Farmland

“ Agriculture is the prevailing industry, engaging 90 per cent. of the people, although in all not more than 21 per cent. of the soil is cultivated; rye is the chief article of food for the peasantry, who comprise four-fifths of the population. The rich plains, known as the “black lands” from their deep, loamy soil, which stretch from the Carpathians to the Urals, are the most productive corn-lands in Europe, and rival in fertility the “yellow lands” of China, and like them need no manure. ”

“ There are other and newer clearings beyond the ranges and out of sight, but here all that is visible is very much trimmer and neater in appearance than our farm.
Over three parts of the basin the plough has passed. About one-half is under wheat, maize, and other crops, while the grass on the remainder looks wonderfully rich, freed as it is from stumps, drained, and, to a measurable extent, levelled. Cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs are feeding in the paddocks.
We eye the scene with great admiration, and even envy. This is the sort of thing our farm ought to be, and will be. ”

“ Take care that you choose a good climate, not subject to destructive storms, and a soil that is naturally strong. If possible, your farm should be at the foot of a mountain, looking to the South, in a healthy situation, where labour and cattle can be had, well watered, near a good sized town, and either on the sea or a navigable river, or else on a good and much frequented road. Choose a place which has not often changed ownership, one which is sold unwillingly, that has buildings in good repair. ”

“ Here and there an old black and white farm-house, with its rambling outbuildings, speaks of other times and other occupations than those which now absorb the population of the neighbourhood. Here in their seasons may be seen the country business of hay-making, ploughing, &c., which are such pleasant mysteries for townspeople to watch; and here the artisan, deafened with noise of tongues and engines, may come to listen awhile to the delicious sounds of rural life: the lowing of cattle, the milk-maids' call, the clatter and cackle of poultry in the old farm-yards. ”

“ Now we can afford to look back with some degree of complacency, for industry has produced abundant fruit, and we are reaping in joy a harvest sown in tears and trouble. As farm after farm was rescued from native wildness, schemes of internal improvement, first viewed as shadowy impossibilities, grew into reality, while the bounteous yield of a virgin soil sent new life into every artery of trade. ”

“ Set one of our large farmers down upon a hundred, instead of a thousand, acres; let him, and his sons, cultivate it themselves; feed the cattle; rub down and feed the horses; milk the cows; cut wood and make fires; let his wife and daughters alone tend the garden; wash, iron, cook, make clothes, make the beds, and clean up the house; let him have but ten acres of wood land, in a climate where snow lies three, and frosts come for seven, months a year; surround him with a dense population—80, instead of 19, to the square mile; bring strangers, constantly, in flocks to his neighborhood ”

“ I am going to advise my brethren, the farmers, if they have more land than they can fence, to sell, rent, or throw it out to the commons, and secure one acre at least, and from that to ten, or as much as they can actually enclose as it should be, and then cultivate it in good style. Do not haul off the straw to burn, but save it all, and all the manure you can produce. ”

“ Many other fields in sight have just gone through the usual rotation of crops, showing what the soil can do in various ways; while the farm before us has been under cultivation from the earliest history of the village, yielding every season, for the last half century, its share of grass and grain. To one familiar with the country, there is a certain pleasure in thus beholding the agricultural history of the
neighborhood unfolding before one, following upon the farms in sight these progressive steps in cultivation. ”

“ Even the settled land, in those days, was only half cultivated; and on good land, unreclaimed or only half reclaimed, the skill and energy of a company of first-rate farmers would soon produce great results; barren commons would be dotted over with sheep, and rushy valleys would become rich pastures covered with cattle, and great clearings in the forest would grow green with rye and barley. ”

“ One hundred acres of good land, say the vegetarians, will support a greater amount of human life if planted with wheat, potatoes, or other crops directly consumed by man, than if laid out in pasture or set with vegetables intended for the food of cattle. This is true, but all land is not good; in every country there is abundance of land that is unfit for tillage, and which, nevertheless, yields excellent pasture. ”

“ It is a true country scene, to see all these rude sons of the soil collected together from their farm-yards and solitary fields, where, far from towns, they have gone whistling after the plough, sowing, or gathering in harvest; and the girls that have been scrubbing, churning, and milking, and occasionally helping in the hay or corn fields, here dressed out in their rustic finery, and shewing such robust forms and rosy faces as might astonish our over-delicate citizens. ”

“ This rural hemisphere of American economic and social life is surely worthy the thought [Pg 172] of the captain of industry, of the statesman, of the economist, of the educator, of the preacher. We may also, without danger of being put to confusion, assume that the tiller of the soil is in essential character very much like other people. Farmer nature is usually a fair specimen of human nature. Nevertheless the environment of the farmer is a peculiar one. Individually as well as socially he is comparatively isolated. ”

“ In the first place, I must plead ignorance, from want of sufficient time to note the general aspect, features and surroundings. This is a primitive soil, populated and toiled by a primitive people. Agriculture is yet in its infancy, and no prospect at hand for the furtherance of this important calling. Well wooded land, fertile valley and pleasing variety, show that this should be the great and only resource of this country. ”

“ No room is lost in hedges or ditches, and no breeding-places are left for the vermin which in many parts of England do so much injury to the farmers' crops. The character of the soil of each district is carefully examined, and a suitable rotation of crops is chosen, so as to obtain the greatest possible return without injuring the land; and the cattle are well housed, are kept beautifully clean, and are groomed and tended like the horses of our huntsmen."—Vol. ”

