SKINNING AND SKIMING A FARM.

Southland Times, Issue 1584, 28 May 1872, Page 3

SKINNING AND SKIMING A FARM.

* ■ Tt is easier to farm well than ill. The' man who makes two blades of grass grow where one only grew before, and makes every, other kind of produce double too, is a happier man than' the .one who plods on, doing neither better nor worse than the. average ; while the miserable mortal who impoverishes his land must feel how degraded a position he stands in, and his ' mind must sink lower and lower with his '• property. If a report of every farm 1 through every parish of the Union was ! made once in seven years, and the im- 1 provement, the impoverishment, or the ' non-improvement of each was published, * it would give the country at large a better ' idea of what is going on in agriculture. ' It is of no use denying the facts, and ! the truth is, starting from the east, the ' land is robbed of more than a half its « fertility, and still as population moves on 30 does the exhausting system. If when ' a parish, a county, or a State is half 1 impoverished, a stop can be put to the 1 lebilitating process, why not stop at the 1 beginning. Why not reimburse from the 3tait? Land is seldom too rich, and 1 when it is said to be "in the very highest < state of fertility," what a pity to bring it down. Tet this is the custom, the < fashion, and tbe example set by all. This i kind of policy carried into other lines of ' business would cause men to say the ] guilty parties were insane or fools. Land ' sannot throw up immense crops on water 1 or air, therefore if these crops are sold ! off the land is that much the poorer ; ] but science and even common experience ! proves there are stages at which some 1 of the productions of tbe earth can be ( baken away when nothing bas been < abstracted to cause injury, and if at tbis period of the crop's growth it is turned into manure the land is benefitted without any foreign aid. Thus by having inter- ' vening crops of this kind there may be i things sold one year which will be replaced the next by this renovation. < This is why the fourcourse system, or some other suitable rotation, is insisted on in England, Poor land is brought to be rich, and good land is kept up on the best estates ; yet there are annually great quantities of fat cattle and sheep sold from these farms, and wool, cheese, butter, &c, continues to be produced because there is an art in doing this so as to improve and increase the stamina of the soil. — Country Q-eatleman (American).