qualities, and comes back with good interest. I simply dare not spread fresh manure on sod during fall and winter and spring, to be plowed in spring for potatoes, on my farm. I once suffered badly from doing just this. We had some 300 bushels per acre, but my ! how scabby. Let me tell you the plain truth. We had 1000 bushels in another lot, fed on clover only, that were entirely smooth and nice, and we had some 1500 bushels of these scabby ones. I dug 162 — Our Farming. them and put them separate. A buyer came and quickly offered me my price for the iooo bushels. But I knew I must make the good sell the poor. Well, after much time I sold the lot to him for five cents a bushel less than he offered for the iooo bushels, and agreed to hand pick the 1500 bushels, and take out 200 bushels at least of the poorest and then mix the two lots in the car, putting the best on last. No more of this kind of work for me. And still I have neighbors who put fresh manure on potato land and are not troubled yet. I cannot say why, whether they have not the germs of scab in their soil, or whether manure made on a cement floor with all the urine in it makes a difference in the re- sult. But I find that many aie afraid to use fresh manure any more. Some manure in the hill, but this now is mostly done by gardeners and not by large growers. I would not think of doing so. Get the manure mixed all through the soil as thoroughly as possible. The roots will firid it and it is better for them to be en- couraged to spread out and feed widely. In case of drouth they are in better shape to get all the moisture there is. Spread manure very evenly in the fall on sod, if you prefer this plan, and let the rains wash it down. The roots will practically prevent waste and it will be well mixed in with the sod in the spring, and then you plow with a lap furrow, not too flat over, and the fertility is well scattered all through, but principally in the lower part, where po- tatoes naturally like to have it. Corn will feed on manure nearer the surface and sun to advantage (hence I would plow under shallower for corn). Potatoes naturally love coolness and mois- ture, and hence a deep soil and food rather deep is best, if the land is well drained. I manured an acre heavily last fall with rotten manure mostly, for experimental work. After the rains had washed it down in the sod all winter, I still was not satisfied, but went over the field twice with the cutaway harrow, which mixed the manure and surfacesoil very nicely. It was practically all out of sight when I got through . A year ago last spring a neighbor had a sod all covered during the winter and spring with manure, but somewhat roughly. I wondered if he would plow it under in that shape, as many do. He did not, but got a big bush and fairly bushed it until hardly any of it could be seen. That was doing just right. And I think he never had as fine potatoes or as good a prospect for wheat as he now has. We do not want to see how little work we can get along with, but how much we can do that pays well. Thorough pulverization of manure, and mixing with soil where practicable, will always pay well. I have spoken of it before, but can hardly say too much on so important a point. In regard to how to use fertilizers, I have nothing to say, as they do not pay me on my soil. They do not even show any effect whatever. The time may come when mineral matter may be needed, more than is in the soil, or clover can pump up. Preparing for Potatoes. — 163 When it does, I am ready to buy it, if it pays. There is much good potato land that does not differ materially from mine, doubt- less, and you will do well to read and ponder well how clover serves me as a fertilizer, and, perhaps, learn in that the secret of fertilizers not showing any results. I wish it were possible to know how much clover and tillage, and how much the fertilizer has to do with the yield, on some potato farms where fertilizers are largely used. Suppose I used a ton of fertilizers per acre on my farm, all over the potato field, every three years, fully believing that fertilizers were as truly and surely plant food as manure is, beyond all question. How easy for me to write, and believe, but not know, that my crops were largely due to the fertilizers ! But now we have the soil selected and fertilized properly, how and when shall we plow it? As a rule, I would not plow until quite dry in the spring. Reasons for this have been given in another chapter. There may be exceptions to this rule. Wire- worms or grubs in the soil may be destroyed by fall plowing. Some clay soils may work better after freezing, but such are not potato soils. Particularly would I avoid plowing potato land until quite dry, and working it also after plowing. I X- J& jc X Ground Plan of Tool House. X next chapter), a third pitch roof and a second floor over the spaces a, b, c, d and e to give storage overhead. You will notice the stairway at s. This floor is about seven feet above the ground floor, except over e, where it is raised a little higher, so as to take in any top carriage below. There is no floor over f. The doors at each end of/, are nearly twelve feet high, so you can drive through with a load of hay or any other high, bulky load ; f is a gangway to the covered yard in the rear. The spaces a, b, c, d and e have only doors in front for storage of buggies and tools. In front are seven posts set on stones and held in place by iron dowels. We simply bored an inch hole in the bottom of the post and drove in a piece of inch iron rod, say six inches, leaving it projecting two inches. Then drilled an inch hole in the stone two inches deep and raised the post and put dowel in place. The stones only come just above the surface, so they are not in the way. Then between these posts are doors, a pair to each space. The Care of Implements. — 245 spaces are of different widths, you notice, to accommodate imple- ments of different sizes : a is just wide enough so we can back in our little binder, and then hay rake and six-foot mower go in front of it ; b, c, d and e are each eight feet. In b we put manure spreader, roller, grain drill, etc., all tools requiring about seven- foot-in -the-clear doors to go through readily. In c we keep a double row of narrow tools like the potato digger and planter and also harrows, cutaway, disc, etc. It is so arranged that we can pack a large number of implements into these three spaces. In the winter they are all in there except what may be upstairs. Light tools, like plows, cultivators, Breed's weeder, etc., are kept above. They are easily taken onto the upper floor from the space /", anything that is too bulky to go up stairs. In d and e we keep carriages. Of course, one in each place would be the handiest, and we do not often need to have more, as a buggy can stand in/ or on the barn floor, which is 13x45. But two buggies can be put in each place ; d is high enough for an ordinary top-buggy, e is extra high. My wife's little pony, canopy-top phaeton gen- erally occupies d — is there to-day. The family canopy-top surrey is in e, the open run -around is in f and the piano -box, leather- top, narrow seat (just right for my son and his girl) is on the barn floor. During haying and harvesting it will come down and double up with the ladies' phaeton. The lumber wagons are usually kept on the barn floor or in the covered barnyard ; always on barn floor in winter. The carriage harnesses are kept in cupboard g at the rear of space e, where they are shut in away. from dust, nice and clean. We have two single harnesses in there and our best double harness is kept elsewhere at present. We intend to extend the cupboard across the rear of space d soon. Work harnesses are hung along the right hand side of space /, right next to the door x which leads into the horse stable. Notice the convenience of having horse stable right there and still shut off by itself. If you have read to here you have waded through many dry details. Let me tell a good little joke on my wife, brought to mind by thinking of the tool house, just for a rest. I have always meant she should have a horse and buggy for her special use some time, but didn't get around to it until a year ago last spring. Then I bought her the neatest little, low-down ladies' phaeton that I could find. She can step right in and out so easy! And she — well, she hasn't grown very poor, farming. Robert and I managed to get it home without her mistrusting, for a won- der, and after we had it all set up and dusted and put in the best possible light to show off, Robert went in and asked his mother to come out and help us move some tools, pa wanted her. She came, and as she entered the tool house door she was saying: "I thought you had been writing in the papers that you had your tool house arranged ' ' — (so you could handle tools yourself)— just 246 — Our Farming. then her eye fell on the little phaeton and her remark was never finished, and she looked as though she was awful sorry she ever began it. Still she was right ; one's practice should always be up to his preaching. We had fooled her completely, once. But don't you dream that she hasn't done the writer up as badly. All these doors in the tool house are fastened on the inside except one. The natural place of entrance as we go from the house is near the centre of the tool house, so one door in space d is fastened inside and the other has a large latch on so it can readily be opened from either side, and this is our regular p2ace of entrance in going to the stable in the main barn to the right. I have not said anything about it, but you have probably in- ferred that we have a ground floor in the tool house. We have, and I think it is the best. Of course, it costs nothing, while a wooden floor with joists and planks would be quite expensive. But the matter of convenience was of more importance to us. It is so much less trouble to get things in and out, with a ground floor. To prevent water from running in, the floor is raised slightly above the surface outside, say six inches, with a slope some ten feet long to make this little rise in. Practically, this does not bother at all about getting tools in. I back the binder in with the team ; other tools are readily put in by hand. Again, the ground floor is better for buggies and most tools, as the air does not get so dry as with a plank floor raised from the ground. There is no tendency to shrinkage of woodwork in the hottest weather, but there is one slight drawback. In the spring, with a sudden thaw, a great change of temperature, the tools, etc., will be damp a few hours, and without care, iron will rust some. This may occur two or three times. Also, the ground floor becomes dusty after a time. Where tools are, it makes no difference; in fact, it hardly gets much so there ; but where the buggies are, there is so much tramping that it is quite dusty. I have to hitch up be- fore putting on my best shoes, or they would not look freshly blacked. We have tried sprinkling, but the effect does not last long. A floor of clean gravel would be less dusty, but not as pleasant to walk on. Ours is of clay. It would be just perfect if we had a cement floor about three inches deep all over. Quite likely we may put this in at some future time. Do not think it is not very good as it is, but I thought best to give the slight draw- backs that we had found to the earth floor. I should build just the same again, by all means. Except where there are doors, the tool house has underpinning all around, so it is tight. The boards run up and down and are well battened, so no snow or rain drives in . The doors come within about two or three inches of the gravel which forms the entrance and approach. They cannot come closer, as the gravel rises with the frost in the winter nearly two inches. To prevent snow from driving under these doors in the winter, we put straw along against them inside, and lay boards 248 — Our Farming. on it ; where the tools or buggies are we do not use. One pair of doors, of course, must be left to get sleigh out and in, or buggy. The doors are hung with hinges entirely. There would be no chance for sliding doors, nor would they be as tight. Ours are as tight as doors in the house. I do not believe in half-way work in this line. One often sees tool houses or sheds open on one side, so sun and rain and snow can drive in freely. They may be bet- ter than nothing, but are far from perfect. We have two win- dows below in the tool house. In the plan they are marked 0. One is on the end and the other, on the back side, opens into the covered barnyard. We prefer to not have much light in there. When we want light where the tools are, we open a door. Our tool house cost $400, all lumber and timber and underpinning and labor paid for, and painting included. It could be built so as to protect the tools for less money, but we have a good cornice on it and it is a nicely finished job all through. Eave troughs carry away water from roof, and the upstair floor is of good, matched flooring, etc., etc. One-half of the tool house is used for storing tools when not in use, but it would not be convenient to put them up so compactly there every night. Temporarily, we need other shelter, and we have it arranged in the handiest manner we could study up. Reference will be made to this point in the next chap- ter, after you get the plan of all our buildings before you. Here seems to be a good place to say something about lending farm tools. Even as few as I had when we began farming, they did more work away from home than for me. Borrowing was a com- mon practice. I had a new plow, and when I got my little plow- ing done, a farmer wanted to "try that make of plow." After using it more than I had, he said he didn't like it, and returned it without even a new point. If he had liked it, I could have stood it better, although it didn't make a particle of difference to me financially. I had a good roller, and that was wanted at once in all directions. In those days I never said no — was rather young and green. One farmer, living at a distance, was fairer than the rest. He said: "Now, you hurry through with your rolling ; your land can be worked earlier than mine, and I will give you $5 a year for the use of your roller." That $5 was quite an ob- ject then. I did hurry through and he got the roller, and when I wanted it I had to go. after it, and he sort of carelessly informed me later that he didn't use it much after all, and never paid me one cent. Neighbors reported differently, even saying that he used it in working on the road and charged the town for it. But I did not investigate the matter and let it go. Again, I lent the roller to a farmer before I had used it. When I got ready to roll in a crop of Hungarian grass, I met him and told him I wanted to use the roller next day. He replied: " I guess you won't, for it is broken down and it will take some time to get it fixed." So my crop was not rolled in, and that of a farmer very much better Care of Implements. — 249 off was, and with my roller. He was man enough to put it in good repair, but this was not always done when it was broken. At last, I began to think I was loving my neighbors better than myself; not a bad thing to do, but you know that "he that provicleth not for his own is worse than an infidel, ' ' and I wasn t able to provide for my family nearly as well as were these friends, who were wearing out my tools, and perhaps preventing me from getting the benefit of them. In time, I made a rule that under any ordi- nary circumstances my tools would stay at home until my own crops were in or tended to, and politely informed friends to that effect. When I got a manure spreader, men came here to try to get it at once, men more able to buy than I, and one man told me I was mean to not lend it. Well, he had always got manure out by hand, but all of a sudden machinery was necessary — if he could borrow it — if practically he could get part of his work done at my expense for nothing. As he had much more money than I, I felt that the meanness (?) was justifiable. One cannot afford to lend such tools as a roller, spreader, planter, digger, binder, etc . , and have them go distances over the road and be left out doors for days, or perhaps used by someone who doesn't understand them and damage done. For myself I do not want to hire them out either. I can better afford to keep them in perfect order for my own use. I have pleasantly explained this to people for the last dozen years, and now have no trouble. Of course, I wouldn't be really mean. If a neighbor broke down and had a lot of men waiting and wanted some tool temporarily, I would do as I would be done by. A poor man would be quite apt to get anything he wanted with some one to go with it perhaps. I think my neighbors understand my position and think none the less of me for it. We like good tools in perfect order and where we can put our hands on them the moment they are wanted, and we want to keep them from exposure, which cannot be done when they are constantly being lent. With the exception of a horse rake the first year we were on the place, I do not know as we have ever borrowed any costly implement. We have gone without until we could buy. For two or three years we exchanged the use of planter for that of a grain drill, but soon procured a drill of our own. Two neighbors own a planter together with the agreement that neither shall lend it unless he goes with it. This seems to work pretty well. But I prefer to own my own, and my not making a prac- tice of lending or hiring them out is one reason why I can afford to, and can afford all that will save me hand labor. One is often urged in the papers to keep his implements painted. I have never done this or seen the need of it except in the case of wagons. As we care for tools the original paint lasts. Wagons are more exposed and should be painted often. We paint them ourselves, getting some good ready prepared paint. The cost of washing them up and giving a good coat of paint is very 250 — Our Farming. small. We do it after harvest usually, when there is a little lullin regular work. With this painting, and shelter when not in use, our two wagons are nearly as good as new after some twenty years' use. CHAPTER XXIX. OUR BARN. N previous chapters we have had a good deal to say about our tool house, Xovered barnyard, etc. ; we -. _. will now take the barn as a whole. There is a &L]ji/Y^ good deal in so connecting and arranging buildings around temporarily, without being in the way, in the summer, when no stock are in the yard. Now, perhaps you are ready to see; how it is just as easy for us to care for tools and wagons as not. : Nearly everything is on wheels now, Just make a rule that tools shall be brought up at night. It is little or no trouble ; usually easier than to leave them in the field, as one can ride. Then have a nice lawn in front of barn as we do, all nicely cut with lawn mower every week, and let no one unhitch from anything out there, but just drive in. It is just as easy. The doors stand open, usually; if not, they must be open for the team to go in. : Then your tool or wagon is under cover. Notice the horse stable, right at the end of yard, and tool house, with doors directly in from each place. How handy to let horses go right in thejre after unhitching, and hang the harness just outside between X and O on end of tool house. And then in the morning you can hitch on and go ahead out, all as easy as not. As I am fixed, I do not deserve much credit for taking care of tools, do I? Well, I got tired of being greatly bothered to take care of things, and I could not afford not to, and so worked to get thingsj handy. (250 Our Barn.— 253 When we are putting in a cfop in the spring, you will find under that great roof, plows, cutaway harrow and disc, and Thomas smoothing harrow, the roller, potato planter, wagons, potato boxes, etc. When the crop is all in, these are stored away in their place in the tool house. Just now in harvest time, if you had come along, you would have found the binder, mower, hay rake, wagons with racks on, etc., standing around, well protected, but not put up. In the winter, of course everything is put away and the yard clear for stock to exercise in. There is in the yard now a hundred loads or so of manure. It is not in the way at all of using it for tools temporarily, as the manure is leveled off so one can drive right through as though it was not there, and there is straw enough on top to keep it dry and clean. Remember, the yard is lower than the entrances, made so with a gradual grade. With two hundred loads of manure in, it could still answer this double purpose just as well. I tell you, we are well fixed to care for manure and tools, and the saving will pay a tremendous interest on the cost, too. I wish every one had things in as good shape. But I fear many do not realize how much they are losing by not having, and wouldn't value these things as we do. I think I could find you a good many farmers who are loaning money for one-third what it might be made to bring them on their own farms in this and other ways. We have water in the yard at I. M is an earth closet for the men built on the same plan as the one you will find described in Chapter XXXVI. To the left of the earth closet we have a rack on the back side of tool house, some twelve feet high for storing different kinds of lumber. (See picture in Chapter XVIII.) There are no old board piles, even, outside around our barn. Nor is there a single thing in sight that could be objectionable to the eye of the most refined lady. Everything of that kind is inside and hidden from view. You may go all around the barn and it is simply a neat building, or set of buildings, surrounded by a green lawn on three sides. The rear is in the field. This yard is planked up some seven feet high, as you will see in the pictures, and then open above to let in sun and air on the south and east sides. The front of barn is very nearly north. When we drive into tool house with buggy, notice how handy it is to let the horse go to his stable. If stock are in the yard there is a door from the tool house directly in, as well as one from the yard. A, B, C are box-stalls in which we can.tie two horses, or leave one loose. There are heavy gates or doors (N) from one to the other. The partitions and these gates are only about five feet high, except between their heads at the mangers, where they run up higher to prevent them from quarreling when eating. G is the feeding alley; O windows. I like plenty of light in a stable. H would make a nice stable for fifteen or eighteen cows, but we use it for storing potatoes when we dig, and in the winter let the 254 — O ur Farming. cow and two horses have it, making temporary box-stalls bj swinging gates around. I do not particularly recommend my barn. It would suit few; but is exactly right for our business. E is a granary or cellar. It is built of hollow bricks; is entirely rat proof and very handy. When we thresh, one man can empty grain down trap door from threshing floor above. Or if arrange- ments were made to pay threshers by weight when grain was sold, it could run right down itself. With granaries outside, farmers have to have three or four men to bag grain and move it. But we sell our wheat soon. I do not think it would keep as well in this room as in a building outside. After the wheat is sold, pota- toes are stored in this room (E), which is thirteen feet by thirty. We can put about 2000 bushels of potatoes in H and E in a hurry, when digging, and then the covered yard makes a fine place to take them out in as sacked and load, weigh, etc. Failing to sell our wheat in time and wanting to use E for potatoes, we have bagged the grain and stacked a car load out in covered yard on planks, wheeling it out, as it is level right around. Notice double doors at each end of H. We can drive through with a team to get grain or potatoes from E. D and F are the bays for hay and grain. They come down to basement floor. F is seventeen feet widej D is thirteen. We have room enough, but are sorry we did not make barn four feet longer and make D also seventeen feet wide. With this exception we would build the same again. When we drive in on barn floor above E, it is fourteen feet from the hay rack to bottom of bays. The basement story is ten feet high, or a little over nine in the clear. We can tumble twenty or thirty loads of hay into these bays very quickly. Thirty loads are about what we use. The rest goes back to the land directly for potatoes. Then we put the wheat on top of hay. We have no horse fork, nor do we need it with this arrangement. It is no trouble to pitch the grain up as high as we need to. With twenty feet of hay in when we begin, the wheat will press it down to ten. We can fill these bays nearly forty feet deep, but thirty usually holds our crops. Few people with low barns have any idea how much can be put in a bay 16x30 feet, say, and forty feet deep. The hay and grain settle and settle, if built up so as not to rest on girts or beams, until a man wonders where in the world it has gone to. But he will find it all there when he comes to get it out. We can put ninety loads of hay and grain into our two bays as built, and large loads too. We have never had this much, but filled one full once to see how much it would take. It takes an extra man to fill clear to the top with grain. If we needed to crowd it we should put in an elevator, to draw up the