AN AGRICULTURAL CREED.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 970, 11 December 1882, Page 4

AN AGRICULTURAL CREED.

The following “ agricultural creed ” is given in the Richmond Planter and Farmer : —l. Do. not cultivate poor land. It is a feeble mother which can give no sustenance. 2. If yourland is poor you must limit the area of cultivation to your ability to manure-—let it be ever so little—and you will be the gainer by it. 3. Exert yourself to produces manure on the farm. Such manure is the flour that maizes the loaf, and a commercial fertiliser is only a. leaven to it. Home-made manures cost some labour but little money, while commercial fertilisers will bring you in debt, and are a kind of food which mother earth cannot entirely rely and fatten upon. We are not their enemy, but active friend, when judiciously used, and can be had* without too great a strain on the farmer’s credit. 4. Bring to the aid :of your manure pile green fallowi crops, and try to clothe the bosom of mother earth with the green verdure of grass, from which live stock can be fed. 5. Keep as much stock as can be fed well ; for this adds to the manure pile . and their increase, and a few fat carcases afford a big interest on the investment. 6. Diversify crops as much as possible, and do not rely on one staple. This will make your manure and labour pay; a profit in some places when they fail in others. 7. Manure !' manure ! manure ! and, as before suggested, rely on the farm principally ,to produce it. It will “ put money in your purse.” 8. “No grass, no stock; no stock, no manure. No manure, no improvement of the land.”