“ History of farming, from pioneer days, shows need of conserving and replenishing land fertility—This Valley the starting place of agriculture in Pacific Northwest—Protracted wheat growing and its consequences—Beginnings of agriculture and development under British and American control—Progress in upbreeding of horses, cattle, sheep and hogs since early settlement—Effects of local conditions on individual character of farmers and modern evolution therefrom—Causes of retarded community growth. ”

“ Not one college of forestry in all this great land up to 1898, and as yet but one in its infancy! Until the last generation not a single school of agriculture, scarcely a book obtainable which might give direct help to the rural American boy and girl! Therefore, the farmer should not be blamed for the wasteful and unscientific treatment of forest and field. All this leads to the conclusion that to secure a competence, lands of high and varied agricultural capabilities, lands worthy of an intelligent American, should be selected upon which to build and maintain rural homes. ”

“ In the agricultural group the unit is the farmstead. By that term is meant the whole complex organization of the farm, including the land and its products, the stock, the barns and the sheds, the whole family together with whatever houses it, the corps of workers, farmer, farmer's wife, sons, daughters, maiden aunts, working people unhired and hired—in fact, everything "animal, vegetable or mineral," as the children say when they play "Forty Questions," that ministers in any way to the success of the farm as a business and to its ultimate object, the happiness of the family living thereon. ”

“ But when we shall have deepened essentially the soil of our arable acres, fertilized it abundantly, and cured it by faithful cultivation of its vicious addiction to weed-growing, I believe we shall devote millions of those acres to the growth of Beets for cattle-food, and, having learned how to harvest as well as till them mainly by machinery, with little help from hand labor, we shall produce them with eminent profit and satisfaction to the grower. ”

“ The farm garden should be ample and contain not only enough vegetable and small fruits for the use of the family, but a surplus to sell [342] or to give away. The farmer used to large areas is reluctant to undertake anything so small as he imagines the garden to be; hence, too often he plows it and leaves the planting and cultivation of it to the “women folks.” If he knew how to manage a garden he would find that the half-acre of land devoted to small fruits and vegetables could be made the most profitable and pleasurable part of the farm. ”

“ Animals make it possible to use land that would otherwise be wholly or partly unproductive. Hillsides and mountain 177 slopes, soil too stony to cultivate, fields traversed by winding streams, and land partially covered with trees, are familiar examples. As previously mentioned, only about one-half the farm area in this country is improved land, and only two-thirds, even of the improved land, is in cultivated crops. The other third of the improved land and a considerable portion of that half of the farm area known as unimproved land are utilized as pasture for domestic animals. ”

“ Take a man from the Western States, place him on some of our farming lands and tell him, "Here are twenty acres of land, and it is all you can properly farm, unless you have more help than yourself. Now fence and cultivate it, and you can make an abundant living." ”

“ The cultivation of new land, incumbered with heavy timber, presents a formidable feature; {20} labour incessant and unremitting, before a small tract of land can be tolerably cleared; but here I can enter either as a farmer or a grazier immediately; fine wide spreading fields of grass, inviting the flocks and herds to come and partake of the bounty with which they are loaded. In answer to the enquiry as to the proper mode of farming, I sit, and from the place I am now writing, see a beautiful herd of cattle of nearly two hundred in number. ”

“ Who can doubt that if the farm and the farmer can be placed under conditions so healthful and natural alike in a physical and moral sense, the willing soil and the hopeful farmer will alike respond to their new environment—the soil becoming more fertile by every blade of grass it yields, the farmer richer by every penny of rate-rent he contributes? ”

“ The soil which their rude shares upturned to the sun was indeed virgin and fertile, but before it could be cultivated it had to be cleared of its heavy growth of timber and underbrush, and with the means then employed, to clear a farm was well-nigh a life's labor. Each pioneer with the help of a few neighbors—which help he paid for by helping them in return—built his own house, his barn, his sheds, and fenced his "clearing." ”

“ Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain, planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter in turn the calamities occasioned by drought in summer, blast in harvest, loss of cattle in winter, and the desolation of his sheepfold by wolves. ”

“ Both farms were laid out on the same plan, and as if each proprietor strove to excel his neighbour in improving and developing to the utmost extent the resources of his extensive property.
Large herds of sheep and cattle were browsing over the meadows and sides of the hills and glens, with their young gambolling by their side,—and enjoying their delicious morsels of green herbage, moistened by the morning dew. ”

“ We rapidly descended to their level, and the remainder of our first day’s journeying was over a flat country, whose natural prolific soil, interspersed as it was at short distances with small tributary streams, would have been a sight to gladden the heart of any emigrant who should seek for rich pasturages for his cattle—abundant harvest of wheat and barley—rich orchards and valuable plantations. ”

“ The exquisite agriculture which made millions of acres from raw farms and ranches into rich gardens, the forestry which had changed our straggling woodlands into great tree-farms, yielding their steady crops of cut boughs, thinned underbrush, and full-grown trunks, those endless orchard roads, with their processions of workers making continual excursions in their special cars, keeping roadway and bordering trees in perfect order—all this one could see. ”

“ In virtue of differences of soil and climate, the rural inhabitants in different parts of the kingdom, have their occupations partially specialized; and are respectively distinguished as chiefly producing cattle, or sheep, or wheat, or oats, or hops, or cider. ”

“ His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats—and one I know was famous for wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots—and the hill people relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. ”