whole load on the rack to top of barn, when it couid be readily pitched off". These are now used considerably. I advise, by all means, that you build barns big up and down. The posts of our main barn are twenty feet above floor. If building a larger 256 — Our Farming. barn I would make them twenty-two or even twenty-four. Our barn being so wide, forty-five feet, and having a one-third pitch roof, it is pretty high to the peak, forty-five feet above basement floor. The front of basement runs into the ground a little, three or four feet, then a wall of stones was laid eight feet away (P), and a bridge was built over to barn floor. This makes the basement drier than if front side was all under ground and gives a chance for windows on. this side. We have one in front of E, you will notice, which we could not have without the bank and bridge, and E would not answer our purpose without light and ventila- tion. This way is cheaper, as one can then put a light wall under barn. Our wall under tool house and barn is of hollow brick, only eight inches thick, just the thickness of sills ; no projecting stones or room wasted inside. Again, the great weight of hay and grain being on the ground floor, the barn can be built much lighter. Our largest timbers are 8x8, sills, plates and posts. The bays D and F are boarded up right down to the heavy floor on which they rest, which is raised a little from the earth. Up stairs, the barn floor over E is thirteen feet wide, just enough and no waste room, and continues on over H and the horse stable. Then when we thresh, the straw is put over these stables. Our way of getting it there is simple. The beams in barn are sixteen feet above floor. A plank floor is laid on these beams over H, five feet wide, from the centre bent to the next one each way, just right so the separator when placed will deliver straw on top of the planks. Two light men on these planks will push it off at the ends. Of course, it mostly goes to the east. Two or three men can mow it away there the same as they would stack it out doors. When we get through, the straw is all under cover and right where we want it — over the stables. The planks that we slide straw on are planed so as to make it slip easy. If we lack room for all, some can be put over hay on one bay, the one that wheat was threshed from first. We put a couple of loads of hay in H when drawing in, always, so as to have some to feed from until the threshing is done. We have five chutes for throwing down hay and straw. Those for straw, of course, have to go to top of barn. One chute for straw is over centre box-stall, the other over centre of H. A ladder to get up on barn floor goes up one of the hay chutes. The hay is pressed down by weight of wheat so most of it is thrown directly out into feeding alley through doors. No windows in main barn up stairs except the round ones in gables. Light and air injure hay. It is only just light enough so we can see ,to get around when doors are shut. Our barn when shut up is quite tight. To give ventilation when threshing or drawing in crops, we have doors about 3x5 feet in each bent just under the eaves, both rear and front, and one in the end, and then a large ventilator on top. This is about 6x8 feet, and has a pair of good house window blinds on each side. These 258 — Our Farming. are painted and stuck so the slats cannot be opened and there are no windows behind. To ventilate, we throw the blinds open. When shut, no water to speak of drives in. This cupola works nicely so fixed. It cost $50. Simple, practical, ornamental, but not extravagant. We get up to it by means of an extension ladder from the barn floor. The outside of main barn is covered with ship-lapped and coved 12-inch wide boards, running up and down. The doors are of 6-inch flooring matched, and are tighter ; were easier to put on and cost $4 a thousand less. I would be inclined to cover entire barn with narrow stuff again. We found it a big job to put on 1 2 -inch boards so high up, and spring them up tight always. The lumber is pine, and I shellacked every knot myself before the boards went up, and the paint has never started on one. And I put the priming coat of paint on the lumber before it was used. It was much easier done. And then it was done before it got wet, every time. The cost of main barn was over $1,400, all labor except mine, and lumber and everything counted. A carpenter offered to do it by the job for $1,300, but I hired him by the day, and had everything done on honor and just as I wanted it. Probably the entire cost of buildings as they stand, thoroughly painted, and all the little contrivances that we have added, have cost us, including a fair price for my supervi- sion, near $2,500. We keep it insured for $2,000, and would much sooner lose $500 than see it burn. We take every precau- tion against fire. I employ no man who smokes or chews tobacco (and, of course, do not use it myself), keep door onto barn floor always locked so no tramp could get in there to sleep (a combi- nation lock that cannot be picked — one of the Miller keyless locks), use only lard-oil lanterns, and never take these into the main barn. They can be hung outside so as to shine in. We hang one over the window at the water tub in barnyard. If it should be broken there, by a tub of water, a dumb man should be able to put out the fire that could catch from a lard-oil lantern. We use the common railroad lanterns. All this is a little trouble, but it is our place to keep the powder dry before we trust in Providence. I was surprised when I looked over the list of causes of fires in a great insurance company's office, to see how many barns burned from coal -oil lanterns. I avoid that risk for $1 a year for lard oil and a little extra trouble. For roofing material, we decided on using shingles on- the main barn and tool house. The barnyard roof being so flat, is covered with tin. Perhaps you think I am a little behind in not using slates. I think not. We bought the very best shingles, which will, I think, last on a one-third pitch roof for twenty-five years. They cost me less than slates, and the roof was built lighter and cheaper. I figure_the difference in cost put at interest will re-shingle roof when it is needed, or nearly so. But that is Our Barn.— 259 tiot all. We have a slate roof on house, and. would again, as it makes the cistern water nicer, but they are constantly cracking or blowing off. I had a slater put on twenty-eight new ones not long since. You must not have anyone fooling on a slate roof ; in fact, it should never be gone on at all. And it is far warmer under a slate roof when the sun shines. For this reason alone I would not have a slate roof on my barn. It is too warm to mow away under. We find it a great convenience having our barn buildings altogether in this way. There is no running from one to another. When we get inside in the winter everything is there under the one set of roofs. I know men who have their horse barn, tool house and cattle barn, each a separate building, and granary, too, and some distance apart. This is not handy, certainly, but in case of fire they might not lose but the one building. I know no other advantage. They keep insured, probably, the same as I do. If I burned out it would be a total loss of everything — more to be rebuilt, that is all. But the chances of a barn burn- ing being not one in five hundred on the average, and probably not one in a thousand, as I manage, I will keep well insured, and take the risk of a serious fire when I have one. As it costs less than two and one-half cents a day to insure me $4,700 on barn and contents, I cannot afford to waste my time by having build- . ings apart, not if I could thus take my own risk and save all insurance. Life is too short to have things unhandy. My barn was built exactly as we wanted for our business of raising potatoes and wheat, and keeping our horses and cow ; but as one never knows when he may want to change, or sell out to someone who would want to keep stock, the barn was planned with this in view. By simply adding an 18-foot bent en the west end of main barn, or a lean-to of that width, we would have a long stable in the rear 78 feet long, and another on the west end 18x30 for box-stalls for calves, bull, pigs, etc., and a silo could be built nicely in front of the addition. Thus we could readily change, growing ensilage corn instead of potatoes, and keep twenty-five, thirty, or more Jerseys in the most comfortable shape. The stables are lined with ij^-inch matched flooring on the inside of girts, and even the doors are lined up halfway, so it never freezes in the basement. The long stable is on the south side, with large windows to let in sunshine, a perfect place for cattle. A little expense would turn the barn into model quarters for a winter dairy of twenty cows. In case I kept cattle, I should put a small door into feeding alley in H from the covered barnyard. Now we go in through one of the large doors. The entrance to barn floor from the bridge is through a small door in the large one (about 2x6^ feet), and on this is the combination lock. The natural place for us to entei barn from our house is through tool house. We have a gravel walk from house to tool 26o — Our Farming. house door. If keeping stock was our leading business, we should cut our second crop clover, probably, and make into hay, and after threshing it could be put in the bays where the wheat had been. I wish you could see my horses in the winter, when they are not used much, and are let out to drink. That dry yard to roll, and run, and kick up in, is something they never fail to make use of. And what a nice place to let out a few cows at once ! They may give as much milk kept in the stable all winter and watered there, but their offsprings would certainly be more healthy for their going out twice a day for water and a little exei'cise in fresh air, but protected from wind and storm, and I believe the cows would enjoy it. From my plan of tool house in last chapter, you might get the idea it was divided where the dotted lines are by partitions. It is not. It is all one room. Those dotted lines are simply to show where posts are and width of doors. The chutes for throwing down hay and straw act as ventilators for the basement. With a barn full of animals more might be needed. As it is, we cover part of the holes in cold weather. The windows in the stables are up high, and slide open to let in fresh air (see picture of rear of barn). The one under the covered yard is seldom shut, only in very cold weather. You know how much trouble comes from having barn doors on the slam. Well, I made up my mind when I got a good barn there would be a way fixed to fasten all doors open, as well as shut. After several years' use (five to eight), every door is still as good as new. It pays, and. life is too short to run after a stick to hold a door open, and it don't always hold it then. We have iron braces on each door of tool house (ground floor), about two feet long, three-eighths round iron rods, with an eye in upper end, through which a staple goes to fasten it to the door through the lower batten. The other end of this rod is sharp, so it will stick into ice or frozen earth. Then, to prevent its going in too far when ground is soft, we had a large nut shrunk onto each rod, about three inches from the point. When not in use, they are laid up in a little hook on inside of door. You can drop it out with your toe, as you open the door, and the door will stay as far open as it goes, every time. The "stick" is always there and cannot slip at either end. The heavier barn doors are held open by larger rods (five-eighths), that hook into holes in the bridge. These have never once got loose in the wind . All other doors have hooks and staples to fasten them open, even all those under the covered yard, and the entire cost all around was not over $3 — less than it would cost to replace one broken door. I am a great fellow for insurance. It is door insurance this time. I am afraid you will not notice, if I do not tell you, that we take care of everything. A man mav make money and not get ahead, if he lets everything go to ruin around him, three times as fast as there Our Barn. — 261 is any need of. There are times in the year when we cannot make anything on the farm ; then we try and make something by taking care of what we have. We oil the harness, paint the wagons, varnish the carriages, the wheels at least, paint the inside of eave troughs and the valleys, and the house and barn also get a coat often. It is cheaper to paint before they really need it. It is cheaper to never let anything get really out of order. FIG. I. n ii» 11 fig.3 k Fic.2 4 "ft FIG.4 | 1 J T 3 V 1 ; 1 T 3 i We have some very simple and good home-made fastenings for the inside of our tool house and barn doors; that were given in The Practical Farmer some time ago. I will ask them to insert them in this chapter. A view of the inside of our covered yard, from a photograph, showing earth closet, lumber rack, manner of supporting roof, etc., was given in Chapter XVIII. 262 — Our Farming. In these figures, shown on preceding page, Fig. I is the brace for fastening open, attached to the door and separate. I have shown an eye bolt instead of staple. It is better ; does not pull out. Fig. 2 shows a common hook and staples for holding doors open, where they swing around against the building, as in the covered yard. We cannot fix those on tool house this way, as we may want several open at once, and the front is all doors. In Fig. 3 you see the little brace, as laid up when not in use ; the hook that holds it, shown on the side. The fastening at the top in Fig. 3 explains itself. Take hold at the lower end and squeeze together slightly and pull down, and the notch B no longer holds the fastening up. When shut, it is held in place by the spring of the wood. Ash lumber is, perhaps, best to make it of. The sliding-bar is 4x i inches. We have fifteen doors fastened in this way, ranging in size from seven feet high to twelve. Ordinarily, we fasten them at the top, but when we do not have occasion to use them much, or when stock can rub against them, we have a little bar of wood for each pair, that lies on top of lower cross-piece, behind D, Fig. 3. This bar is always on one door ready for use, by simply sliding it along. Remember, these are doors on a ground floor with no sill to fasten to, and where we do not want a post in the way. When a door, one of a pair, shuts against a sill, a fastening may be used, where one motion of the hand will fasten it top and bottom. Such a fastening is shown in Fig. 4. We have it on five doors. It is simple and cheap. The bar on the door is pivoted on a bolt through the centre. A touch of the hand moves it its width, and throws the two ends behind blocks on sill and beam, and holds the door shut, and moving back four inches opens it. Of course, these fastenings are for doors in pairs. We have fourteen doors that are held open by braces, as shown; nine are held by hooks. The door from the tool house into stable is a sliding one, as it would not be handy to hang one there on hinges. All the doors on barn are hung with large T hinges, such as are sold by the pound, ready made. We put three on a door and they hold them perfectly, even the four- teen-foot barn-floor doors. It has occurred to me that some one may want to know how steep to make the grade of driveway onto barn -floor. It was quite a question to me, and I went and measured a hill that I could draw a heavy load up . A rise of one foot in ten is what I have, and when dry (as it always is when hay and wheat are going in), my horses can draw in 3,000 pounds of load readily and we have drawn in 4,000 of wheat. Our barn is built on the road and this puts it back just about right to give a nice lawn in front, as we have to have about sixty feet to make the rise from the road track. CHAPTER XXX. THE CARE OF STOCK. S several years of our farming were devoted to the care of stock, that being our main source of income, at least one chapter should be given to this subject. Considering the chances we had, we certainly were quite successful in this line. And I would be willing to leave this to the animals we cared for, too, to de- cide. We wintered the cows of my old friend, Samuel Wright (loiig since gone to his rest), for several years in succession. As soon as the first bad weather came in the fall, they had to watch carefully or those cows would get out and come to my place, some three miles away. They never offered to do this in the summer. One stormy Sunday, about the last of November, I think, I did my chores in the barn, leaving the stable door open, as was also the yard gate. I was sitting by the fire, When in came Samuel Wright. After talking a while he said : " My cows gave me the slip this morning and I followed them all the way over here and they are all quietly standing in their old places in your stable." I was surprised enough and went out and there they were, and there they staid for the winter. I tell you, friends, I felt as though this verdict of even a cow jury in my favor was no small matter. Mr. and Mrs. Wright" were very kind to their cows, but they hadn't the chance to care for them in the winter that I had, and the cows knew it and appreciated the difference. Here they were always fed regularly and with a nearly perfect ration. If straw or marsh hay was fed, enough oil meal or wheat bran or both, was put with it to make it all right. They were watered regularly with freshly pumped well water, pure and nice. I always tended to it myself that every cow had all she wanted. If she was ex- ceedingly, yes, provokingly, slow sometimes about drinking, no matter ; it was my business to see that she drank and to have patience to match the case, and I did. The cows werealways bosses in my barn, unless I could boss by coaxing. No, I never used a club or whip to enforce my authority. I can say that truthfully, and I would have been ashamed to, nor could I afford to. I will admit that I have now and then taken hold of a cow and pushed her head down in the water when she was provokingly slow about drinking, but even that was foolishness. To be really successful with animals, cows in particular, one needs to be very patient. Any one who is not so, or cannot school himself to it, has no busi- ness with them. He cannot make a great success of the business. (263) 264 — Our Farming. Instead of driving them into the stable with a whip, as I know many do, I used to put a little bran in the mangers always^, and the moment I went to the door and called they came on a run, and one almost needed a whip to keep them out. I let in one at a time and as soon as she had taken her place, the door was opened just enough to admit another, and they would go by me kicking up their heels.. A contented animal will gain faster than an uneasy, unsatisfied one. Blows and unkind treatment, besides being cruel, cost one money every time. And then these cows always had a dry, comfortable bed, and it never froze in the stable. The usual winter temperature was near 50 . Their life was as regular and systematic as clockwork, and they were always comfortable. I did not have any covered yard then, but they were never out in the yard only long enough to drink, and a few at a time at that, so that if it was cold it no more than made them appreciate the comfort within. They knew nothing about standing in a cold wind, humping up their backs for hours at a time. If we were having a very bad storm that would wet them, water was given them inside. Now, do you wonder those cows came to me with the first snowstorm if they were not watched ? One winter I fed a stable full of steers of my own raising. They were mostly coming three years old. They were choice animals, all of them, that one could take delight in caring for. I could not then afford large stock of such quality, but bought the little calves of William Ellsworth, who had about the finest Stock in town, paying about $5 a head for them, such as he did not want to raise, and really I had better have paid $10 than raise the calves from common stock. - Well, I sold these steers about the first of February to the late M. Chapman, another man who prided himself on his fine stock, and he was one of the best feeders in town. I was to keep the stock until April, and they were to be weighed and paid for then by the pound. He told me, in answer to a question, that I might feed them just as high and well as I pleased, and I detected a smile on his face and knew he was thinking : " Why, bless you, young fellow, you cannot take care of cattle as well as I with my long experience ! You may do your best, and then they will come to my place and do better ! ' ' My reason for asking him was that 1 knew cattle I bought from a man who only fed them fairly well, did better for me than those that had been unduly pushed like the single cow of some town man. And I knew I had sold fine animals to a farmer who failed to care for them as well as I, and they run down fast. But after his consent was given, with the smile thrown in, I went to work with a will. They were fed what grain each one could safely eat (I knew them all) some four or five times a day, and then a wisp of dried grass to each one, and then the manger was swept clean while they dropped down and chewed their cuds. A clock was in the barn, actually, The Care of Stock.— 265 and they were always fed to a minute and watered also. It is a fact that I could go through there some ten minutes before feed- ing time with a pail of grain and they would none of them get up. Ten minutes later they would all get up. I have done this before witnesses who couldn't believe it possible until they had seen it. But one had to be very careful about letting them see a stranger, or they might all jump up, anyway. Well, when Mr. Chapman took those cattle home he was exceedingly proud of them. And well he might be. No show stock were ever curried and handled with more care. By the time they got to town to be weighed they began to feel their oats and freedom and they were beautiful to look at with their perfect health and spirits. Mr. Chapman did not want to take them home until grass came, but the bargain was for the first of April, and my hay was getting low and I wanted to get at my spring work. For months I had been tied up with those steers and my other stock, never once leaving them for more than an hour or two by day. The season was backward and Mr. Chapman was obliged to put them in the barn and feed for a month or more, and I heard through others (not a word to me, you may know) that he said he made a terrible blunder buying them so early; that they acted like spoiled babies ; nothing was good enough for them, and they actually lost flesh till grass came, although they were gaining about a thousand pounds a month, thirteen of them, when he took them away. Now, this is not told with any desire to brag at all, but rather to give a hint to my young readers in particular of the very foundation of success with stock. Alas, how few are treated in this way ! Do you say one cannot afford to take so much pains ? He cannot afford to take less,: and I would not want to if I could. We should feel in duty bound to make our animals as comfortable as our means will permit. I do not know when I have enjoyed anything more than a remark of my neighbor, Edward McCauley, when he was looking at my horses in their box-stalls in my new barn one cold, stormy day : " Why, Terry, your horses are as comfortable in here as you are in your new home." Thank God, yes! and do they not deserve it at my hands ? Faithful, tireless sepants, helping us to get our comfort- able home and never having once served us a single mean trick. But aside from this righteous view of the matter, one cannot afford to have any stock kept for money-making any other way than comfortable and contented. Breed is a good deal, but so is feed and care. Would it startle you if I said that few cows in Ohio know what it is to have enough to eat ? But it is true. Think. The great mass are turned out to pasture. Feed may be flush for a month or so and they half starve during other dry, hot months ; at any rate, they do not get half as much to eat as they did in the best of the seasoji, and of course they must cut down on their milk. How many cows can you think of that are fed 266 — Our Farming. all they can use of suitable food, every day in the year, and given pure, fresh water and entirely comfortable quarters, and whose wants are attended to with clockwork regularity ? I would look for profit in the stock business in this direction. Half-way work no longer pays. There is too much competition in the half-way line. You would not be a slave to your animals ? Well, then, you will never attain any very great success any more. I went home with a successful manufacturer from an institute once, and he told me how he was in debt for the boots he had on his feet when he came into the town. Now he employs, perhaps, one hundred and fifty hands, and can count his money by the many thousands ; but 1 found when right around with him that he was almost a slave to his work, his business. He was up early and out late, trusting much to others, of course, but watching and see- ing that it was done. I concluded that he was about as tied up every working day in the year as I was when I took the best pos- sible care of those steers. Rest assured, friends, that when success of the highest kind comes, somebody is working hard and system- atically and untiringly. To make money from cows is very con- fining work. And the worst feature with me is that about as much must be done Sunday as any other day. It is necessary, however. If I could not make my cows comfortable Sunday as other days and go to church, too, I should know where my duty was. A man can serve God in his own barn. Care of animals of all kinds in winter is confining. I would not disguise the fact. My present tillage farming gives more leisure and full rest on the Sabbath. But if I kept animals, then I would keep them and be confined enough to make it successful. I did do this. In many sections farming cannot be successfully followed without stock of some kind. It can be here, and often with less hard work. Still one can farm right here with animals and make money. I know I can do it on my farm. But not in old ways. With the good care spoken of above, and choice thoroughbred or grade stock, and with the manure all saved and used to the best advantage, and with a silo and ensilage corn, and purchased bran, and oil meal, and cottonseed meal, and dried grass instead of hay, and all other advanced ways put into practice, I know I could make money in more than one line. Perhaps one reason my horses have done so well on clover hay only, as told of in another chapter, is because they have been pretty well taken care of. My father used to tell me when I was a boy, that a good cleaning was as good for a horse as four quarts of oats. I did not believe it then as fully as now. There is no question but a well-curried horse does better. Also, there is a good deal in proper feeding. Some horses at least would eat themselves poor, if hay was kept constantly before them. I want them to have a reasonable feed that they will eat right up, as a rule, and then go without till another feeding, time comes around,. The Care of Stock.