FACTS FOR FARMERS.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 343, 25 July 1874, Page 2

FACTS FOR FARMERS.

" I have been a fanner," writes a correspondent, " for 25 years, and during that time I have been in a great many houses and have often been pained to see the men come into the sitting room and even the parlor, where there were neatly dressed ladies, with an old, dirty sloucbed hat on and with pantaloons tucked inside dirty boots. To me such sights are very painful, and I have often asked the question. Why cannot farmers be neat in their houses as well as other men? A great many fanners' wives have neat, clean rooms, good furniture, and they dress themselves neat and tasty ; but the mail of the house, and often the hired men and boys, will sit all the evening with their hats on, and worse still, chewing, spitting, and smoking tobacco. Can children be properly educated in such an atmosphere ? How refined and neatly dressed ladies can endure it is astonishing to me. I am a poor man, and have always worked hard, but for all the time I have lived on a farm, I have never even once, sat one hour, > day or evening, with my hat on in the house with my family. What better education can children have than example? I never think of sitting down with my family without washing, combing my hair, and putting on a coat that I have not worn during the day. As soon as it is dark we have the table set in the middle of the floor, the lamp lighted, and the shade on, for we never read orwrite an hour without a shade, and then we sit down to reading, writing, and social conversation. Another thing — I always have my work, chores and all, done by dark, so as never to ga to the bam in the evening, and thus I have time every night to read. I have long desired ■to see a reform among farmers in the particulars I have named, for there is no class of people who might, if they would, take so much comfort as farmers." The prime cause of the abandonment of so much land in the older agricultural districts is no doubt bad farming. When land which has previously yielded 40 or 50 bushels to the acre only returns 6 or 7, it is very natural for the cultivator to become dissatisfied, and seek for newer lands, where the returns will prove more profitable. This is only what might be expected from the usage the land gets for a series of years, the practice being to grow wheat upon it year after year witlio i intermission or returning anything to the soil. Another thing that helps to bring about this result is, the too common practice of sowing the land with seed from the same wheat that has been taken off as a crop. The fact is that some land is too rich to be easily exhausted, and only requires a change of seed to furnish good crops. After land of rich quality has been croped for a number of years with seed grown upon it, the yield will gradually diminish. We (Melbourne Daily Telegraph) have known instances of land considered to be worn out, when sown with wheat brought from a distance, have, as if by magic, produced crops nearly equal to those yielded when the land was first cultivated. Our farmers are, however, now becoming too intelligent to neglect anything that is important to their interests, and nodoubt this practice will soon become a thing of the past. The advantage of not depending upon one particular crop is now more appreciated by farmers, and more attention is paid to a variety of crops, and cattle, pigs, and poultry are taken into account much more than formerly. This is as it ought to be, as neither the seasons nor the markets can be depended upon for making any particular crop profitable. A few bad seasons, or the want of a payable market, will often reduce a well-to-do farmer to the verge of poverty if depending upon one crop. How much more secure, then, would the position of the farmer be if he devoted a portion of his attention to fattening sheep and cattle for market ! There iff always a good market for fat stock, and the uncertainties of fattening them are far less than those of raising crops. If the season be very wet, we have thick stalks but light heads, and perhaps rust. This would not interfere with stock, a wet season bringing plenty of feed. Should the season be dry, we have perhaps short straw and no grain at all, the heads withering up. Whenthisis thecase tattle would at any rate be able to eat it, if fit for nothing else. If the season is favorable, neither too wet nor too dry,, there would be a good return both for grain and stock. We trust that farmers will pay more attention to this subject, and include in their operations, the fattening of stock for market. The Arabs tan a hide as follows : It is spread in the middle of a travelled road, and the men and animals pass over it until it is beaten flat ; and when dried it is finished, and good leather it is, though the hair remains.