NEAT FARMING.

Clutha Leader, Volume IV, Issue 193, 22 March 1878, Page 7

NEAT FARMING.

Good farmers and neat farming are not sj'nonymous terms. A good farmer is one who obtains the largest possible income from the soil, for a long series of years, without diminishing its productive capacity. The good farmer adopts such crops and stock as are best adapted to his land, pursues a judicious rotation, cultivates well and thoroughly, makes and husbands all the manure possible, buys all the manure in the shape of plaster, phosphates, guano, or other commercial fertilisers, or food for stock that a Avise economy will justify, saves what he produces, and sells his products in the form that will bring the largest income at the least cost. A farmer may be all that Aye have indicated, and yet fail to be a neat farmer. We recollect the remark of an old man, Avhen Aye were a boy of eight or nine years, that it takes something of a sloven to make money at farming, and if making money is the sole end of farming perhaps neatness wonld be unadvisable. But there are men ivho honestly believe that man is of more importance than his money, and that a man's life is greater than his business or profession obligations, feed* and clothe his family, leave them a good property after he is gone, and even instruct them, by precept and example, in the duties of a moral and religious hie, and yet fail in his duty to his family and to society. The farmer owes something to that love of order of beauty which a benignant Creator has implanted in man's nature, and the gratification of which is as necessary to his full and. symmetrical development as the gratification of any other Avant or faculty of his. nature. The fanner is in duty bound to do what* he can towards making home lovely for the sake of the family, and his portion of tie landscape beautiful for the sake of his neighbours and the public at large. We have seen during the past season many good farms and good farmers; farms that Avere Avell cultivated and covered with heavy remunerative crops, but the number of neat farmers Avas not equal to the number of good farmers. We see too many good farms in which the fences Aye re more or less'dilapidated, the fence corners filled Avith piles of stones, noxious weeds, briers, alders, and other unsightly shrubs'; the fields irreo-nl-ir, the crops more or less filled with thistles or other weed?, and the stubbles, after ihe grain was harvested, covered with a dense repulsive growth of weeds. The orchards were not well trimmed, and many dead or dying trees were left, giving, an appearance of decay. The dooryards were not close cut, but dead stalks of June grass and plain tain run up to seed, or other weeds marred the beauty of home's surroundings. The trees and shrub in the dooryard Avere seldom neatly pruned, and the garden in too many cases was sadly neglected. We are not describing the poor, thriftless, slovenly farmer, but some of the very best that Aye have, showinghow to fail in neatness. We know that their excuse is a lack of labour. That it is very difficult to obtain sufficient labour to do all the Avork necessary to be done on the farm during the growingseason, and at the same time attend to these things that can possibly be put off. We doubt whether a season opens without these farmers resolving that they will stick up things better than they have done, but the hurrying season comes on, and all but indispensable Avork receives the go-by. — American Rural Home.