— 267 The only exception to this is when the horses are very hard at work ; then we let them have about all the hay they will eat during the night. But they dp not eat all the time then, but rather eat for a time and then lie down, and towards morning get up and eat some more. In the morning and at noon they are only moderately fed, and always so fed when idle or doing only light work. A horse can eat grass in the field constantly, or all it wants during the day and night, and do well. But grass is a natural and easily digested food. Hay is not as easily digested, not even dried grass. The horse does not know this. The owner should exercise judgment for him. We often hear clover hay objected to as more likely to produce heaves. I was asking Dr. Turner, State Veterinarian of Missouri, in regard to this last winter, and he said heaves were caused by a rupture of some of. the air cells of the lungs. This rupturing was done by coughing and the coughing was caused by dust. That clover hay was more liable to be dusty than timothy, that was all. There was nothing about good clover hay to produce heaves. I asked him if a horse over-ate, was allowed to fill himself very full of clover, and then was pulled hard, whether heaves might not be caused. He thought not. Said the horse might be uncomfortable from being so full, but heaves could not result. Clover hay is certainly more liable to be dusty than timothy. It is quite difficult to have it always bright and perfect. When I used to do my own feeding, I fed the hay dry, unless I found some that was dusty. But of late when others feed for me, I have a rule that all the hay shall be sprinkled when fed. We have water right by the stable door, you will remember, so it is not much trouble with a garden sprinkler to wet the hay a little in the mangers, as it is fed to the horses. With care, I do not think clover need produce heaves. Still there is a difference in horses. I have one horse that all the dust in the mow would never affect, and another that it will not do to be careless with. We water horses three times a day, and in hot weather, when they are at work, they get some in the middle of forenoon and afternoon. With this moistened hay I do not think it makes any difference whether they are watered before feeding or after. I have usually done the latter way. Where much grain was fed, perhaps the former would be better. But I believe the main thing is for therri to have enough and often, and not have to go so long and get so thirsty that they drink large quantities at once. I would feed cattle the same as horses, no more at once than they would eat up clean and quickly and with a relish. As to watering, cows and steers seem to be different from horses. Some will drink well twice a day and I have had many that would not, but would drain a pretty large tub when they did drink. I usu- ally have offered them water twice a day when feeding high for beef or milk, but all would not drink twice. Perhaps this is 268 — Our Farming. partly a matter of habit, as most stock In this section is watered but once a day. I would like to repeat here what in substance has been said before, that in any line ©f stock keeping in the older States now the profit must largely come from the manure. Not that you get more from the animal than you feed her, nor as much quite, but you can manage so as to save a large part and return it as plant food. And by purchasing mill feed you can get extra fertility for your farm. No matter whether you do this or not, if you waste half of your manure by having leaky stable floors and other careless treatment, much of your profit will be gone. Com- petition is so close that the business can hardlv stand this drain in Ohio now. You have often heard it said that if a cow is allowed to run down in her milk, particularly late in the season, she can never be brought up again till she becomes fresh. Well, do not let them run down ; that is right. But they can be brought up again. Good care and dried grass and water only will do it ; this I know. I have done it time and again. When we wintered cows for others they were often brought here almost dry. The owners told us to milk along until they became dry. With our warm stables and care and feed they would come right up in their milk and we have made many a hundred pounds of butter from ' ' dry cows." If they were really good cows it was difficult to dry them off on such feed. It seems to me that not a few could learn a les- son from this. Another point : My little success in feeding was in an old barn and sheds destitute of paint and very roughly built, but made warm and comfortable by my own efforts cheaply, as I have told you about. There is no feature beyond the reach of any one. Don't forget and think : "Oh, yes, he could take care of animals in his warm, nice barn and covered yard." You would like it better, of course, but you can do without such improvements until you can earn them, just as I did. It would be a delight to me now to care for some fine animals in my barn, the chance is so good ; but perhaps no more than it was years ago to conquer under no end of difficulties. CHAPTER XXXI. BIG LOADS. JHK writer had some little experience as a teamster before he began farming. He drew some sand, gravel, tiles, etc., for others, by the yard or piece, so that the size of the load drawn measured the profit. When he-came onto the farm it was with a light wagon, so that he could do nothing in the line of drawing heavy loads. In truth, he did not have heavy loads of anything to draw at first; but when he got a better wagon and had something to draw, he tried to help himself some in this direction. And he has, not a little. About the first teaming we had to do to amount to much was drawing wood to town, two and one-half miles. A pile of eighteen-inch wood 8x4 feet, is called a cord of stove wood here. This was all my little wagon would hold by piling. With common sideboards on my new wagon, I could pile on one and one-half cords. But to do this alone took a good deal of time. I could make but three trips a day, or four and one- half cords. There are farmers in this county who draw no more now. But this was not business enough for me. The price of stove wood was, say, $ 1.75. It cost about seventy-five cents to get it cut, if hard, and pay interest on the money while it was seasoning. Say the timber was worth fifty cents standing. This left fifty cents for the drawing. Four and one-half cords a day would be $2.25. Pretty small wages. But it is no use to say wood is too low; you cannot make it higher. But you can reduce the cost of production in the way of handling cheaper. A little study, after I had some experience, showed me a way out, and I went to the wagonmaker and told him just what I wanted in the way of sideboards, and stood right over him while they were being made and ironed. We got them just right the first time and they have never been changed at all, and they are still in use on my farm, after more than twenty years, this very original pair, and you shall have a picture of the wagon. Now, what was theresult? Why, I went into the woods and threw on without piling two cords of stove wood at once. A little care was taken to toss it in rather straight under and around the seat and place it a little around the outside, and it had to be thrown up pretty high, but I got on two cords and did it quickly. I saved time enough in this way, by not piling, so I made four trips a day. It was a big day's work (and one couldn't stop to talk any), but I did it, day after day, and week after week. Now, how much would I get for team work (269) 270 — Our Farming. on the basis figured above ? Eight cords at fifty cents a cord gave $4. That would do. But had I worked on in the old way, whining about wood being so low, I might have kept on till I was gray without making anything. In three or four days I had paid for the sideboards from the extra money made. After a time I got more horses and another and longer wagon on which I could with care throw two and one-half cords of stove wood. These two wagons have been in constant use on the farm even since, often with these sideboards on. They enable one to put on a large load without having it very high up of such articles as pota- toes, bags of grain, bran in particular, corn in the ear, stove wood, sawdust, etc. Look at the picture, engraved from a photograph, of these very wagons that we have used so long. You see, a man can easily empty in a bushel of potatoes, and on the smaller wagon we have often drawn two tons of potatoes to the depot at a load — sixty-seven bushels. Unless there are springs under the wagon, however, the road must be very smooth to carry so many. They can be piled on, the top of wagon is so wide, and will go all right on a smooth road for a little ways. The first time I went on a long trip with such a load, though, I found they would roll off after a little. Bolster springs prevent it. Some of my success in market came from my using springs and piling my load up very high in the middle. They showed off to good advantage. A small load, shook down in a lumberwagon by a longtrip, although as good potatoes, look 20 per cent, poorer, and looks help one about selling. When a grocer sees people crowding around a fine load of potatoes, it is quite an advertisement for him to come right out and buy them while the crowd is around. This is a string I have pulled quite a little. And I used to have my wagon nicely varnished as well as painted, and washed clean, and a good canvas cover. Then when I got near the city, I would take this off and fix up my load and drive in slowly with the potatoes piled up high in the middle, so every one could see them, and the very large load helped draw attention, too. So I was getting potatoes to market faster and getting more for them, too. I have tried several kinds of bolster springs. They are not very satisfactory, although they answered my purpose pretty well. If drawing to market now I would get a good platform spring wagon. Now, let me describe the pictures. The photo- graph of wagons shows them with sideboards on. These side- boards are portable ; that is, can be taken off or put on in a min- ute. They just slip right on and lift right off. I wanted them so because we want to change often and cannot afford to waste any time. To have fastened them on the box would have been a simple matter ; but to arrange them so they could be put on or off in one minute, and still be strong enough to carry two tons, and light enough for one man to handle, required some study. Fig. 1 shows a side view of one sideboard taken off. The right 272 — Our Farming. end is the rear, of course, and you see the little iron into which the hook of the tailboard (Fig. 3) goes. Fig. 2 shows you one of the three sets of irons that are on the sideboard. The inside iron is one-half inch by one inch, the outside one ons-quarter inch by one inch, and the brace one-half im:h roui d iron rod. These irons are bolted in two places to the iideboa d by bolts passing right through each near the edges of the sideboard. Sideboard is eighteen inches wide and sune tl ickness as ;; : de of wagon box, seven -eighths of an inch These iions simply slip down on side of wagon box, one on each side. The heavy iron inside and brace outside holds the load. If to be used constantly it would be well to put some band iron plates on out and inside of sides of box where these irons slip over, to prevent wear. On my longest wagon, I have four sets of irons on sideboard instead of three, as you will notice in picture. You will see, the whole thing is very simple, but built as directed and with the tailboard in and hooked, it will carry an enormous load of anything bulky. I have never broken or even bent a brace. Fig. 4 will give you a chance to see with the eye the advantage of this style of top box. It is a cross-section, of course, of wagon box. The p?ain lines show the box and top of a well-rounded load. The lower dotted lines show how much less load one can get on wagon with common top box of the same heighth, while the upper dotted lines show how very high the common top box would have to be in order to hold as much. It would not be practical to load into. Now, my kind of sideboards cost little or nothing more (not as much as common ones high enough to hold same amount) and can ba put on or off as quickly. From this figure and this statement you must see the gain. Big Loads. — 273 When our roads here are good, two ordinary horses can just as well draw such loads as I have spoken of as less, the short distance we have to go to the depot. But do not understand me as advising the overloading of horses. I never do this. It is entirely wrong, as well as bad business policy. But our farmers about here are not in danger of doing this. As a rule, when they go to market they are not rigged to take as much as their horses could readily draw. Some ten years ago I got to the mill in Akron, twelve miles from here, rather late in the day, and on a day when there was a great run. The result was a long wait for me. I amused myself by keeping account of the number of bushels of wheat each farmer had on. The average of fifty-four loads was twenty -four bushels. Some of these men had come as far as eighteen miles. Nearly all had good, strong teams that could as well draw 3,000 pounds as less than 1,500. My two wagons had on ninety-four bushels that day. Can you not see that I was accomplishing nearly twice as much in a day as the aver- age of them ? Even if one does not do very much teaming he should arrange to make it pay. The regular teamsters here who draw gravel and sand never think of drawing less than 4,000 pounds when roads are good and not too hilly. The wheat from these fifty-two loads was loaded into a car, which was run into the mill each time, to be weighed and emptied. It held only forty-four bushels. The miller told me it was rarely filled by one load. Of course, they would have had it larger, if farmers all drew such loads as I. They had to put some bags on top from my loads. But now, when the roads are bad, or one has a long distance to go, these big wagons may want a little more power in front than two horses of ordinary size. Then, what you want is my three-horse pole for driving three horses abreast. I was rather forced to study this up also, in order to make my work pay. An ordinary two-horse team will draw with ease, under fair condi- tions, 3,000 pounds of load. The wagon, sideboards and driver will weigh* say 1,000 pounds. The total load for the two horses is, then, 4,000 pounds, or 2,000 each. If now, you can hitch another horse with the other two, so he can draw as directly on the load as "they do, he can draw 2,000 pounds more load, as there is no more wagon to draw. This makes the total load, exclusive of deadweight, 5,ooopounds. Three thousand pounds with two horses, and 5,000 with three ; which pays best ? And this is just what I have done. And further, this three-horse team can be handled anywhere that a farmer needs to go, and just as readily. Why not use it when the circumstances are favorable, and make the third horse bring you 33 per cent, more than either of the others. But I said I was forced to study this up. This is how it came about : Before my farming became profitable, I took a large job of drawing gravel from near my farm to town. It 274 — O ur Farming. was for use on the roads. The price paid was fifty cents a ton. By putting on 3,000 pounds, which was a fair load, one could earn $3 a day, by making four trips. Most of the teamsters put on 4,000 pounds and made $4 a day, but it was a wet time, and the roads bad from so much heavy hauling, and they overworked their horses. I had signed a contract and would lose if I failed to fulfil it ; but I did not want to work for $3 a day. For some days I held off, while the road was full of teams and everyone was growling because they could not make anything. At last, I had it studied out and went to the wagonmaker once more with drawings, and stood over him while he made the double pole shown in Fig. 5. By tak- ing out a single rod, the two-horse pole is removed and this put in, taking but a moment. By putting one horse in between the poles and one on each side and using a pair of three-horse eveners, you have a direct draft. With this rig I drew 5,000 pounds of gravel every single load, instead of 3,000, and with the same ease to horses and made $5 a day. Had I driven only two horses, the third would have been idle. As it was, he made me $2 a day. I have drawn my entire crop of potatoes twelve miles to Akron, some years, alone, with this three-horse arrangement, and one fall I got caught with four car loads on hand when constant rain made roads almost impassable. But, by taking my light- est wagon and three horses, I never needed to draw less than fifty bushels to a load. It would have been an ex- pensive job for me to have gone with two two-horse teams and a man to drive. Don't you see, I did about as much alone. I drew 3,000 pounds of and all. This was 1,333 P er horse. A have been able to draw 2,666 pounds, this would be i,666 pounds of load, half of what I drew. Of course, we do, the load, or 4,000, wagon two-horse team would Taking out the wagon or • 1 66 pounds more than we do not mean to be caught this way, but when three-horse pole comes handy. I have driven this rig into the smallest yards in town, and through the most crowded streets in Cleveland, without trouble. The poles are about the size of a large carriage pole. Being two, they do not need to be as heavy as a single wagon pole, as the strain is divided between them. Big Loads. — 275 They are mortised into the crosspiece and braced thoroughly, you will notice. The crosspiece should be longer than just to come to end of poles, so as to give room for a brace outside. My poles are three feet apart, from centre to centre. The three-horse doubletree goes on top of this crosspiece. Any kind of a one can be used, but I have a simple one shown in Fig. 6. It is six feet long, with three whifHetrees, each two feet four inches long. This has one advantage ; one can use short whifHetrees and get through a pretty narrow gate, and it is very simple and light. At first thought it will appear to you that the middle horse has a dead pull, but this is not the case, as you will notice. I have had men come to my wagon when I was in the city, and be so certain of this that they offered to bet their farms on it. But it is never best to bet on the other man's game. This figure will make the matter plain to you. We cross the inside traces, making each whiffietree an evener. There should be a ring between the clevis on evener ? Fig. 6. ? •& and the one on whiffietree, so as to give plenty of play. You see, the middle horse is not hitched to the middle whiffietree at all, but to the inside ends of outside ones. One' can have a set of three horse-reins made, but I have not found it necessary. I use my two horse reins with the addition of two hitching straps for extra checks. So fixed, I have handled horses in crowded streets. Take the two-horse reins and put the whole reins through on the middle horse, one on each side. Then put 011 your extra checks, so you have two checks on each rein. Take the right ones and pass one over middle horse and hitch to right side of bit of left horse, and pass the other over the neck of right horse and hitch to right side of his bit. This rein then pulls all three horses to the right. Fix the other all to the left. A little shortening or lengthening of the checks will enable you to handle them all right. I always put the best horse to back in the centre. Going down hill, of course the brakes 276 — Our Farming. hold the wagon, but sometimes I want to back up to a place to unload, and as I arrange it the middle horse has to back against the other two. I use two 3-foot neck yokes, giving the middle horse an end of each. Have always been able to back my load in any reasonable place. One often sees four horses hitched to a big load, two ahead of the others. I have tried this side by side with my plan, and three horses abreast with this direct draft will draw as much as the four with one team ahead, and, of course, they handle better. CHAPTER XXXII. MUCK. jHERE are many acres of muck swamp in this vicinity. At the north end our farm runs down into a swamp of some 200 acres. This is rotten vegetable matter as far down as I have ever dug. It is surface-drained by open ditches. I went to considerable expense to drain my few acres some two feet deep, so as to have a place to get muck for composting and using as a fertilizer. From what I had read I thought it would be valuable to use on my upland. I suppose we got out the muck in about the best way, and I will briefly describe our plan of operations. Beginning at the back end, so as to make the hole where it would be out of the way, we threw up in the fall a strip of muck eight feet wide and three feet deep, throwing it, of course, to the south (see plan of farm). It made a large pile. The last foot was taken from under water, or below water level, but by leaving a little muck around the outside, taking a rod or so at a time, we managed to throw most of it out. The little strip left served as a dam to hold water back. We would find logs of considerable size down in this muck, where they had been for ages, under water nearly always. They would seem sound to look at, but generally would slice right up with the spade. This bank of muck was left to freeze and drain during the winter, and then for the action of the sun during the summer, and then it was ready to draw away and use, after which we threw up another lot. We drew some directly onto our land, and spread it, but, usually, composted it first. When composting, we drew the muck in the fall up near the barn, and spread a layer, say, four inches thick on the ground, making it about twelve feet wide, and as long a pile as we wished. Then, driving on each side, spreadr ing half each way, we put on a thin coating of ashes. Perhaps slacked lime would have been better. But, for potato growing, we thought the potash in the ashes would be valuable. There is very little in the muck. The ashes were collected at saw mills in the vicinity. Next, another layer of muck was spread on from each side, and then more ashes, and so on until the pile was four feet, or more, high. It was then out where we could get it to compost with manure in the spring. We could not get into the swamp to draw it out in the spring often. This pile of muck and ashes was then composted with the manure, load for load, except (277) 278 — Our Farming. that the bottom and top were both muck, and we used a larger wagon to draw muck on. Thus treated, the manure was rotted without any waste, during the summer, so we could handle it with scoop shovels in the fall. If one must compost, the muck, undoubtedly, did good in the way of saving manure, both from leaching and from the escape of ammonia. Where muck can be used in a yard or stable, so it saves liquid manure that would otherwise go to waste, it is certainly valuable. Theoretically, it was very valuable as we used it. Although we more than doubled the amount of manure by adding the muck, science said it was still worth about the same, load for load, as the original manure. I say science ; perhaps I should say the chemist. I shaved down from top to bottom of one of these compost piles, so as to get a fair sample of the whole, doing this in the middle of the pile, when we were drawing out, and had it cut down perpen- dicularly. This was thoroughly