The Farmer.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1890, 16 August 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Farmer.

Items of American Farming.

On the present exciting American farming, there occur the following items in the letter of a correspondent of The Times: " Farming on a scale unparalleled except in California is prosecuted in the Bed Biver Valley. This dates from the year 1875, when several capitalists bought vaet tracts of land there. Mr. B. P. Cheney of Boston, and Mr. Oliver Dalrymple of St. Paul, purchased five thousand acres, of which three thousand five hundred will be under cultivation this spring. Last year they harvested forty-two thousand bushels of wheat, six thousand of oats, and three thousand of barley. The machinery on this farm consists of forty ploughs, sixteen seeders, forty harrows, sixteen harvesters, three steam thrashing-machines, and three portable steam-engines. As many as a hundred men are employed at the busiest season. Mr. Cass has a farm of six thousand acres. Nearly the whole will be sown with wheat this year. Large though these farms are, yet they seem small in comparison with that belonging to Mr. William Dalrymple; it covers thirty square miles. The quantity sown with wheat last year was twenty thousand nine hundred acres ; the yield was two hundred and fifty thousand bushels. Seventyfive reaping and binding machines were used to harvest the crop, the work being done at the rate of one thousand acres a clay. This farm is managed on the plan of a factory. It is divided into sections of two thousand acres, over each of which an overseer is placed ; he carries out the orders of Mr. Dalrymple just as a brigadier-general carries out the orders of the commander-in-chief of an army. Comfortable dwellings are provided for the overseers, while there is a boarding-house for the accommodation of the farm-laborers. Each section has its granary, stables, machine-shop, and engine-house. Indeed, the vast estate is > really divided into a number of separate farms, each being complete in itself, and all being subject to a common head. Four hundred and fifty laborers and upwards of three hundred horses and mules are employed on this farm; three book-keepers are required to register the accounts, and two cashiers to receive and disburse the money. Indeed, the | whole arrangements are designed to assimilate the production of grain to the operations of a manufactory. The idyllic side of farming has no place here. The farmer is a capitalist, and the farm-laborer is called a 'hand' and treated as one. Advocates of spade-huabandry will see nothing to admire in this wholesale method of cultivating the Boil, and they will maintain that if this system should grow in favor, the day must arrive when, in the United States, as in certain European countries, there will be a permanent and rigid separation between the tillers of the soil and its owners. However, while land continues as plentiful and easily acquired in the United States as it was during the Middle Ages, when the existing large estates were formed in Europe, the citizens of that country will disregard gloomy forebodings and will continue to lavish their admiration upon a successful capitalist like Mr. Dalrymple. His farm is a common topic of glorification among the citizens of the new North-west, and of admiring envy among the dwellers in less fertile parts of the land." In reporting the 'extent of cereal crops in America, ic is not usually considered that the enormous production is due to the virgin fertility of, the soil, which must in time be exhausted, and require the recruitment of manures. In a few years, the land must either be supplemented by restoratives, or go out of cultivation. The day of agricultural difficulty is coming in the New World, as it long since came in the Old. * Bloat in Cattle. Tiieue is no way of preventing bloating when cattle are feeding either upon alfalfa or clover, as the beasts overeat under certain conditions. When their digestive organs are a little out of order, or when they eat too heartily, the rank herbage, not being quickly digested, ferments in tho paunch and produces gas, the pressure of which closoa all escape for it, and unless promptly relieved the animal will die. In such a case as the above, relief might have been afforded at once by puncturing the stomach through the side where the swelling was most prominent. An instrument is made expressly for this purpose, known as a trochar and canula, being a sharp-pointed steel pin about six .inches long, having a proper handle, and fitting into a brass tube which covers all but '.he sharp point, and which has a sort of cup .the top which prevents it from going too The instrument is thrust through the ekin on the left side of the bea3t, about eight inches below the level of the back and half way between the hip and the last rib, and should be pushed somewhat downwards so as not to wound the kidneys, which are just above the spot. The opening goes into the stomach, and as the pin is drawn out the tube is left, and the gas escapes with ease, giving instant relief. In the absence of such an instrument, a small-bladed knife may be used in the same way. There is no risk in the operation ; as soon as the bloating is over the wound heals rapidly. A dose of a quart of linseed oil, however, should be given, and the food should be scanty for a few days afterwards to permit tho stomach to regain its tone. We have repeatedly advised all farmers to keep a trochar and canula always on hand against an emergency. The instrument costs about a dollar, and can be obtained from any dairy supply firm or through any druggist.— Neiv York Rural.

Experiments in Growing Corn. Some interesting experiments in regard to the germination of corn have been made and reported upon by Dr. Sturtevant, of the New York Agricultural Station. Dr. Sturtevant has proved the power in the corn kernel|to regerminate after a drought, and with a return of conditions favorable to growth, thereby enabling the farmer to plant corn more shallow than is sometimes required for the securing of permanent moisture to the seed in the spring. Some corn seed has the power to push up through eight inches of healthy clay soil. The results gained at the station last season showed how quicker vegetation, and, as Dr. Sturtevant imagined, a better stand from seed planted one-fourth inch than deeper. The experimenter, judging from actual results, th inks it reasonable to believe that the compacting of fine soil about the seed is of more importance then than the depth of planting merely. Nourishing the Orange. Consui/Ab Agent Lowenstein of Grao, in the province of Valencia, Spain, writes of the necessity of manure for the orange. The orange tree requires to be manured at two periods of its existence. During its first development it should receive it in abundance, so as to activate as much as possible the formation of its branches and, at the same time, obtain its maximum production. Afterwards, during the remainder of its existence, only the necessary quantity for its proper preservation and nourishment should be given it, its state of vegetation indicating the frequency with which it should be manured and the quantity to be given it. In the first period of vegetation of the orange trees, manures of rapid decomposition should be employed, so that they may immediately proportion to the roots, and in abundance, the nutritive elements required by them. Brief Notes. Do not crowd too many fowls in one house. it you do, look out for fatal diseases. A. decoction of tobacoo has been used successfully for scale insects in this State by Ellwood Cooper, of Santa Barbara. If you propose to have a garden that will pay you as well as, or better than, any part of the farm, prepare the land early, and do not wait until all the farm crops are in before owing it* Peaks will thrive in almost any strong soil of clay or sandy clay, and in good, strong, loamy soil. They prefer clay; or, rather, on

clay, in limestone or Bhale sections, they make the healthiest growth. Among pears that rarely ever fail of good results, says a writer in the New York Independent, are Belle Lucrative, Louise Bonne, Beurre d'Anjou, Lawrence, Buffam, Tyson, Howell; and these are all good pears. In setting vines on rich land, the larger portion of them should be of the white varieties ; on hill land, more of the black for claret. Under favorable ciroumstanoes it would be well to plant in the following proportion: Two-thirds claret grapes and one-third white. — St. Helena Star.