mixed, and a sample sent to Prof. L,ord, the State chemist. He made it worth, on a basis of commercial manure prices, $4.44 per ton. This almost set me wild. If I could make manure in this way of that value, I could get rich. I went into muck hauling at a big rate. But my bump of caution is large, and, after I cooled down a little, I thought it would be well to know more about what I was doing practically. Now, do not understand that I did not have full faith in Prof. Lord's analysis. He was right, from the chemist's standpoint, beyond a doubt, but I did have a doubt whether I could, or did, get out of that muck what he found in it. Well, I began to experiment some with muck and with use of ashes and also with fresh manure. Now, no farmer who is making his money by his work can carry on such experiments so as to certainly tell exactly what is best. But I went far enough to convince myself that, first, ashes did no sort of good on my land (i.e., there is potash enough in it for the present). Second, that I got about the same immediate results from fresh manure as from the increased quantity of compost and with far less expense. Third, that muck, although it contained a good deal of nitrogen, was very loth to part with it, and there was and is a serious question in my mind, whether it does not absorb nitrogen or ammonia from the manure in compost and hold onto that, too. Instead of getting $3.00 or more from a ton of muck — what is really in it — I doubt whether I got thirty cents during the first two years. Perhaps it may, little by little, give up its substance to the crops, but it is too slow. Prof. Lord has offered to try and find some way to set free the nitrogen in a sample, if I will send it to him. But I hardly believe it can be done practically. Plenty of people who lived around these swamps told me there was no money in drawing out the muck, but I was smarter than they, in my own estimation, and paid no attention. They also told me, some of them, that tile draining would not pay and Muck. — 279 buying clover seed when timothy was cheaper. But this time they were right. One man who was born and brought up on the old farm, Mr. Ranson Sanford, said that many years before they dug a ditch and drew the muck up and put on a spot for a garden and never could see any particular gain from its use, although they piled on a lot of it. My old neighbor and friend, S. Holcomb, would come along when I was at work at it and say: "Drawing out more swamp dirt, are you? Well, I have had my day at it and found it did not pay, and so will you." About the time of the above analysis a number went to drawing muck out, something as I did ; but every single man has quit after a little trial. I can get that muck out for, say, thirty cents a load, but have not drawn a load except to use in earth closets for some eight or ten years. Now, I would not say it does not pay in some cases, but rather advise a little caution, so that you know what you are about before doing much work. Every year some one without practical knowledge tells in the papers a great story about the value of muck. Possibly some muck may be more valuable than mine ; but I know of none that has analyzed higher. I have one clay spot on the farm that I think some time I will try a heavy dose of muck on, to see if I cannot lighten up the soil some. There is one thing against the use of muck, it is full of weed seeds and makes a greatly increased crop of these to fight. If you try drawing out any, be sure and pile it up a year on bank of ditch and let it dry out. You will then have only about half the weight to draw. If I remember correctly, my muck taken out of water would dry out in the oven 85 per cent. You can air dry it about 50 per cent, which saves much in handling. I had an idea for years of trying to kiln dry it in some way, so it would make a better absorbent for stables, but never tried it. See how much I wasted for the time at least in buying ashes. This from reading in the papers of their great value, particularly for potatoes. How simple a matter to have put some on part of a field and found out about it before spending money that was sorely needed in other directions ! When I got my bearings and did this, I could not see one particle of gain from their use. I have tried several times since and they never show where they are put. But they are of great value on some soils. The point I Would have you fix in your minds from this chapter, friends, is to not go into anything blindly or thoughtlessly. Think and study and experiment lightly until you know you are right and then pull the throttle wide open and let her go. Don't get excited and let out first and think later. But, perhaps, I can tell you one thing about muck that will help some one as much as it has me, and that is how to get out a horse or cow that has mired in a muck bottom ditch. We have ditches of this kind that no animal can cross in wet weather, 280— Our Farming. and any new one is apt to try. There is just one safe, easy way and one can do the job alone, if need be. A large rope might be better, but I use chains because we always have them handy. First, I take a chain of proper length and pass it around the animal, not around the body perpendicularly, but horizontally, passing it well down under the hams, behind and around the breast in front, right down in the water or mud and hook it mod- erately tight. Place some old carpet or sacks between chain and breast. Then, reachingover animal's back, pull up the two sides of the chain until they come together, or nearly so, on back, and hook around them another chain to pull out by. Now if you can back a team right up to the bank of ditch, you may hitch directly onto this chain, and, perhaps, slope off bank a little with a shovel, and with a very steady pull take the animal right out. I have done it in less time than it took to write this. But there is a rather better way. Back a wagon right to the brink of ditch, so the hind axle is over the cow or horse, nearly, and hitch chain to axle. Then put team to wagon and pull steadily. This is better because it pulls up more. If ground near by is soft, so you can- not get a team in (animal is mired in a swamp) , run wagon in if possible by hand, on boards or some way, and hitch chains or ropes or poles together from the pole of wagon to where a team can pull. This is a safe plan for the most valuable stock. The first horse we had get in a ditch kept us and the neighbors busy most of the night getting him out, horses and men, just because no one knew just what to do. I have taken a horse out of the same ditch, alone, in fifteen minutes. When I was drawing logs one winter, word was sent me that a very large cow was in the ditch. It was very cold and just at dark, and I had a sled and chains all on it. I passed the house with horses on a run, when I got home, whipped the chains around her and had her out be- fore any one got down there, and she came very near running away with my team before I could get the chain unhooked from doubletree. Of course, you want to get team close back, with short chain to pull by, if you can, and then stand by to unhook the instant they are out safely, as an animal is apt to be consider- ably surprised and excited unless they have been in so long as to be stiff. In this case they should be taken to barn on boat sled, or covered right there and rubbed and tended to. I once had a valuable cow get through an airhole in the ice in very cold weather. No business out there ? You are right, but it was be- fore we were able to do better. When I heard of it she was very nearly gone — chilled to death. Without any delay I took her out with team as above described, tossing two or three flat fence rails on the sled as I went down. These I stuck in slanting to slide her up on, so she would not pull against the edge of the ice. There was no time for fussing ; she must come out in just one minute, and she did, and I slid her right up onto the low sled with team and Muck. — 281 pieces of rails in another minute and took her to the barn flying, my man and I holding her. She was too far gone to struggle any. There we warmed her and worked over her, and finally saved her, and I sold her with her calf for $100. Jf there had been any delay, if I had not known just what 'to do, ohe would certainly have died. CHAPTER XXXIII. KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT. LEADING merchant in an Ohio town failed People who had trusted him and had funds in his hands lost to the amount of $30,000 or more. He had been in business some twenty years, and had the confidence of the entire community. He sold all kinds of goods and did a private banking busi- ness. Everyone wondered at his failure. The creditors thought there must be something wrong, and called for an investigation before the probate judge. This ruined business man, as shown by his own statements made under oath, had never kept any regular cash account or any other accounts, by which he could know just what he was doing at all times. He had plenty of accounts with individuals — too many — but no account of bills payable or receivable. After this testimony was made public, his failure was no longer a wonder. He was a shrewd business man in many respects, but here was a weakness on a vital point, as you will all see at a glance. Any thinking man must say that if he had been particular in his accounts, and known just what he was doing, when he began to run behind he would have looked closely for the reason and probably so arranged as to keep on without loss. As it was, he did not know whether he was losing or making, or when he began to lose, or anything whatever about it. He had large quantities of other people's money in his possession; he did not know how much, and before he knew it, he was badly under. He was an old and particular friend of mine, and I have not the least doubt he intended to be an honest man, but his carelessness amounted to dishonesty, as far as his creditors were concerned, and my friend dropped in an hour from a very high position (he had an ' ' Honorable ' ' attached to his name) to a very undesirable one. Now for another pen picture : Mr. Ohmer, the well-known Ohio horticulturist, tells of meeting a young friend of his who had gone into business for. himself. "Well, Tom," Mr. Ohmer says, "are you making anything?" This sounds exactly like our good friend Ohmer. He is very blunt and pointed, as well as kind and genial. At first "Tom " looked as though he thought it was none of Mr. Ohmer 's business, and then melting under his friendly look, which no man could doubt, he candidly answered, "I do not know." "Well, you ought to know," said Mr. Ohmer, and passed on. This was a dozen years, or more ago and Mr. Ohmer (282) Knowing What You Are About. — 283 had almost forgotten him, when he happened to come across him again. Tom grasped his hand most heartily and says: "Nick Ohmer, that little remark you made to me when we met last, that I ought to know what I was doing, has been worth thousands of dollars to me. It set me to thinking, and from that day to this I have known and have been very successful, and I believe largely because I followed your advice." These are both true stories, and they show the usual results of knowing and not knowing what one is doing in mercantile pur- suits. Is there any lesson for us farmers in this ? Yes. Farm- ing is not an exceptional branch of business which one can follow most successfully in the dark, or without knowing what he is doing. The farmer needs to use his pencil as well as the mer- chant. He should know whether his farming pays or not from the figures, and whether each crop pays on the average. One may pay well and another lose him money. How is he to know about this so he can act accordingly, except from accounts kept? He cannot. He may give a fair guess, but we have had too much of this guess-work farming. One winter at quite a number of insti- tutes the writer asked all farmers who could tell, if at home, from accounts kept, what their gross and net income was, to hold up their hands. How many do you think went up ? In one case three, never any more, and sometimes only one. In one meeting, the largest in the State, where there were, probably, 1,000 persons in the hall, only one hand went up. I afterwards found that this man had fifty acres of land, largely in fruit, and after taking out his total expenses that year for help, taxes and everything ($1,500) and deducting six per cent, on his investment, he had fully $2,000 left to pay for his time. A salary of $2,000 a year on a fifty-acre farm ! I have no doubt his figuring had helped him. I know it had from what he told me, and I could repeat but for lack of space. At the institute in my own county I found a dairy farmer who knew just what he had done, and could give the figures to a cent. For example, he sold milk from sixteen cows to the amount of 106,717 pounds, or 6,669 pounds per cow on the aver- age. This was $73.61 per cow. He paid $285.44 f° r mill feed, keeps no regular help, milks all cows himself, knows just what he is about, has a little farm and his name is A. D. Mills. By the way, he has done better since. He got $107.26 more money the next year. You may not know the above figures are more than double the average. How much did figuring have to do with it ? Some crops and some practices pay a farmer, and some do not ; pray tell me how he is to work into the ways that pay best, unless he knows from accounts kept just what he is doing ? It is simply impossible. It is impossible to do real business farm- ing. I went home with my friend, Geo. K. Scott, of Mt. Pleas- 284 — Our Farming. ant, O., from an institute once, and found he had a pair of wagon scales, and was not only figuring, but weighing, to know what he was doing. The successful farmer of the future must make use of these simple business practices. Oftentimes a careful figuring would give us farmers a greater respect for our business. We are often doing much better than we know, when everything is taken into account. Figures will show that on many farms the owner is making as much money, in proportion to capital in- vested, as the ordinary business man of the city does. I remem- ber visiting one farmer who was complaining of only making 3 per cent, on his investment in the farm and stock, etc., who was living in a new house costing $3,700, which he had given the farm no credit for. This would have cost him $1 a day, Sundays and all, in a city, and would add a good deal to the 3 per cent., and, doubtless, many other things were not credited to the farm that would cost money to any business man in town. Farmers are, I think, generally doing better than they think for, and it would do them good to know all about this from figures kept. If they are not doing well, then they certainly ought to know, so as to try and do better. I met a farmer the other day and asked him how much he made net the last year. He is one of our best farmers, too ; a reading, progressive man. He replied to me : " I don't know, and don't want to know; as long as I have money to spend when I want it that is all I care." Well, this may do foi a well-to-do old farmer, but for the man trying to get ahead and pay for his place, will not such carelessness lead to the same result that it did with the merchant first spoke a of > If not, then farming must be a wonderful business. A farmer who blunders along good-ojiui/jdly in the dark may be a very good man, a good neighbor , a good citizen ; but would he not be a more useful citizen aud a better man if he ' would use all the powers God has given him ? Would he not exalt his calling more and could he not surround himself and family with more of this world's comforta and luxuries ? I fully believe so. We want a little more lead pencil and less muscle nowadays. Often have I heard farmers say: "Those who work the least seem to make the most." Alas, too many think muscular labor is the only real work. Some of it is necessary on the farm, but much of the other kind must go with it to make the most. In the matter of bookkeeping for the farmer, I would not advise any complicated system. We have no time for red tape. A simple cash account ought always to be kept by every farmer, or any other man handling money. This should show every dol- lar taken in, who it was from and what for, and every dollar paid out, who to and for what. This can be done very briefly and easily, and will help greatly towards-good business habits. You then know just what you are doing. It is convenient to refei to, Knowing What You Are About.— 28s and may save one money sometimes. I do not keep any day- book or journal, but buy a book ruled as a ledger at the book store. Let me give a few items, as an example, right from my cash, account : 1892. Cash Paid Out. 1892. Cash Taken In. Tune 5 bbls. Land Plaster (R. T. Lyon) . Lawn Shears . . Freight on Plaster Express 011 Goods Meat 6 pounds Butter . Robert .... Washing Machine (W. W. W.) . . Church (Mrs. R.) BindingTwine (Campbell) Ice Cream .... Geo. Pendleton, work Grace, trip to Painesville Lumber (Shields) Wife, Silver Lake Adam, work Repairing Watch . . Union National Bank $ 5 50 $102 31 June Cash on hand Check sold C. A. C. D. W. M. (loan returned) 2 balls Twine (M.) . . . 64 bus. Seed Potatoes (M.) $12 20 14 1 64 $111 25 37 From this you will see plainly how we keep our cash account. Start by putting the money on hand down at the head of the " Cash-taken-in " column. Then, if everything that is taken in, or paid out, is put down on the proper side, the difference between the footing of the two sides at. any time will show the cash in your pocket to a cent. For example, the account, as it now stands, foots up $111.37 taken in, and $102.31 paid out. If all is right, then, there should be the difference between these amounts, or $9.06, in my pocket. If there is not, if it is more or less, some money has been taken in or paid out and not put down, and we hunt it up. This is what business men call balancing the cash, and ours has to balance, and then we know everything is right. I might explain these entries more particularly. I have not bothered to put in all dates here, but every entry is dated on the book. The first entry not only shows that the land plaster was paid for, but, when I want more, I can quickly turn to this entry, and get dealer's name in the city to whom I sent for it. I do not trouble to put down who small purchases (butter, eggs, meat, etc.) are made from. The washing machine was bought of W. W. Winchell, and the initials would call the name to mind. The $5 for church was paid to Mrs. R., the treasurer's wife. The binding twine came from a dealer here, C. A. Campbell, and so on The $50 was handed in to the bank, when I was there, on deposit On the other side I got $20 in currency by selling my check on bank to C. A. Campbell. Two balls twine left were sold a neighbor for $1.12, and so on. 286 — Our Farming. We buy and sell for cash but occasionally must wait on some friend. Anything of this kind we put on a memorandum account until paid. Large bills are paid by check on the Union National Bank of Cleveland, and some checks received are sent directly to them. These are not entered on the cash account, but on the bank account, with the name of sender and what they were for. So, from the cash account and bank account together, we can always tell just where every dollar has come from or gone to. The bank account is kept the same as the above cash account. All we send them is put on one side, and all we check out on the other. Once a month they return all canceled checks, and send statement of account. Several times a year, always the first of January and April, I write out in a little book a simple statement of cash and credits, which shows just what we are worth outside of the farm property, which is visible. So I always know just how we stand, and if these simple business habits had not been followed up for all these years, I know we would not be as well off. For several years it was determined by wife and I that our assets should figure up just an even $1,000 more every January ist. And we did it. Then, in the spring, we would get some- thing new, that we most wanted, to use up the excess, if any. Then we would hold the reins pretty carefully during the summer until we were sore we could lay up the $i ,ooo. You men who do not keep account, did you never wonder what in the world had become of your money ? You sell something, and get a lot, and then it is gone. It is so with me, I know. But I have only to turn to my cash and back accounts, and they show in black and white where every cent went. I do not expect old farmers will change much, but, my friends, encourage your children to be business farmers, and know what they are about. They will bless you for it some day. It will be better than money for them, because a good business habit will help them to make money, and they cannot be swindled out of it, or lose it, by want of experience or by carelessness. One of my daughters keeps my cash account, and everything is all straight, and my son and all the family have been brought up to keep everything straight. They all go to the family pocketbook when they please — no asking me, as they are full grown and we are all one family. But the books must show where all money goes. If there is a shortage of a few cents, they must think till they find it — not on account of the value of the money always, but to teach them to be accurate. I do not have to enforce this. They are more troubled than I when the cash is short. They have grown up in a businesslike atmosphere, if you will excuse me for saying it. A man need not always keep account with his crops. I found it a necessity to do this until I got settled on what would pay me best. In no other way could I have told. I do not keep account now, as a rule. Have got past the point where it is Knowing What You Are About. — 287 necessary. This I found true when I did keep account, that it helped me about reducing the cost of production. I was natu- rally figuring to grow the crop cheaper the next year. I have given you examples of how this worked, in other chapters. It was just this figuring that got up these sideboards for the wagon, so I could earn $4 a day drawing wood, instead of $2.25, or handle potatoes for half the money by using the bushel boxes. Of course, one cannot keep exact account with a crop, but he can come very near to it. Team, tools and driver, except costly tools like the binder and digger, cost me about $3 a day on my farm, and I call it that in figuring. For the costly tools I add a fair interest for their use. Nor can one figure exactly how much the farm pays him, but he can come near it. I would not, of course, credit the farm with every mess of potatoes dug from the garden, or every load of wood or pound of butter. This would require too much labor. But one can estimate in a lump what the garden is worth, how many potatoes are used in a year, how much butter (I can tell within a few pounds what we will use in a year), etc. These articles may then be credited fairly, so as to give a good idea of what the farm really does pay. And in figuring interest on the investment one must remember that land is a very safe invest- ment. Millions are loaned at 3 to 4 per cent., when the security is good enough. We have money bringing us only 4 per cent., and could loan it for twice that, but it would not be as safe. I believe that a little honest figuring would make some open their eyes in regard to the profit of farming. But I will say more on this point in Chapter XL,I. A friend wrote me not long since in regard to cost of team work, saying he did not see how I could estimate the wear on a horse, harness, etc. The interest on first cost would be simple enough, but he was at a loss about these other points. I may well take up a few lines to show how simple this seems to me, after years of practice. P*or example, I have been in the habit of allowing ten dollars per year per horse for wear or depreciation . Let us see how it works. In 1882 I paid$ 150 for a team of rather cheap horses in the fall. They were, perhaps, nine years old. They were not as fine to look at as our best team, but good enough for farm work. One was sent to the heaven for faithful old horses, without pain, last fall ; the other we still keep. One worked nine years and the other ten this fall. At ten dollars a head a year, they have brought us $190 — $40 more than cost. Our, best work team cost in the fall of 1881 $380. Eleven years takes off $220, making them worth now $160. They are seventeen- years old, but I would not want to take that for them. My figures on the average anyway are about right. How about losing a horse now and then ? I do not know. We never have lost one that was of any value. As to harness it is not difficult to figure. 288— Our Farming. I never wear out a harness or pay much for repairing. We take good care of it, oiling, etc., and when it gets where repairs must be made often, we let some farmer who does not figure put new leather in an old harness. For example: One pair of wurk harness, got in the above condition last spring. I went to the shop and picked out a new set and asked cash price with best collars. "Thirty-four dollars." " What will you give me for this old set? " " Five dollars. " " Take them. ' ' The old set had served us eighteen years, and cost $40. Divide $35 by 18 and you have the wear per year, and about $1.50 per year will cover cost of oiling and repairs, such as new staples, cock eyes, etc. The leather all through was tiie original, well worn but whole. We buy only the very best hand made, however, and then we take care of them: After reading this over it seems to me that, perhaps, I have hardly made plain enough the practical value of the cash account in the line of showing that debts have been paid. It has saved me money many times. I,et me give a simple illustration or two. Years ago a farmer moved away from this town. He owned something which I wished to hire the use of while he might be away, and did so, the price fixed being $3 a year. I usually paid him about once in two years, as $3 was rather a small sum to bother with sending every year. In time the man moved back. I had not sent him any rent money for some little time, and one day when I thought of it I wrote him to please send bill for bal- ance due him and I would send check at once. When he met me he said he had no account of it, but was certain I had not paid him anything for over six years. I was greatly surprised, but did not say much. From my asking for the bill, he probably thought I had no account of it, and did not know how much I owed him. Well, if I had not had it down, of course I would have had to pay what he said. I went home and looked over my cash account and found the last entry: " Rent to- : to May 1, '88, 2 years — $6." This settled the matter for me, and I knew there was another $6 back of it. This I found, as also a receipt from the man. This I sent him, and, of course, he had to offei to settle according to my books, as he had no account. He excused him- self by saying it was a small matter and had gone wholly out of his mind. Far be it from me to. try and make out that I am better than other farmers, but these are simple facts. I saved $12 right there by tending to small matters as well as large ones, in a simple businesslike way. Once my cash account with a merchant who was my banker, showed $30 more due me than he had to my credit. He went over his books and insisted he was right, but from my books we were able to find his error, and the money was saved. I came near losing $200 once, however, by a little care- lessness. A draft for $200 came by mail the same day that a bill came for the sarnt --*""int from another party. I simply Knowing What You Are About. — 289 endorsed the draft over and sent it to pay the bill. The man was careless and did not send me any receipt:." Years after he died, and his administrator wrote to know if I had ever paid that $200. I turned to my cash account with all the assurance hi the world, but there was no record of any money sent him, either there or on bank account. I knew I had paid it, and was in a great quandary over the matter. The trouble was I did not enter either the $200 received or paid out. The two errors balanced each other exactly. Well, I had not one particle of proof that I had paid that bill. The New York firm that sent me the draft had destroyed it when it had got back to them. By the merest good luck Igot out of paying it the second time. A clear entry in my cash account would have saved me a good deal of worry. I believe nothing has been said yet about a note book in which one can keep a list of things that need doing. It will come in as well in this chapter as anywhere. It is a very simple matter, but has helped me quite a little. Of course, the large matters, like cutting the clover or the wheat, or digging potatoes, need not be put down. They will not be neglected. But there are many little matters that are easily overlooked. I find it a help to keep a list of all such. Whenever I see anything that needs doing in the field or barn or cellar, or on the lawn, it is written down. Then the work is all before me. Sometimes the work is divided into two lists, one of things that need doing soon and another of things I would like to do when there comes spare time that is favorable for the work. Some jobs may be carried along in this way for a good while before they get done. As fast as the work may be done, it is crossed off from the book. This is a small book that can be carried in the coat pocket. With the work all before him in black and white, one can glance over it and see what is the most important and can be done best as the weather is. When we may be broken off from a big job by rain, a glance over note book shows something that we can go right at at once. It is very seldom we get out of work under cover. My son and man have just been driven in from the potato field by rain. There are two things they can go right at under cover. The manure from one box-stall can be wheeled out into covered yard (I had noted down that it was about full), and the granary wants to be cleaned out ready for threshing. I must go right down and tell them. Of course, one can carry such things in his mind, but it is a relief to have them written down, and we are less likely to overlook some- thing. Doubtless some farmers will laugh at this plan, and think it is book farming, and so it is ; but, my friends, just try it a few months in the busy season and see if it does not help you. Put down everything you see that wants doing, as you walk over the farm, or as it comes to your mind. Then see if you cannot work off these little jobs faster and to better advantage than when you go at them haphazard, trusting entirely to your memory. I ago — Our Farming. know a great many of you are not as used to handling the pencil as the writer, but I would get in the habit of using it more, par- ticularly if I were a young man trying to improve my condition. This is entirely disinterested, as I have no note books or pencils to sell ! Should you meet me at any of the institutes, keep watch, and you will see the note book come out when any point is brought out that I think may be of use to me afterwards, and I wish some reminder of it. CHAPTER XXXIV. . NOT ALL WORK. s O not get the impression, friends, that we live just to work. 1 would not blame you much if you did think so from reading the preceding chapters only, but you must take the book as a whole. It is a part of my religion to do what I do do thoroughly well ; in fact, I love to do my best at any kind of work I may have on hand. But I do not believe in living just to work. Working may be carried to excess. I know farmers who get almost no pleasure out of life. It is justwork from one year's end to another. In some cases this seems to be necessary, when one is in debt, or just starting, and I fear sometimes farmers get so in the habit of driving and pushing, thinking they will take a rest by and by when they get every thing all" right, that it be- comes a second nature to them, and they continue to drive when it is no longer necessary. Work is a glorious thing. Rest loses its charms unless balanced by active work ; but in this age, with all our machinery and inventions, man should no longer be a slave to work. We ought to be able to have a good slice of rec- reation and pleasure as we go along through life. I have tried persistently to live in this way. This was one reason why I quit trying to do a little of everything on my farm and undertook to do two or three things well. I thought there would be not only more profit, but more time to enjoy life from day to day. I was not mistaken. I branched off into strawberry growing, raising half an acre. It paid, but I was too much driven during the picking season. I undertook to write this book, but it has interfered sadly with our enjoyment of life this summer. Rest assured 5 , if I did not hope it would do some readers real good, it would- never have been written just for the pecuniary benefit to myself. My income was ample and I had enough work to do. I am figuring now to cut down on my work next year decidedly. A man can live on a farm and have a real good time. Wife and I have worked hard for many years, and although we have en- joyed life and got a good deal of pleasure out of it in the past, we mean to get more in the future. For many years we have began work at 7 a. m. and quit at 6 p. M.y and if there was nothing pressing we have drawn in on the ten'hours at both ends. I am quite inclined to reduce the working hours to eight in the future, except, perhaps, for a short time in harvest I like greatly to have time to take a ride most (291) 2t>2 — Our Farming. every pleasant evening, after supper, with my wife, or to sit ott the lawn and enjoy the flowers, or walk around and see the grow- ing crops. We never get tired of these pleasures and never get enough. Although I am almost fifty years old, I enjoy taking my girl out for a drive, in a nice, clean buggy, behind a good horse, just as much as I ever did. And I keep a horse on pur- pose that does no other work. It is a real rest and pleasure to us to sail along behind a young, fresh horse that just loves to go. And I would bring up at an ice cream parlor a good deal oftener than I do, if my wife was not afraid people would think us too silly for old folks. And then, with our way of farming we can leave home for a day, or several days, often, if we wish, during the season. There are times when we must be here and push things, perhaps, for half of the time during the summer, but even then we can get a good deal of pleasure after the work is over — after 6 p. m. Now, you will remember that we could not do this way, or did not, when we began farming, but we went at it systematically to work it around until we could. Our farming has all these years had a definite aim — to live. Not merely to get necessary food and shelter and clothing, but quite a little more, and time and means to enjoy it. Many readers, doubtless, will not think they could get along with only ten hours a day regular work for themselves and men. But my experience is that good men, when they see that they are to be well treated and given time for rest and recreation, will do as much in ten hours as in more, on the average. Ten hours of sharp work will accomplish as much as fourteen at a speed that most men will take, or must take, in order to hold out. I am not guessing about this, but know that for many years back, my men have done as much cultivating, or got in as many loads of hay in a ten-hour day, as any farmer gets done in a longer day by hired help. And I do not blame the men. If I had to get up early to milk, and work in the hay field until sundown at night, I should be obliged to take a very moderate gait, in order to hold out, and I do not believe I would hurry much if I could stand it. I should feel that I was imposed on, and it is human nature to resent this. I will employ only good men, and such will work faithfully when too much is not required of them. Men work but ten hours in town, and it is a shame if farming cannot be done on the same basis. You wonder, perhaps, why all the best men go to town or city to work now, and it is so hard to get good men. They do just as you would, go where they can do best. To get good men we must make the work as easy and pleasant as it is elsewhere, not try to get out of them more for the money than any one else does. You won't get it often if you do try. They will be as sharp as you. The writer hired a man out of a mill in a large city one season. He went back in the winter, but returned to my farm in the spring. Hired men are very human, like ourselves. Not All Work. — 293 Treat them well and it will pay, besides being the right thing to do. And what is good for hired men is good for boys, too. Can you blame a spirited boy for wanting to get away from a farm, where work is pushed early and late and little or no chance for rest and recreation ? The dull heads might stand it, but the brightest will not. Of course, there are chores that must be done outside of the ten hours, but I try and make these as light as possible. There is on my farm one cow to milk, and the horses to feed and care for only. If I kept a dairy, one milking would have to be done outside of the ten hours. We cannot all work on just the same plan, but we can work to make life as pleasant as possible for our families and men and ourselves, under the circumstances we are in. In twenty years the probabilities are that farmers of my age will be dead and buried. How quickly the time will roll around ! It seems but a few days since last summer and in a very few more it will be next summer. What we get out of life must be had soon. It is well to lay up something from year to year for old age, and to work hard part of the time to make money and then enjoy some of it as you go along. Take the good wife off on a pleasure trip now and then and plan to have the children go. If money is scarce, a good deal of enjoyment can be gotten out of a very little. There are cheap excursions to various points, where one can have a long ride and see much that is new. Of course, you will not go without taking your wife. She needs the rest and change of scene more than you. If money is too scarce to go any- where on the cars, you have your horses and can go and visit friends near by with them, and have a good time. I am firm in the belief that, except in the busiest parts of the season, a farmer can accomplish as much by working five or five and one-half days in a week as by always putting in the entire six, providing he will take the whole or half day, and go visiting to some farmer friend's place, or off on a pleasure trip of some kind. This will strike some of you as a wild statement, of course, but did you ever try it? The farmer who works all the time without recreation, gets in a way of plodding along that does not accomplish only a moderate amount of work. And we cannot blame him. The bow always bent loses its power. Suppose this man takes only one afternoon and with his family goes to visit some friend a few miles away, or to some lake or grove or pleasure resort, with a basket full of good things to eat. He sees much along the road to interest him. He sees how others are doing, and that many are not doing as well as he. They all talk it over. The next morning he goes to work with more vim and in better spirits and nothing will be lost in the aggregate. Of course, I would not neglect work that ought to be done to go away for pleasure and recreation. I could not enjoy it to do this. But I would work a little harder to get necessary work done so I could go. Tell a boy he can go fishing 294 — Our Farming. or hunting or to the show if he gets a certain job done in time, and see him hustle. Men should be grown up boys. Recreation is good for them, too, although cares and burdens weigh heavily. There are men who carry this matter to excess, who are in town or away altogether too much for their own good. There should be a proper balance. However, the great mass of our farmers work hard enough and need more pleasure and play spells, and by systematic effort they can have them and accomplish as much or more than now and life will be sweeter. I know some men who get along without help. L,ife is pretty nearly all work to them. There are so many things to do on the farm. Such men must usually grow old before their time. There is often an over-weary, almost sour, expression on their faces. They think they cannot afford to hire help. Well, per- haps, they cannot manage it so as to make it pay, or haven't been able to. But it can be done in some way most always, and I should certainly want to do it. I should prefer to do a little more, enough to pay the man, and then have him to take some of the blunt of the work off of my shoulders. Thus I could man- age to get as large a net income as before, or larger, and it would not be all work. There would be more time to live as one went along. The model farm for enjoying life, to my mind, is a rather small one. Of course, it will vary in size according to the line of farming pursued. Fifty acres is large enough for my business, plenty. One hundred or more might not be too large for some- one growing less concentrated crops, or keeping sheep largely. On this the young farmer and one good man goes to work. With good management, he ought to get this paid for and improved in fifteen or twenty years, so as to have a beautiful home and still have a fair share of enjoyment of life as he goes along. After a time, unless he has a son that can help, I would have two men to do the hard work, while the farmer did the overseeing and had plenty of time for keeping place in perfect order, tending to fruit garden, flowers, etc., and more and more time for rest and rec- reation as he grew older. And when I speak of the farmer tak- ing life easier, I always mean his wife also. If she hasn't daughters to take some of the heaviest work off her shoulders as she grows older, she should have hired help. A man, perhaps thirty years old, came to me once for advice in regard to buying a farm. He had money enough to pay down for a small one, and something over. He had been looking at a large farm. I advised him not to buy the large one unless he could sell part of it. He would have a hard pull to pay for it, and did not need it when he got it paid for, while he could start off comfortably from the beginning on a 'moderate amourt of land that he could pay down for. He would be his own master then, and would just have to work to make a good living and a home. He would start ten years ahead of where I did, or more, and I Not All Work.— 295 know well the strain and worry of those first ten years. From iny place he went to a large farmer's home, wanting to hear both sides, I presume. This man, who is as old as I about, told him to buy the large farm by all means ; that he could pay the balance easy enough, and then he would have something worth while. He did so, and he worked and worked, early and late, and his wife worked as never before in her life. I do not know just how they succeeded, although I can guess easily enough, but lately they have sold part of the large farm, and now they are on the right track at last. They might have pulled through and paid for all the land in time. It would have been a hard struggle though, and entirely unnecessary, giving them little chance to enjoy life as they went along, and no more after they got it paid for. If they wanted to live and farm just to make money and lay it up, I have my doubts whether the large farm even then offered the best chances. There is a point beyond which we can- not profitably go. It varies greatly with circumstances. As the farm increases in size, the distance that crops must be moved to the barn and manure back increases, and more time is lost going to and from the work. And the larger the farm, the more skill- ful must be the management, to do all work on time and prevent waste and losses. Again, four men will not do twice as much as the farmer and one man, riot by a good deal. The moderately small farm offers the best chance for thorough and timely culture, and hence profit as well as pleasure. CHAPTER XXXV. A FARMER'S HOME. ?HAT should the farmer's home be? First, what is a home? The dictionary says one's house, or dwell- ing, or residence.. But this is hardly broad enough. A mere shelter from the storm hardly constitutes a genuine home in these days. Some writer has said that home was Where mother is. That is good, but wife and mother may stay in a place that is far from being a true home. To my mind, a farmer's home should include not only the house that shelters them, but the comforts and conven- iences in and around it that go to make life more truly enjoyable to his loved ones. I believe also that a farmer's home now isn't quite perfect without a neatly kept lawn about it, and flowers, shrubbery and trees for adornment, and a garden producing abun- dance of fruit of the kinds they like, as well as the more common vegetables. These things naturally belong to a home where land is cheap and plenty. The city man must often put up with 7x9 grounds and stale fruits and vegetables, but it is usually with a longing for more elbow room, and a determination to have a home in the country surrounded with beautiful things some time. To offset these disadvantages, the city man has his groceries, meat, etc., delivered to his door; he can walk or ride to church, or en- tertainment, or the depot, comfortably any day in the year. He is out of the mud. He has water and gas and electricity, perhaps, on tap, as well as the telephone. Many advantages are possible where homes are brought so closely together. But there are dis- advantages also. Roomy and tasty and natural surroundings and choice fruits and flowers and vegetables fresh from mother earth in the city are only possible to the wealthy. It seems to be the one desire of almost every business man in the city with whom I have talked, to have some day a country home with its natural advantages which he fully appreciates. Why do not our farmers make the most of the chance they have ? L,ife in each place has its advantages and disadvantages. Do we not make the best use of life when we make all we can of the situation in which we may be placed ? But let us come down to every -day particulars. With regard to the house itself, let it be as good as you can afford. If you are well-to-do in the world do not build great, fine barns for your stock and put money out at interest, while your family live in an old out-of-date shell of a house. It may have been quite (296) A Farmer's Home. — 297 grand when it was built, but times have changed. We should iarm and live, and not live just to work and make money. I do not believe in extravagance, but a good; comfortable house with many of the modern conveniences, where one has the means, would be an investment to be proud of, and no matter how poor I was I would work for such a home and work to win, too. It seems to me a most laudable ambition, and just as right and proper for the farmer as for any town man. I would not run in debt for this under any ordinary circumstances. Better live in the cheapest shell of a house. But I would work hard and save until the neat, tasty, comfortable, beautiful home could be built and paid for cash down. We lived in the old house fourteen years until we dug out of the earth enough to pay for a better one. We lived in the new one in our thoughts a good while before we got it, and most every poor young farmer will have to do the same, and it is all right providing he isn't satisfied, but keeps steadily working for better things. As you read in Chapter V., we built a new house before we did a barn, and furnished it well, too. The welfare of wife and family was placed first. I remem- ber my wife's begging me not to buy new furniture until after I got my barn. But I was rather obstinate, I fear, and the old barn was sort of passable; we could get along with it two or three years longer. As a matter of business, however, friends, you had better build the barn first. It will help to make, money to pay for house. The new house will help you to spend money. But I should do just the same way again. But now, be the house itself as good as you can afford or not, how about the kitchen? Is there a pump in it to draw water from the cistern or well, or both ? Is there a wood shed opening out of it filled with dry wood, or coal, if you burn that? Have you some convenient and perfectly safe way of disposing of the house slops ? Have you an oil or gasoline stove for hot weather? Are there doors and windows and porches to ventilate and make pleasant this room where the women on most farms spend the most of their time? Are the windows hung with weights so they can be opened easily or let down from the top ? And are there screens in the windows as well as screen doors to keep out the flies in the summer time ? All these things and more are necessary in order to have anything like a perfect kitchen in a farmer's home. L,ook around and see if you have got them all ; if not, keep pushing, and never be quite satisfied until you do get them. It is wrong to make a woman with her thin clothing go from a heated kitchen out doors in cold weather for water and wood. A pump can be put in the kitchen for a trifle. Water can be drawn long distances, practically. Some farmers seem to think" that the pump must be right over the well or cistern. It is not at all necessary. The water in our barn is drawn, practically, jsg8 — Our Farming. through pipe from a well 130 feet distant. I hardly need to tell you that a pump was put in our kitchen before we had one at the barn. And once a year our wood shed is filled with dry stove wood, not too long or too coarse. In our poorest days we never burned green wood — couldn't afford to do it, nor to wear out my wife's patience. The slops from our kitchen are thrown into a large cask on wheels that stands by the east porch, or west one, as may be most handy. This cask the man wheels away every night and empties once only in a place. This is very handy and perfectly safe. I would never risk a slop drain coming into the kitchen or up by the door outside, and slops thrown out of the door, always in one place, could not be thought of for a moment. Slop drains are usually dangerous to health. Of course, they may be trapped so as to be moderately safe, but I never saw one so fixed in a coun- try home. In this same line, a farmer should have an earth closet, where the accumulations are gathered in a water-tight metal box or pail, and deodorized by daily applications of dry earth. Dry muck is best when one can get it readily, but any dry soil or dust will do well. These accumulations can be emptied on the manure heap, or scattered on the surface of the soil, and will not be unpleasant to handle or endanger the purity of the drinking water or of the air. Pure air, pure water and God's blessed sunshine are the best preventives of disease in the world, and one would naturally sup- pose that around a farmer's home they would certainly always be found, that they would be much more certain to be there than in the cities where homes were close together. But they are not. Typhoid fever, scarlet fever and diphtheria rage in farm homes as well as in our cities, and are said to be even more prevalent. These are nearly always preventable with just a little care to have pure air, pure water and plenty of sunshine. "With a covered barnyard and cement floors and a free use of land plaster in the stables, and with a simple earth closet, and slops never emptied but once in a place, on the surface, in the sunshine, you can have pure air and pure water. On a great many old farms you cannot find these now. The earth has become saturated with filth until the danger point is at hand. When our farms were first settled there was almost no risk of this kind, even if one was somewhat careless. The earth absorbed the filth. After fifty or more years of this it simply cannot hold any more on many farms, and serious danger is right close by, and no one can tell how soon it may take away one or more loved ones. It is no act of the L,ord, either, no dispensation of Providence, but just the accumulated filth about your places which poisons the drinking water, and, per- haps, the air. Given a flat location and manure of various kinds leaching into the earth for many years, from stables, yards, privy vaults, etc., and a well of water from which the family drink, A Farmer's Home. — 299 within easy draining distance, and you have, sooner or later, a death-trap. This was just the condition on my farm when I came here, and previous occupants had paid the penalty. One of the most promising young farmers in this county died not long ago of typhoid fever. It was not the first case on the farm, nor the last. A hearty, strong man might not be stricken down ; but this friend got rather worked down and overworried, and his life was sacrificed to ignorance or carelessness, or both. And such cases are getting to be so common. One dislikes to say anything when people are so afflicted; 1 it seems almost cruel, but the wel- fare of the living demands it. There is no real safety when accu- mulated filth is allowed anywhere about your places. Don't say it is 100 feet from your well or home; it may not be safe at 1000 feet. Don't have it at all. A doctor was telling me last winter that he was called to a house where they were having the typhoid fever, and an examination of the premises made him suspect the well water was contaminated by a cesspool that was at what was considered a safe distance away. He got a barrel of salt and emptied in, and a lot of water, and in a short time could taste the salt in the well water. Just think what that family had been drinking, and for Heaven's sake know that you are not doing the same, and know it before you have lost your dear wife or one or more beloved children. But to come back to the kitchen : That oil stove is, or may be, a great comfort to the women during the hottest weather. We have a range with six burners, but my wife generally does the washing and heavy jobs on the cook stove, but the rest of the time uses the oil stove, which scarcely raises the temperature of the kitchen at all. All work can be done on it readily, and I would do so myself, but you cannot hurry a big job as fast as on a stove. I went in the kitchen the other morning when our folks were ironing, etc., and all six burners were going full tilt, and had been for some time. I asked my wife why she did not iron out on the porch, as it was one of the hottest days of the summer. " Why," she says, "it is cooler in here." Well, I could not believe it, and got a thermometer and tried it, and found it was actually a trifle cooler right in the kitchen than on a shady porch. This in the forenoon, before the house had got heated up. It was 95 on the porch, and 93 in the kitchen, with oil range in full blast. Think of that, you women who were then roasting over a cook stove. We can bake bread, or do anything, over the oil Stoves, and, practically, without any bad odor or taste to the victuals. We have for several years. But we use only the very highest grade of oil. As we use oil for lighting, it is more con- venient to use the same fluid for the stove, rather than gasoline. And then oil is far safer than gasoline — in fact, just as safe as wood. I have never yet heard of any accident with a first-class o'** stove and the best oil. Gasoline is all right, like nitro- 300 — Our Farming. glycerine, if — but to make mistakes is human, and no fluid as dangerous as this can come into my home. Lives are constantly being lost by its use. Screen doors and . screens for the windows are among the conveniences that one can hardly do without nowadays, both for the kitchen and all the rest of the house. Flies are good scaven- gers, but they are very annoying to the good housewife, and cause her much extra trouble in the way of cleaning up after them. Every door and window in our house has a screen in it. I am writing now in our room (wife and I) upstairs, in August, and not a fly in the room — perfect comfort. I would not like to go back to flies again — on my head, all over the victuals, on the table, etc. What a comfort it is to sit down in the house with no flies, and sleep with no mosquitoes in the room ! But I have known farmers who had nets to keep flies off of their horses when at work, who thought it extravagant when the wife wanted some screens to keep flies off of her when she was at work in the kitchen. It would not do to say they thought more of their horses than of their wives; oh, no ! Some rooms can be shut up, and, by keeping them dark, the flies do not come in. Wise flies ! May we not learn a lesson from them ? They know it is not a healthful place — in a dark room. Instinct teaches them what we, with all our boasted wis- dom, sometimes do not seem to know. Far better buy screens, and throw open blinds and shades, and let in the bright sunshine, at least part of the time, and, with it, health, happiness and good temper. Where house plants grow spindling and do not flourish, even close to the windows, getting all the light there is, we humans expect our families to thrive oftentimes. This is bad enough for grown people, but far worse for little children. It is well, perhaps, to close the blinds in the heat of the day in sum- mer, but for perfect health the sun should shine into every room in the house a few hours, at least, morning and night of every day it comes out. I know how ladies object to this. They say it will fade the carpets, and fear, perhaps, too healthy a tinge on their cheeks and hands. Never mind the carpets and furniture ; the best welfare of human beings is more than these. Give us bright, cheerful rooms to live in always. It will help the temper as well as the health. Rheumatic troubles have been cured by simply sleeping in a room where the sun shone in all day, and there can be no better preventive than a sun -bathed bedroom, as well as living room. I would never have large trees standing near the house, so as to shade it and keep sun out of windows. Give me, first, a dry location, well drained, naturally, if possible — if not, then with tiles, — and trees, and shade about the outskirts of the yard and house so arranged that the sun can find its way into every room, more or less, every day it shines. There are four large windows in the room where we sleep and I do my A Farmer's Home. — 301 writing. Two are on the south side, and one on the east, and one on the west. This give-a chance for sunshine and air, too. And when I am up here it is always bright as sunlight can make it. And how nice during summer nights ! With these big windows wide open, and a screen in each one, it is almost like sleeping in a tent. But now let us go into the front part of the house, the living room, sitting room, parlor, drawing room, or whatever you choose to call it — the place where you sew, read, receive visitors and where the family gathers at night. When I was a boy they had a room they called a parlor, which was opened up when the minis- ter called, or they had a funeral, or on some other great occasion, but never was occupied by the family when alone, nor when neigh- bors dropped in. And these places still exist. Yes, the writer has been honored (?) by being put into one now and then , of the real old, cold, gloomy kind. No farmer's home now needs any such room as this. There is no room in our house too good for the family to occupy during the winter evenings, or on Sundays, or any time when the day's work is over and we have on clean clothes and slippers. The family should be just as good as company, and . then when company comes make them at home with the family, not make them feel that you have gone to extra trouble on their account. Of course, in our old houses we must get along the best we can as they are built, or can readily be altered over ; but if building a new house, by all means have the living rooms open together with large double doors. Thus one large stove centrally placed can heat one, two, three or even four rooms, as you may please or need. It makes a house wonderfully homelike and pleasant, and is quite a saving in labor in the way of building fires and keeping them up in separate stoves. The old way of a stove in most every room was no end of trouble. I have seen too many houses where four or five fires were kept up . The new way is far better. In the plan of our home, you will see just how we do this and nothing could induce us to go back to the old way. Having the rooms, how shall they be furnished ? Why, ac- cording to your means. It is entirely right to delight in pretty things and take comfort when you can, and easy chairs and nice furniture are all right if you can afford them. But do not have them too good for the family to use, no not one single article. This keeping nice furniture all covered up in a dark room for extra occasions is not homelike, to my notion. You may even cover your floors with body Brussels carpets, if you like. We have, down stairs, in every room but the kitchen. They are the cheap- est in the end, anyway, and no dust goes through them. A car- pet sweeper passed over them lighty takes" up the dirt and saves the ladies much work. We put some tobacco around the edges every spring to keep moths out (our screens help to keep millers out), and do not need to take a carpet up for years. Not a particle of dust can go through them. I would have a Brussels carpet 302 — Our Farming. in the kitchen, some plain pattern, if my wife would let me. In time I shall triumph, I think, for she used to declare she would never have anything there but a rag carpet, and they would cut and sew rags, making about a cent an hour, instead of reading or resting. I don't believe in that sort of work. I won't do it out doors, and I preached it to my wife for years, but old practices die hard. But, friends, last winter when I was gone she did put down some second-hand ingrain carpet in the kitchen I By the way, the above is the only use for tobacco we have, and I rather think the saving in the last thirty years would pay for a good many home comforts. We might afford both now, but never shall. Tobacco and drinking, which is quite apt to follow, has kept many a man from having a nice home. My young readers, avoid these two evils as you would the smallpox, and when you get to be my age you will thank me. A young married man with two pretty little children, told me last winter that he had to give up a farm he bought after trying some years to pay for it. He was just about to move into town. There was a sad- ness in his wife's eyes that was hard to see in one so young and pretty. She almost cried as she told me how she disliked to leave the farm. Her husband was secretary of our institute, and I saw a good deal of him for two days. He came in early and staid at the hotel with us, and there was hardly an hour of the day when there was not a cigar in his mouth. I believe he smoked ten at least per day. When the institute closed the last afternoon his wife came to the hotel with her children and urged him to come home with them. But, no, he must stay and see us off. I protested and tried my best to get him to go, but, no, he must stay, and immediately a cigar was lighted. When it was train time he lit another and went down with us. Shame on a man that will spend money in this disgusting way that is needed to make a home for wife and children, and give them every com- fort that money will buy. But, however you may furnish the living rooms, let them be cheerful and bright day and evening. Artificial light is very cheap now ; do not try to enconomize in its use. I have just bought a barrel of the highest grade of oil made, which, after returning the barrel, costs me just six and one-half cents a gallon. I can well afford to make my home bright and pleasant in the evening. Have a powerful hanging lamp of sixty or eighty candle power, so every one can see to read with ease all around the room. And then have the table well covered with papers, magazines and books, some that will suit the children as well as the older people. Such things are so cheap now. Even these cheap pleasures may be beyond your reach at present, but work for them, as they are wanted in that perfect home your are striving for. If you, my older friends, were not brought up to read much, you should give the children every chance in this line. Papers and books move the world nowadays. A Farmer's Home. — 303 There is one more room in the house that I want to speak of m particular, that is the bath room. A farmer and his family can hardly have a greater comfort and luxury than this, during the hot weather in particular. A room devoted to the purpose is not necessary, although convenient. We have a six-foot copper (tin lined) bath tub in a store room up stairs, the waste pipe running down and out doors. We put in a pump to the cistern, but do not use it much. The men and myself in hot weather enjoy greatly taking up a pail of water warmed in the sun, or cold water from the cistern with a little hot water in it from the reservoir on the stove, and hastily bathing after our day's work, andgetting on some clean clothes for over night. It is very easily done and a real luxury. We have a stove in the room for cold weather. The tub stands in a corner of the room out of the way, and the only cost was what we paid for it and the pipe to lead water away. But let us go out doors a little while. Is your yard nicely graded and seeded? If not, fix it next spring and sow blue grass seed. A little timothy with it will furnish an immediate sod while the blue grass is getting started. Then get a lawn mower and keep it nicely cut the season through. Nothing is more beautiful than a nice, velvety, green, well-trimmed lawn, at least this is the foundation of all the beauty of our grounds. Many a farmer has built a good house and then failed to fix up around it properly. The house is all right but it wants suitable grounds, too, to make a beautiful home. And then they want care just as much as the house wants paint. Neat, tasty surroundings will cost quite a little work, but not much money out. It takes one full day's work or more each week during the summer to keep our lawn and walks, flowers, shrubs, etc., in order. But often this is done right after a rain when we could not do anything else. I am proud of my home, although it is nothing wonderful at all, and I respect my- self and family enough to want it always neat and tidy. Even if in debt I would spend a little something each year in improving the home grounds. This is work that cannot be done in a day. It takes many years, and it is well to commence early in a small way. For myself, I would not want a place all fixed up perfectly at once if I could have it so. I like to be improving from year to year. Let the place grow along with the man. Nor would I have all places fixed according to the same iron-clad rules of land- scape gardening. The great beauty of Glendale, near Cincinnati, seems to me to lie largely in its irregularity. No two places are alike. This fault I must find with the far-famed Euclid Avenue of Cleveland ; there is far to much sameness. Every place is fixed just about so — open lawn in front, drives at the sides and trees in the outskirts. Why, it was a real relief to me to come to a place when I was walking down the avenue where some original mind had set out a great long bed of geraniums nearly in the centre of the lawn Never mind about fixed rules. Fix your place to suit 304 — Our Farming. yourself. l,et it reflect your taste and skill, rather than be an exact copy of some other. Lay out walks in easy curves rather than straight lines. Avoid all stiffness and too much regularity. Trees and shrubs never grow naturally in straight lines. You need a few bright flowers for contrast, but my notion is that a farmer better depend largely on hardy flowering shrubs and vines and perennials, rather than on annuals. This is the Way we have tried to do. We want beauty that comes with the least care. And while I think of it, don't get your grounds too large. A little lawn well kept will be more attractive than one that you haven't time to attend to in time. But be the grounds ever so neat and well kept, they will never be quite perfect without the small fruit garden. Don't for- get that. I will tell you more about that in another chapter. There are ever so many more points I would like to speak of, but I will just take one more and then give you a rest. The town man's wife can easily walk to visit her friends, or for recreation, or to do her trading. The distance is short and they have side- walks. In the city, where distances are greater, they have the street cars to ride on. They are not tied up at home by their husband's business. Is it so on the farm ? Yes, when the wife has a horse and buggy for her special use, a low, easy phaeton that she can get out and in alone handily, and a horse that is always at her command. This cannot be afforded often, particu- larly at first, but it will have to come before you get a farm home that is just perfect. Work for it. In good weather farmers are apt to need the farm horses and in bad weather your wife and daughters cannot well go out. Fix them out with a nice ! little rig as soon as you can. Now take a little rest and then we will look over my home. CHAPTER XXXVI. OUR HOME. ET us. look over the ground floor plan first. The letters used will suggest what they stand for, so as to help you. Beginning at the front we have the sitting room, or parlor if you wish to call it so, marked S R. It is a large room i6x 18 outside, with a veranda (V) on each side. There are four large windows, one glass in a sash, 26 x 40 inches (see picture of front). The house faces nearly south, the verandas or porches being on the east and west sides. The window opening on west porch goes up out of the way, both sashes, so one can walk out onporch. All windows in the house above and below are hung with sash weights. The door onto the east porch is partly glass. This room, as you will see, can be made very bright. The vine- clad porches on each side help to make it pleasant (see one porch in picture of front)., Passing hack through the large double doors (6x 8 feet) we come into the dining and sitting room. This is the room we eat in, not when we have company only, but every day, right in the very best part of house. When we come in to meals we naturally sit down in this room, if they are not quite ready. Notice, there is plenty of room. You see where the extension table (Ex T) stands. As the room is nearly twenty feet long there is a chance for plenty of rocking chairs near the bay window and around the large stove (S). The door onto veranda from this room is also glass. This with the three large windows (glass 26x36) makes this, .room also very bright. In ouf old house we had a dining room with one east window and one north, both small, and one under a veranda. It was a dark, gloomy room at the best, some days seriously so. We determined this east room should be well lighted. Of course, this bay window is well filled with flowers in the, winter. It makes a splendid place for them. Following the curved arrow you pass up stairs by quite an easy rise. There is no hall in the house below. We did not want any. Our house is built for comfort and with a due regard to economy. The main entrance doors are on the southeast side, you will notice, the sheltered corner. . Pass through another pair of double doors 6x8 feet to'the west, and you come into what you would take to be a sitting room, perhaps, and so it is. We all sleep up stairs. The air- is purer above, anyway, and we. all prefer to sleep there. But ; in (305) ; 306 — Our Farming. case of sickness, or when we get older, we may prefer to have a bedroom below. Also, it comes handy, sometimes, when one has company. So this room is arranged so it can be turned into a bedroom in one minute. A folding bed stands up against the front room wall. It is ornamental when not needed, and always ready. For a centre table in the room we have a curious combi- nation got up by some inventive genius. Not one person in a hundred would ever dream it was anything but a handsome centre table, but by simply lifting a lid you find wash bowl, and pitcher, and slop bucket, towels, soap, etc., and a large French plate glass mirror to dress by. Our folks use this room to sew in, the machine standing in there. It has two large windows, the one onto veranda being built to go up high enough to use it as a door. Notice the large closet C. Now, you have been around the living part of the house. You see these three rooms are practically all one, with the doors open. It makes just as nice a home as we could devise or want. The large square base-burner anthracite coal stove stands near the corner of the dining room, but notice, it is almost exactly in the centre of the three rooms. It will warm all three perfectly, or two, or one, as we may desire. This is the way we manage : At night when we go to bed (not until the evening is passed) we shut all the double doors, thus keeping only dining room, where flowers are, warm all night. In the morning we eat breakfast before opening double doors in very cold weather. In moderate weather the doors into bedroom are not shut. After breakfast, while our folks are stirring about, in the kitchen and up stairs, the dining room is well aired, and then double doors all thrown open and house all warmed. With all this room I feel as though my wife and daughters could hardly suffer from poor ventilation, with the house thoroughly aired every morning, and sometimes oftener. We can warm the entire house in the coldest weather, but except on extremely cold days we do not always try to. The saving of coal when it is below zero and blowing hard, seems to my wife more important than warming more than two rooms. A fire is not kept up in the kitchen (K) all the time in winter, but the door is left open and the big stove keeps that room partly warm, also. I never start into the winter with less than seven tons of coal (have eight now), but in as mild winters as we have had lately, we burn less than six. Our house is covered with building paper, and is quite warm. The writer has visited homes that were warmed in every known way. There is no plan in existence that seems to him as perfect and homelike and economical and cheerful as this. A furnace would ruin our cellar for keeping vegetables, and how much real pleasure is there in sitting around a hole in the floor to get warm, where you cannot see any fire ? Grates, where one can look at the fire, and a furnace to make warmth will do, but look at the cost. Steam heat gives no ventilation. I have been in fine city homes warmed in all cr c o w vy Ground Floor Plan of House. 308 — Our Farming. these ways, when things did not go right. I have sat and shivered by the hour, time and again, politely saying I was quite com- fortable, when the furnace fire had got down and it took hours to get the house comfortable again. You must remember, I have been around a good deal, winters, and I always come home think- ing there is no plan any pleasanter than ours. With us it is always warm near the stove, and one can see the glowing coals, which helps. If too warm there he can get a temperature to suit in some part of the house. The anthracite coal fire is a luxury. The room is always warm at any hour of the night. There is no smoke and practically no dirt. Now as to lighting, we have a powerful lamp hanging over the extension table in dining room, said to be eighty candle power, and good lamps hanging in each of the other two rooms, and then several brass hand lamps to run around with. Thus these rooms can be made about as bright by night as by day. But now we must go back to the working part of the house. Study over this plan of kitchen and see if you can improve on it. At first you may say it is not large enough (12 x 14 outside). Well, it was built for a work room, not to eat in or sit in. Will it help any to have a large room, and just so much further to travel from stove to table, or to pump or pantry? Our idea is just room enough and no more. Then kindly notice the verandas on each side with a door and window opening onto them. A perfect kitchen in hot weather would be simply a tent that protected from sun and rain, while allowing a free circulation of air. I me?ij perfect for the health of the inmates, not, perhaps, for the whiteness of their complexion. See how near this comes to this ideal, in connec- tion with the verandas. Our folks wash on the west porch, under the vines, cool and shady in the morning. There is a current of air through our kitchen, if any is stirring, and the heat is not carried into the body of the house much. But now look at the chance for doing work with the fewest steps. T is the table, a long one ; O S, the oil stove ; S, the cook stove ; S P, the sink and pump ; C, a closet for ironware and other things. Just back of the oil stove is the pantry, with cupboards enclosing all dishes, etc. Right across from the pantry door we go down cellar. The wood shed (W S) is right back of stove, and no wood box is needed ; just open the door and get wood and put right in the stove. In fact, the wood shed is little more than a large wood box ; but it holds enough to run the cook stove through the winter. We cook on the oil range in hot weather, which makes us need less wood. Please notice how close together are the table in the kitchen where work is done, the cupboards in pantry and the table in dining room. How could they be more handy, and still they are entirely separate. Shut the dining room door and you have all the working part of the house together and close together and apart by itself, except when the table is to be set. Front View of Our Home. 310 — Our Farming. The pantry is in the coolest corner of the house. The sun can only get to it just at night, and then only shines on the window under the porch. We have a cellar eight feet deep under the three fronf rooms. This is cellar room enough, but still I would build one under kitchen also if I had it to do over. The cost would belittle more, and then, for one thing, I could have a dumb-waiter running down from the kitchen into cellar. This we cannot have now, and there is no place for it in the pantry or dining room and we have to go without it. I would make this change and one other if building again, otherwise we have everything just right now. I would make the wood shed slightly larger next time and put in a cheap back stairway to room above. Once in a while it would be pleasanter to go up that way when company happens tc be in the dining room. We can make these changes now, and possibly may. Wife and I studied over the plan day after day, until we got everything else just exactly right. Every door and window is just in the right place. It was no small job to do this, and then to see that the plan was exactly followed by the carpenters. I came in once, and found they had made a slight mistake in the cellar stairway opening in floor that would take off a hat from a tall man when he went down. The carpenter said: "Oh, that will be all right. You won't often have a hat on, or can just stoop a little, etc." I said: " No sir. There is the plan. It is your mistake. I will not dodge all my life ; out with it and fix it right." He looked just a little sour, but found we knew just what we wanted and would take no hit-or-miss work. The outside cellar door is at O, just north of the bay window. We store our coal in the bay window in cellar, close by the foot of stairs. Of course, the men fill the stove morning and night. Our cellar is built of hollow bricks. They make a very nice cellar wall. No banking up of windows even is ever required. The east window where coal is thrown in is seldom shut. I be- lieve I have spoken of it before, when writing about storing pota- toes, but it will not do harm to repeat that where vegetables are stored in the cellar, one wants to fix it so the air cannot be drawn into the living rooms above. It will come through a single board floor. As the fire takes the air out of a room, it will be drawn in some from the cellar. To make sure that ours would be safe, we plastered it overhead and covered floors of the rooms with building paper well lapped under the carpets. No air can be drawn up, foul or otherwise. Air brought in must come from out doors. This is a matter of not a little importance. Of course, a cellar should be kept clean and pure, and no decaying vegetables in it ; but things will be overlooked sometimes. To make us doubly secure we have the cellar ventilated by a flue running to the top of the chimney by the side of stove flue, which warms it and creates a draft. See the corner of bedroom back of dining room stove. "9 & B * 3 K M 2 * b a s /z w w Plan of Second Story. 312 — Our Farming. The cellar also has a cement floor. Now for the plan of second story. In front is our sitting room and bedroom 1 , wife and I, and my office. We have a fire in here, of course.- We now burn wood, but are thinking of changing to anthracite coal. Notice the four large windows. The glass above are 26x34, To look right, attention should be paid to proportions; 26x40 for parlor windows, 26x36 for rest below, and 26x34 f° r U P stairs seem to us perfect for a house of this s^yle. Passing back you see a hall with one bedroom (B R) on east side and two on the west; side. In each, as well as in our rooin, there is a closet (C). There is a register in this hall over the big stove below. By keeping this open in cold weather and giving jthe stove full draft, we can warm up stairs sufficiently for sleeping rooms. There are transoms over the doors into these three; smaller bedrooms to allow of a free circulation of air when doors are shut. The rear room over'the kitchen and wood shed is not full height. We had no use for this room only as a store room, and it would be rather warm in summer anyway, so we built this part only story and a; half high. The lower part of main house is nearly ten feet in the clear, and nearly nine abovel The I kitchen is something over eight feet in the clear, so we get a pretty good room above. By the arrows you will see (at end of hall above) that we pass into store room after going down two steps from the hall. In bad weather in the winter we hang clothes in this I store room to dry. Notice the bath tub (BT). We keep our \ year's supply of flour, soap, beans, coffee, tea, etc,,, in this room. We have a stove to i warm! it when we wish to use bath tub in the winter. A small windcjw lets light into the stairway}, There is not a single change we would make in our house up stairs. ' The house complete, including bath tub, cistern and pumps/ thorough painting and inside finishing, paper hanging, etc., cost fully $2,500. It might, of course, be built much: plainer and cheaper. We have outside jblinds jail around; rather prefer them to inside ones. The roof of main part is half pitch. I will try and get you a picture of one kitchen porch, and' also of the shaded and almost concealed earth closet. This latter cannot be seen at all by anyone going by in the road or in the fields or from any point except from the rear of the house. It only costs a little to make .such shaded retreats, a few cents for shrubs and trees and a little care. The rear yard is entirely sheltered by a solid wall of evergreens from cold winds. This includes the walk to earth closet and the place where clothes are hung out on gal- vanized iron lines that are never taken down. As carefully as our earth closet lis managed it might safely be right against the house with an entrance from the porch or wood shea, but a nat- ural fitness of things would suggest that a shady nook a little ways off from the kitchen was more appropriate. And a little fresh air will do even the women no harm, with proper precau- The Kitchen Porch. 314 — Our Farming. 0-0 * Fig. i. tions. We have a dry gravel walk from kitchen door to earth closet. The building itself is entirely tight, no draft ; tight below as well as above. Yesi and it is carpeted. I think I had better give you a plan of this, as, I assure you, it is neat, complete — as one visitor said, civilized. Fig. i shows a cross-section of earth closet at top of seat ; a is the seat which is hung on hinges so as to lift up; bb, on the same level, is the bottom of earth or muck box; c is the door which swings around against muck box. Fig. 2 shows a perpen- dicular section lengthwise through the centre of seat. You will no- tice the earth box h, which runs clear across from front to rear over b b (Fig. 1). The front of this box (g ) falls back at the lower part and doesn't come down to bottom t (bb) by some inches, as you will notice. This for convenience in shoveling out the muck. The muck rests on the back part of b, while from the dotted line forward we have a shelf to shovel on. The muck is put in over the top of g with bushel boxes or baskets, filling space h to roof. It will hold thirty to forty bushels, plenty for a year. We fill it once a year during some dry time in the sum- mer. We have enough stored in barrels in the tool hoiise, up stairs, to serve us one year, in case of a very wet season. Dry muck is what we use, and nothing can be better. Dry earth will do, but is heavier. A little fire shovel lies on b, with which we handle the muck. With the peculiar con- struction of h it can all be got readily to the very last shovelful; dd are galvanized iron pails. They are 14^ inches high (seat 15), ten inches in diameter at the bottom, and thirteen at the top. They are made of the best iron, painted besides, and have handles that shut over outside of pails. One can lift the lid a (Fig. 1) or« (Fig. 2) readily and take the pails out and empty where desired. The pails are largest at the top for ease of emptying. The floor/ goes right across the build- ing, all tight. Size of building is 4^ x 7 feet. The muck-box arrangement is, so far as I know, original. For the idea of using pails I am indebted to some gentleman who gave his experience i9 \ d e a f ^ rH Pig. 2. 316 — Our Farming. with them in New York Tribune, some years ago. At once I said that is neat and perfect, and I will have them in use soon. My first step up was to saw an oil barrel in two and use the two halves to prevent any soakage of filth into the earth, and muck was kept in a barrel in one corner. It was not handy. The tubs were hard to empty. A tight box to be drawn out by a horse would be better, but a metal receptacle is perfect, absorbing no filth. I know thousands will think this too much bother, but it is a perfectly safe, clean, odorless, civilized way, with which we are entirely satisfied. This closet is for the ladies, of course. In the picture giving the inside view of covered barnyard you see the closet for the men, built on the same plan, only with one pail. Being under the yard roof, no roof was needed on the closet, so cost was little. We find it a luxury to have a place for everything, and everything in its place. Now let us talk a little about the lawn. In order to get ours well graded, we dug it all up and cultivated it all summer, seeding in the fall heavily with blue grass and a little timothy. The tim- othy made a sod we could mow early the next spring, and grad- ually died out as the blue grass came in. It was several years before we got a perfect sod. After the sod was established, we cut out the drives and paths, drawing the sods away and filling up with gravel. The soil around the house, coming out of cellar, not being the best, we dug out some beds for flowers and shrubs a foot or two deep, and drew in choice soil from clover field, from some low place where it was over rich. A good deal of time was spent grading and fixing our grounds, small though they are. The shrubs, plants, etc., bought, came direct from a large, reli- able nursery. Although a beautiful green lawn is the foundation, it needs flowers, trees and shrubs, too, although not too many. The most showy flower bed on our grounds this season is some thirty feet long, and narrow, in a place where that shape would look best, and with an evergreen background. The bed is filled with a beautiful assortment of hardy perennial phloxes. They were set some fifteen inches apart each way. The plants cost about eight cents each, and were put out in the spring early. They were given rich soil, and surface was kept con- stantly stirred with a pronged hoe about an inch deep. They live right along from year to year, but need taking up and dividing after the second year. Ours are now two to four feet high, and a mass of the most brilliant bloom and gorgeous colors. The flowers last for a long time. Great improvement has been made in varieties of late. We have also a bed of herbaceous peonies, of different colors, no two like, that is very showy in its season, although the flowers do not last long. These also live year after year. Among the flowering and variegated shrubs the rhododendron stands at the Our Home.— 31? head for beauty of flower. With them we have azaleas. But these are rather expensive and require considerable care. For beauty of foliage and flowers, too, with little care two shrubs stand at the head— hydrangea paniculata grandiflora, and the wiegelia rosea nana variegata. The different altheas (rose of Sharon), and spireas are among our best shrubs. The prettiest pair of little dwarf shrubs, we have are spirea bumaldi and spirea collosa alba. One has delicate pink flowers and the other white. For yellow- leafed shrubs for contrast, we have the Philadelphus aurea and spirea opulifolia aurea. The first is small and neat, the latter large and rather coarse, but good color. We have two more; beds that are particularly fine. One is eight feet in diameter (round), and has one plant of hehanthus niultiflorus plenus in centre, and five around in a circle. With rich land and high culture these make a fine show. They live over in the ground, but need divid- ing every spring. I,ast year we put a dozen plants in a bed. They were too thick. This year they are grand, filling the bed solid now (August) with foliage and beautiful yellow flowers as much again as any dahlia, and three or four inches across. With good care this makes a striking bed for the lawn at small cost, and the flowers keep coming out for a long time. Of course, these flowers, and all others, should be cut as soon as they begin to fade, and not allowed to go to seed. The other bed costs more, both in care and for plants. It is about eight feet in diameter, also, round and exceedingly rich. In the centre are four cannas, discolor gigantea, and then around them are eight cannas (Dr. Gromier), and lastly around the out- side twelve plants of caladium esculentum. We get the plants of a nursery each year, about June 1 — not till hot weather. They want no tillage, as roots grow right at surface, but mulch top with manure, and water almost daily, and often pour liquid manure under them, and the growth in hot weather will be wonderful. I have never seen a bed in Cleveland that was as showy as ours. The centre is about seven feet high now (August 15th), and enormous leaves. The bed is almost a per- fect oval. But these tropical plants want great quantities of water, manure, and heat. Many people drove down from town to see this bed last season. We had thirty-six plants in it then, but fewer seem to do as well. It would be a wonder to many what a number of great beautiful leaves of different colors can be crowded" into so small a compass. The bulbs cost about ten cents each, by express. We have not tried to keep them over. Of course, we have a bed of geraniums every year, and numerous other flowers, but we are depending mainly on hardy perennials like the phlox, helianthus, peony, etc., and flowering and foliage shrubs. The Gaillardia grandiflora we find a beau- tiful perennial flower, and then there are the odd Yucca and hyacinthus candicans, and the gold banded lily of Japan, all 318 — Our Farming. hardy, living over in the soil with a little mulching — but I must stop. A word of explanation of pictures. You must remember that the camera has a tendency to draw things up together. Our house stands back further from road than you would think from picture. In the picture of earth closet corner, you will notice the gravel driveway with house to the left. A gravel path leads to earth closet along between the little dog and the hydrangea bush. Don't fail to notice the slop barrel on wheels by the kitchen porch. Our premises are as clean everywhere as where you see in the pictures. There is absolutely not one stinking or filthy or dangerous place anywhere about, rear or front. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE SMALL FRUIT GARDEN. HAVE tried to show you that a farmer's home is hardly perfect without this; now how shall he manage it ? First, he must decide whether to shut the hens up in an enclosure or enclose the fruit garden. If enclosed, it may be with the vegetable garden. We have no hens, so no enclosure is needed. On account of ease of cultivation, a plot longer than it is wide would be better than square. There should be ample head- lands so you can turn a horse around readily. Horse culture must be used, and most of the work must be done in this way, quickly and cheaply. With proper tools and systematic effort, it will be a source of profit and great pleasure. Wrongly arranged and managed, it will soon be neglected and considered as costing more than it comes to. An eastern or northern exposure or level land will be rather better than that sloping to west or south, be- cause cooler. Berries want coolness, and moisture, but not wet land. It should be well drained. Do not select a low place as it will be more subject to frost. A late spring frost may injure the yield greatly. High and cool and moist, but not wet, and rich land is just what is best. Come as near to it as you can. It will be best if you can select land that is quite clean. Chickweed, purslane, etc., will make much trouble; however, they can be kept down. Avoid setting strawberries on ; any soil that has white grubs in it. They will eat the roots and destroy the plants. While partial shade will do for raspberries, it will not do for strawberries, as shade means tree roots in the ground to use up the moisture. Now, how much land will be needed ? To allow for rotation of strawberries (they may well be rotated with garden crops and seeded with clover once in three or four years), and give a great abundance of all kinds of small fruits, from half an acre to an acre will be required for most families. For our family of six or seven persons we would want a piece of land, say, about 8 rods by 1 6. Beginning on one side, I would have four strips, each a rod wide, to rotate strawberries and garden crops on. Then the (319) 320 — Our Farming. rest of land I would have occupied by rows of currants, rasp- berries, etc. Beginning at the second year this is the way it would be found : (i) Bearing bed of strawberries. (2) Newly set strawberry bed. (3) Clover. (4) Vegetables. Currants. Black cap raspberries; Black cap raspberries. Red raspberries. Shaffer raspberries. Blackberries. Blackberries. This would give us just about the right quantity of «ach kind of fruit. The nextyear theibearing bed of strawberries (1) would be in clover. I would ■ plow bed under as soon as I was through picking and sow clover seed. Harrow ground down all fine and firm when it is moist and sow seed and roll, and it will come up and grow nicely, at least mine does. It falls in the little harrow. marks and the roller covers it just right. The easiest and best way is to set out a new strawberry bed every spring. It is easier to care for a new, clean bed than the old one, and you get finer berries and always have the best plants to set out then. The next year (2) would be the bed to pick, and sow clover seed on after the season is over. (3) Would be in vegetables. Manure the clover if needed and plow under for the garden stuff. (4) Would be the newly set strawberry bed. Strawberries would be set each spring on land that was in vegetables the previous year. This rotation could be kept up continuously and would give the finest of 'strawberries and vegetables, and with the least expense for manure. Orie-terith of an acre of strawberries is about what we want, or sixteen square rods. According to above plan our bed would each year be 1 rod by 16 long, or four rows sixteen rods long. One-tenth of an acre Would be room enough for the smaller garden crops. The currants I would set six feet apart in the row and make all the rows, currants, raspberries and everything, eight feet apart. We have them so, and it is none too much for best results: If grapes are wanted, a row or two of them may be added, also gooseberries, Grapes are too liable to be frozen back in the spring on our farm, and after mUch fussing we have torn them alL out. We can buy choice grapes from the shore of Lake Erie at a low price, better ones than can be grown here. All these plants: may be set in the spring. You can get a full crop of strawberries the next season, and some raspberries. We got quite a few Shaffer raspberries the second year, only about fifteen months from setting out. - - < The Small Fruit Garden. — 321 Now, the above is the neatest plan I can figure out, and as I should do if starting again after having had experience ; but this is the way we are doing : We have the currants, raspberries, etc. , about in the proportion given standing by themselves, about fifty- six square rods. Then we plant each spring a new bed of straw- berries, plowing up a little patch of one tenth of an acre in a field. Our fields come right up around the house and strawberries work in to our regular rotation. For example, we plowed a field for potatoes in the spring of 1891, and set out sixteen rods in one corner with strawberries. The field was put in wheat that fall, and clover seed sown this spring (1892). There was the straw- berry patch out, of course, but as soon as they were all picked we turned the vines under and sowed clover seed, and to-day (August 17th) the land is green with clover. From a little distance you would hardly notice but what it was all sown at once. Our garden (what crops we think best to bother with) is right in our potato field each year. I speak of this because I would not like to have you come here and think I did not practice what I preached. If I could straighten my berries around into the shape I have advised you, I would gladly do so. Now for the strawberries: I am not going into careful details for market growers, but just far enough to enable you to grow plenty for your own use and to do it cheaply. Manure the land to be set out in the fall, if it is not rich enough. It should be rich enough to bring at least thirty-five bushels of wheat or 200 of potatoes per acre. Plow in the spring as soon as it is dry enough to crumble nicely, as deep as it has been plowed before, but no deeper. Harrow and roll until it is as fine and firm as you can make it. Get plants from nearest reliable grower, allowing him to choose varieties for you if you are not posted. Tell him you are not, and the kind of soil you have. There are perfect and imperfect flowering varieties of strawberries. The former will bear A Perfect Blossom. An Imperfect Blossom. if set alone, but are not as productive as the imperfect. The imperfect will not bear much if alone. They want some perfect plants near to fertilize them. I advise you to set alternate* rows of each kind. When your plants come, put. them in the cellar. Take about fifty at once and set them in a pail and fill with slightly warm water, and you are ready for setting out. A cloudy day is best, but any day will do, although towards night will be 322 — Our farming. better than in the morning. Draw a line through and make & scratch side of it so you can see where to set them , then remove line. Make rows four feet apart. Dig holes two feet apart in the row. If ground is mellow, a good garden trowel will do it nicely. My son sometimes goes ahead and digs out holes with a spade while I follow and set with a trowel. Hole should be four or five inches deep so roots can go down. Take a plant out of the pail of water, spreading the roots fan-shaped and hold against side of hole with left hand. With trowel put moist earth against roots, never dry earth. After partly filling hole press earth firmly against roots with trowel or hand, and then fill up rest of hole. If it is quite dry, pack soil very firmly, even to using the foot, and then scratch over the surface to form a mulch. The plant should be set just as deep as it grew before, and no deeper or shallower. The crown in the centre from which leaves come out should never be covered, nor should roots be left exposed. Do no watering. Depend on fine, firm ground, moist earth next roots and a stirring Set Just Right. Set Too Shallow. of surface. I never lose a plant. Get only good plants, new ones that grew the year before; no old ones even as a gift, and no little, weak, feeble things. The second year take plants from your own bed to set a new one. Take up with a potato fork, shake all earth off, trim off dead leaves and runners, and put plants in a pail of water. When you get a pailful then go and set them out. Let no one beguile you into setting a bed only in the early spring. An expert can set in the fall and get part of a crop. You will get discouraged if you try it. After they are set out cut off all blossom stems and runners, as they may appear. Do not let a berry grow. It will injure your prospects. Cultivate as I have advised for potatoes, often and after each shower, anyway. A one-horse cultivator with fine teeth is best. The Iron Age harrow and cultivator combined is perfect. The potato hook or pronged hoe is the best tool to stir the surface around the plants that the cultivator leaves (see picture in Chapter The Small Fruit Garden.— 323 XXII.). The secret of success is never to let a weed start or a crust form. It is a pleasure to care for them if weeds never get the start of you. It is fun to work clean soil. The hoe should never be needed, just the frequent stirring or raking of surface so no weed can grow. It is cheaper and pleasanter to do this three times than hoe once. The way I do is to go through the straw- berries first after a shower, before beginning in the field. It takes but a short time and we ahvays do it. Then there is no neglect, and we never miss the time. We never work deeply around the plants ; just stir the surface, say an inch deep, and not right close to the plant, except with great care not to disturb the roots. We set out here about the first of May. Along about the first of July, when there comes a wet growing time, so they will start thriftily, we stop cutting runners and let them grow. Eight weeks of thorough tillage should get weed seed pretty well sprouted and used up. We have little trouble with weeds growing among the plants after this. We continue to cultivate and hook over ground for a time, and then as the runners occupy the ground use hook only to stir what is not covered. Along about the middle of September, stretch lines through and cut out paths twenty inches wide, hoeing up all plants that are growing in paths. This leaves beds or rows twenty -eight inches wide. It is well to do a little spreading of runners or training during the season so they will cover all the ground. We go through once or twice and turn them some. And you need to prevent their running across from row to row or you will have va- rieties mixed. It is better not to have plants too thick in the rows. A plant, to do its best and produce the finest fruit, should stand at least six or eight inches from any other, all around. For very best results thin down to this by cutting out plants (weakest when you can) with a sharp trowel about October 1st. You will, get as many berries, perhaps, without this trouble, but not as choice. Don't bother to try hills ©r narrow rows. I have tried all ways. This is best for a farmer. You can get the most bushels with least labor and with the most certainty. As soon as the growth stops and ground begins to freeze in earnest (about November 15th, usually, here) mulch the strawberries. If land is rich enough, put on clean wheat straw or marsh hay. I put straw all over paths, vines and all, just thick enough so I cannot see any leaves through it. Spread it evenly. If you think your soil not quite rich enough, or want to increase your chances for many and fine berries on rich ground, mulch with manure. Between the rows it may be rotten ; over plants strawy manure would be better. There is little danger of getting it on thick enough to do any harm after ground is frozen. But spread it finely, not in bunches. In the spring rake a little of the straw off of rows into the paths „n a wet day and tread down — just enough off so the plants can get up through, no more. The more straw around on surface 3^4 — Our Farming. under them the better, if they can get through it. It keeps berries clean and makes land nioister in a dry time. Rake part of mulch off after freezing weather is over and before much growth is made under the straw. The mulch tends to retard spring growth, to keep from starting as early. Where there is danger of frost, keep on as long as it will answer. For early berries uncover early. The danger if mulch is left too long is that plants will have made a white, feeble, tender growth under it that will be killed by sudden exposure. If you get caught that way, uncover when cloudy just before a rain. If manure was used for mulch, go over them and open with a fork and help plants to get through where they seem likely to be smothered, soon after growth starts. This is best done on a cloudy or rainy day. No further work need be done until picking time. The mulch should prevent much growth of weeds. If manure is used it should be free from seeds. A good farmer, you know, cuts his hay before any seeds ripen, and has nc weeds in his hay or grain. There will be some growth of weeds, grass or wheat (from grain in straw), towards the last; but no mat- ter, you can soon plow them under. It only remains now to pick and eat them. The latter will be much the pleasanter job. Let them get fully ripe on the bushes, and then pick and put down cellar until cool. Then use granulated sugar and cream to your taste, and have them just as free as water for weeks^ at everymeal — great, large, delicious, frrsh berries, such as not one city man in ten ever tasted of. Where picked for market, they must be gathered before they are fully ripe, and they never can compare with fruit fully ripened on your own vines. I tried to keep a little track of what our strawberries cost us this season, as reported in The Practical Farmer of July 16. Here are the figures, counting hired man's time, team work, and all at cost, and I think I have them full high : Plowing (one-tenth of an acre), . . . . * $ .20 Harrowing and rolling 20 Setting five hundred plants, 2.00 Cultivating ten times 1.25 Cutting off runners and blossoms, 75 Hoeing ten times (with hook) 2.00 Hoeing five times 1.50 Cutting out paths in fall 1.50 Mulching 1. 50 Use of land and manure, 1.60 Fixing mulch in the spring, 30 $12.80 Last fall we did not thin out the plants. We got as many bushels of berries, perhaps, but they were not as fine. This fall we are thinning them. This would add a little to cost. In regaid to the figures given above, we could not plow and^ harrow a little The Small Fruit Garden.— 325 patch quite as cheaply as we have figured, but it was right in the field with potatoes, so we could do all together. A man in the business largely would get plants set out much cheaper than I have figured. Not being used to it, this is as cheap as we can do it well. It may seem to you that we could hardly hoe one-tenth of an acre for twenty cents. Where rightly cultivated, and no weeds allowed to start at all, a man can stir the little strip of soil that our fine-toothed cultivator leaves, with a pronged hoe, in one hour and twenty minutes, easily. The " hoeing five times " was done after they were too large to use a horse any more. It took a man with pronged hoe about two hours each time. Now as a result we had all the berries we could possibly use animany to give away, and had to sell quite a few to get rid of them. In one day we made use of seventeen quarts, gave away twenty-six and sold thirty for $3. Fifty dollars would not buy the berries we eat ourselves, fresh and canned, etc., of the same quality. Some would call this extravagant, but 1 do not think it is, to devote one-tenth, of an acre to giving us three weeks' delicious eating, and many for winter, and a chance to give bushels of berries to friends, with, perhaps, enough that we are obliged to sell to pay all cost. Many farmers think and say that they cannot afford to fuss with strawberries, and that it is cheaper for them to buy them. If two or three men in each town would make a business of it and produce the berries for all, and people would buy them and use them as freely as though they grew them, this would be a business- like plan. But it is few berries that the majority of farmers would buy. I do not guess at this. They have told me so and their wives have, too They must raise such luxuries in order to have them in the greatest abundance, And few farmers are situated so they can buy anything like as nice fresh strawberries as they can raise, even if they would. So I urge you all to grow strawberries at least. No matter if pou have too much to do now, or if you are poor and just starting. This is one luxury that you can have. Systematically worked, the cost is small. Strawberries are the finest spring medicine in tht world, and you need them, not in little doses, but all you care to eat at every meal for about sixty or seventy meals. But do not set them out unless you are deter- mined to make a success of them ; better save the money the plants cost and buy a few berries. But I have given time enough to the strawberry. Now for a few words about the other small fruits in our garden and how we treat them. We set out currants, raspberries and blackberries in the spring about the same time we did strawberries, or a little earlier. The first year we cultivated and hoed them often, and just as we would a growing crop of potatoes, only for potatoes the hoeing can be done with harrow and weeder, and around berry bushes it must be done by hand. The land was clover sod, with- out manure, but rich enough to bring thirty-five bushels of wheat 326 — Our Farming. per acre in a good year. This very thorough tillage gave us a great growth the first season. The next spring we covered the whole surface of ground deeply, a foot or more, with straw, and for several years we have added straw every spring and done no cultivating whatever. The heavy mulching keeps weeds down mostly. Any that stray up through are cut off with hoe. Cur- rants, raspberries, red and black, and blackberries are all treated in same way. It would not do for grapes, probably. We have found it the least trouble, and we get berries enough. Whether we have as many as could be got by cultivation, I am not certain ; but it is plenty and little work that we are after. Mice have not troubled us. New straw is always added in the spring. By win- ter the old is well decayed. We have several varieties of currants, but the old red Dutch is sweetest and best for eating. The Shaffer raspberry has done well for us. It is practically a red raspberry (purple) and does not sucker. Of the true reds, the Turner (early) and Cuthbert (late) have done best. The latter yield best. The Palmer, Hillborn and Gregg blackcaps do well for early, medium and late. All our blackberries do well and are quite good if left on bushes to get very ripe. The Taylor is, perhaps, rather the sweetest. Our treatment of currants was to cut back the new growth about half, late in the fall, for first two or three years, and in after years cut out some of the oldest wood each fall, letting new canes take its place. So far we have picked the currant worms by hand just as they were hatching. They are found on the lower leaves and near centre of plant. With a little prompt attention one can prevent their getting all over the bushes. We pick off the leaf with eggs on it just hatching. We must have had some six bushels of fine currants this year. They have cost us almost nothing since first year. We pinch off top of new blackberry canes when about two feet high. If there are more than four canes in a hill break them over. In the fall cut out and burn the old bearing wood. In the spring, just as leaves begin to start a little, cut back the rows of canes so as to make a nice hedge of them. Pinching makes them grow bushy, and then we cut off sides and tops of bushes a little. Blackcap raspberries are treated about the same. Red raspberries the same, only they are not pinched back. We pinch the Shaffer. We use a pair of grape shears to trim with. To make a tool to cut out the old wood, I took a large flat file to the shop and got them to draw out and curve around one end into a hook about two inches across. This was made thin on inside and tempered and ground. Then two holes were made in file so I could fasten it to a wooden handle four or five feet long with screws. With this I can cut out old canes and not get scratched. The suckers among the red raspberries and blackberries are kept cut down with a hoe the same as though they were so many weeds. We have kept the plants rightin the original hills, not letting them grow intoathicket. 328 — Our Farming. You have been told that currants, raspberries, etc., were all in rows eight feet apart. For high culture, don't put currants less than six feet apart in rows. I did. The man who sold me the plants told me to put them three feet apart. I shall have to take every other one out, to get finest fruit. My raspberries and blackberries are three feet apart in the rows, and about right. The rows being eight feet apart, they have a fair amount of feeding ground. In setting out, I would plow out furrows .(in well- drained ground) and set all rather low, and only partly fill up furrows at first, say two inches or so ; then as you cultivate and hoe during the season gradually fill up to level. If you set deep and fill all at once, the plants do not start as well. If you set shallow, they blow over in a storm worse, and I think currants do not send up new canes as well. I did not set quite right, and could see later where I was wrong. We use no stakes or wires or anything to hold up canes, but by pinching back make them grow self-supporting. If now and then one bends over under its weight of fruit, no harm is done, as it rests on the straw. I have estimated that the work we do on our fruit garden in a year, outside of the strawberries, does not cost us over $5. Perhaps this is too low, but it doesn't cost much to put straw on, pinch canes, cut out old ones and prune in the spring. We have had as many as thirty -five bushels of raspberries and blackberries, but this was exceptional. We usually have just about enough. We want it so we can go out and pick from a peck to half a bushel of some kind of berries any day during the season for them. We could do that this year. Many can get wild rasp- berries and blackberries; but they are not, as a rule, as large and fine as cultivated ones. To be perfect they must hang on bushes until they are dead ripe, blackberries in particular. Wild ones here are usually picked by someone as soon as they are turned a little in color. How long a patch will last without renewing, I do not know. Ours show no signs of running out. If well cared for, I have an idea they will do well for a long time. With us raspberries come before the strawberries are gone, and blackberries follow the raspberries as closely, so we can have small fruits every day from our garden for nearly three months. We kept count one year, and we had berries or currants every meal for eleven weeks. But this was done partly by letting some blackberries hang on the bushes where they were shaded by leaves, just as long as they would. We have gone without fruit in such abundance; did for many years. Thought we could not afford it. We did not know how cheaply it could be grown, if one went at it rightly. If living our life over, the fruit garden would be started when we bought the farm. We were mistaken and lost much that we might have had to enjoy. I hope we may induce some young people to start right. But not until they have thoroughly decided to make a success of it. The Small Fruit Garden — 329 Now, I am afraid if I do not guard what I have said a little, that it may lead someone astray. Here I have told of one-tenth of an acre of strawberries, for example, costing but $12.80, besides the picking, and hinted at getting some $70 worth of berries from it. Some friend might figure'this up and find that there was a very large profit per acre in berry growing. So there is, if they are large and fine, better than the ordinary, and sold fresh to people who are willing to pay for something really nice. And I have found there were plenty of that kind of people. But it doesn't follow, my friend, that there is money in it for you, if you are a farmer. You would probably lose if you tried to grow berries to sell in connection with your farming. They need all your time and attention to pick and market, just when clover hay wants cut- ting, and potatoes and corn need constant tillage, and they cannot be neglected at any time during the season, if you want a big, pay- ing crop. Do not think such results as I have pictured, or obtained, come without thorough attention. I had father lead you to be more thorough in what you are now doing than to take any more ]ausi- ness on your hands, which would have a tendency to make you less thorough, only just to the extent of having berries enougli for family use. In some cases, where there are children who could attend to the picking and marketing, with a little oversight from the father, a quarter of an acre or so might be grown and managed without trouble, but I would not do it unless the children were given the money, so as to teach them the value of it and how it comes. This from experience. Our children once sold $83 worth from one-fourth of an acre and had it all for themselves ; but they also furnished us some thirteen bushels for eating and canning. We have grown a half acre a year, too. The product one year nearly reached $300. There was money in them, although we live in such a frosty locality that it would be risky to go into berry growing largely. But we found we had better not divide our energies. Even with the few crops we raise, we can- not afford to grow berries to sell. There is money in almost anything that suits your soil and locality, if properly followed ; but there will not be money in anything, if you undertake to do everything. _That is what I want to guard you against. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE WIFE'S SHARE. ^HERE are many things that are not quite right in this world, and I suppose always will be, but still we are improving. Many great wrongs have been righted wholly or partially. Wives are treated much nearer right than they were fifty years ago, but there is some chance for improvement yet in many cases. Now, perhaps, you may be surprised at such a statement ; you may say that you do not know of any wives that are ill-treated, or, at least, only in some very rare instances. Well, I do not mean that they are actually abused, or anything of that kind, but that they are treated as though they were inferior beings; they are " ruled over;" there is too much of the lord and master spirit in the husband. This may not be intentional, but it hurts, all the same. I believe that, usually, men have grown up with the idea that man was the head, and have not ever stopped to think what was simple justice in the matter. It will certainly do us no harm to talk over these things a little, and a book giving the substance of my writing, and preaching, and practice, for many years, would not be complete without some- thing on this subject. I believe that the time has come when husband and wife should be full partners, equal partners, in every respect. A young farmer could not do better than to start out, when he was married, on a platform something like this: We will suppose him speaking to his wife. " I will plow, sow, reap, and do the bulk of the business, while you tend to matters in the house. You make me a pleasant home, thus mak- ing me stronger to battle with the world. We are full partners, and I will always consult with you about my part of the business, and shall expect you to do the same with me ; that is, about any important particulars. Whatever we may make shall be yours just as much as mine. Neither of us shall ask the other for small sums of money that we may want to do as we please with, but simply help ourselves out of the general fund. Any large outlays we will, of course, consult together about, as partners should, but we will have confidence enough in each other's judgment not to ask nay questions about small amounts. The pocketbook shall always be open" to you, at any time, the same as to me. If you take out $5, why simply enter on the cash book, ' Wife, $5.' I would pay you a stated amount each month to do as you please with, but that is the way we do to our servants, whereas you are (33o) The Wife's Share.— 331 my partner, and I consider your labor just as important, and just as laborious, as mine." Here you have my platform, and I' believe it to be right and just, and one that our young farmers could live happily and per- fectly on. I presume some readers would bring up passages from the Bible to prove that the man was the superior being, but I think these can be explained. The Bible favors justice every time, and the above platform is just. Let us take time to look at what Paul says on this point : " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church." This seems to settle the matter, doesn't it ? But let us see. We can hardly be governed by a single passage of Scripture, taken alone. Paul also says on this point, " Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it." Do you fully realize the strength of that statement ? What man could love his wife like that, and not make her a full partner, with all a part- ner's privileges, rather than a dependent that he should play the lord and master over ? When we consider how woman was treated and looked upon at the time Paul wrote those words, I think we must acknowledge that they show more than human wisdom. She was very nearly a slave, if not quite. For Paul to have preached equal rights for men and women then, as I do now, would have been the heighth of folly. But notice the course pur- sued. The first quotation from Paul, every one would say, was all right. Yes, woman must submit ; man is the head — that is sound. Then the second quotation no one could object to. You see, without antagonizing the public sentiment of the day, Paul gave advice which, if wholly lived up to, would give woman about all she could ask for. But I cannot help but think that if Paul were living now, with public sentiment so nearly up to the equality point, he would drop out all that part about the husband being the head. But let us look over the above platform a little. Is not the work of the wife, the farmer's wife in particular, as hard for her as her husband's is -for him, and as important for the world's wel- fare ? Her work does not bring the dollars as directly, but is it any the less important ? As a rule, how much would a man amount to who attempted to do his work out doors and tend to his own home ? By the division of the labor between man and wife, the best results come to each. We may have a home that is a home. If the wife works as hard and faithfully as her husband, as most farmers' wives do, at work that is necessary for the advance- ment and comfort of the firm, then there is no good reason why she should not be an equal partner and sharer of the proceeds of their joint labor. Let me illustrate : I came in one night, and my wife said to me, " How much do you suppose your work to-day will bring you? " I did not suspect what she was driving at, and 332 — Our Farming. replied, " Why, probably, my work to-day, with the horses, will bring me $5." " And I have worked all day to do -the washing and ironing, which you could have hired done for $1," she replied. "You have made $5, and I $1." "No, that is not right," I said. "We have together earned $6. We have both been doing work for the firm that must be done. Yours has been the hardest. It is not right to put the figures on it as you have. You might have driven the horses and rode, as I did, and I should have had to work hard all day to do your work, and, probably, not got through then. And you forget the three nice meals you have got for me with the children's help, and the nice, pleasant home, all kept in perfect order, which is such a delight to a tired man when his day's work is over." Now, who was right, wiftr or I ? She is usually, perhaps, but I was then, and she knows it. I think you can see from the above platform, that I do not believe in a farmer "giving" or "paying" his wife so much a month to do as she pleases with, or as her share. We give to beggars and pay servants, and I cannot look on the wife as being either one or the other. If she is your partner and not your slave, there is just one right way, treat her as your equal in every respect, — treat her just as you would a man who was your paitner. Let there be one general fund, which both have helped with equal faithfulness to raise, and which either party draws on with equal freedom, in a small way, or in a large way, after due consultation together. Do you say the wife would be too extravagant if given such freedom? Have you any more right to think this of hef than she of you? Ah! that "lord and master" and "head" spirit dies hard. As a rule, women are not as extravagant as men, — I mean farmers' wives. There are exceptions, of course. If you will think this matter over honestly and fairly, you will agree with ine. We do not see our own extravagances. It is possible that a wife, who for many years had a little money "given" her as she asked for it, might be a little too free with the pocketbook if let in all of a sudden, but in ninety -nine cases out of a hundred, it will be entirely safe for a young farmer to begin in this way, letting his wife know just what they are making, and talking over with her just what they can afford to spend. There is no better check to extravagance than positive knowledge of one's real income. A wife may hear her husband always preaching that he is hard up, but sees him getting tools, new harness, or whatever he wants, and she very naturally gets an idea that he is not as hard up as he would have her think. I hope every farmer who reads this will hereafter take pains to talk over his business matters with his wife, if he has not been in the habit of so doing. I