XXXIII.
INTELLECT IN AGRICULTURE
If a man whose capital consists of the clothes on his back, $5 in his pocket, and an ax over his right shoulder, undertakes to hew for himself a farm out of the primitive forest, he must of course devote some years to rugged manual labor, or he will fail of success. It is indeed possible that he should find others, even on the rude outposts of civilization, who will hire them to teach school, or serve as county clerk, or survey lands, or do something else of like nature: thus enabling him to do his chopping trees, and rolling logs, and breaking up his stumpy acres, by proxy; but the fair presumption is that he will have to chop and log, and burn off and fence, and break up, by the use of his own proper muscle; and he must be energetic and frugal, as well as fortunate, if he gets a comfortable house over his head, with forty arable acres about him, at the end of fifteen years' hard work. If he has brains, and has been well educated, he may possibly shorten this ordeal to ten years; but, should he begin by fancying hard work beneath him, or his abilities too great to be squandered in bushwhacking, he is very likely to come out at the little end of the horn, and, straggling back to some populous settlement, more needy and seedy than when he set forth to wrest a farm from the wilderness, declare the pioneer's life one of such dreary, hopeless privation that no one who can read or cypher ought ever to attempt it.
A poor man, who undertakes to live by his wits on a farm that he has bought on credit, is not likely to achieve a brilliant success; but the farmer whose hand and brain work in concert will never find nor fancy his intellect or his education too good for his calling. He may very often discover that he wasted months of his school-days on what was ill-adapted to his needs, and of little use in fighting the actual battle of life; but he will at the same time have ample reason to lament the meagerness and the deficiency of his knowledge.
I hold our average Common Schools defective, in that they fail to teach Geology and Chemistry, which in my view are the natural bases of a sound, practical knowledge of things – knowledge which the farmer, of all men, can least afford to miss. However it may be with others, he vitally needs to understand the character and constitution of the soil he must cultivate, the elements of which it is composed, and the laws which govern their relations to each other. Instruct him in the higher mathematics if you will, in logic, in meteorology, in ever so many languages; but not till he shall have been thoroughly grounded in the sciences which unlock for him the arcana of Nature; for these are intimately related to all he must do, and devise, and direct, throughout the whole course of his active career. Whatever he may learn or dispense with, a knowledge of these sciences is among the most urgent of his life-long needs.
Hence, I would suggest that a simple, lucid, lively, accurate digest of the leading principles and facts in Geology and Chemistry, and their application to the practical management of a farm, ought to constitute the Reader of the highest class in every Common School, especially in rural districts. Leave out details and recipes, with directions when to plant or sow, etc.; for these must vary with climates, circumstances, and the progress of knowledge; but let the body and bones, so to speak, of a primary agricultural education be taught in every school, in such terms and with such clearness as to commend them to the understanding of every pupil. I never yet visited a school in which something was not taught which might be omitted or postponed in favor of this.
Out of school and after school, let the young farmer delight in the literature illustrative of his calling – I mean the very best of it. Let him have few agricultural books; but let these treat of principles and laws rather than of methods and applications. Let him learn from these how to ascertain by experiment what are the actual and pressing needs of his soil, and he will readily determine by reflection and inquiry how those needs may be most readily and cheaply satisfied.
All the books in the world never of themselves made one good farmer; but, on the other hand, no man in this age can be a thoroughly good farmer without the knowledge which is more easily and rapidly acquired from books than otherwise. Books are no substitute for open-eyed observation and practical experience; but they enable one familiar with their contents to observe with an accuracy, and experiment with an intelligence, that are unattainable without them. The very farmer who tells you that he never opened a book which treats of Agriculture, and never wants to see one, will ask his neighbor how to grow or cure tobacco, or hops, or sorgho, or any crop with which he is yet unacquainted, when the chances are a hundred to one that this particular neighbor cannot advise him so well as the volume which embodies the experience of a thousand cultivators of this very plant instead of barely one. A good book treating practically of Agriculture, or of some department therein, is simply a compendium of the experience of past ages combined with such knowledge as the present generation have been enabled to add thereto. It may be faulty or defective on some points; it is not to be blindly confided in, nor slavishly followed – it is to be mastered, discussed, criticised, and followed so far as its teachings coincide with the dictates of science, experience, and common sense. Its true office is suggestion; the good farmer will lean upon and trust it as an oracle only where his own proper knowledge proves entirely deficient.
By-and-by, it will be generally realized that few men live or have lived who cannot find scope and profitable employment for all their intellect on a two-hundred-acre farm. And then the farmer will select the brightest of his sons to follow him in the management and cultivation of the paternal acres, leaving those of inferior ability to seek fortune in pursuits for which a limited and special capacity will serve, if not suffice. And then we shall have an Agriculture worthy of our country and the age.
Meantime, let us make the most of what we have, by diffusing, studying, discussing, criticizing, Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, Dana's Muck Manual, Waring's Elements, and the books that each treat more especially of some department of the farmer's art, and so making ourselves familiar, first, with the principles, then with the methods, of scientific, efficient, successful husbandry. Let us, who love it, treat Agriculture as the elevated, ennobling pursuit it might and should be, and thus exalt it in the estimation of the entire community.
We may, at all events, be sure of this: Just so fast and so far as farming is rendered an intellectual pursuit, it will attract and retain the strongest minds, the best abilities, of the human race. It has been widely shunned and escaped from, mainly because it has seemed a calling in which only inferior capacities were required or would be rewarded. Let this error give place to the truth, and Agriculture will win votaries from among the brightest intellects of the race.
XXXIV.
SHEEP AND WOOL-GROWING
Ours is eminently an agricultural country. We produce most of our Food, and export much more than we import of both Grain and Meat. Of Cotton, we grow some Three Millions of bales annually, whereof we export fully two-thirds. But of this we rëimport a portion in the shape of Fabrics and of Thread; and yet, while we are largely clothed in Woolens, and extensive sections of our country are admirably adapted to the rearing of Sheep and the production of Wool, we not only import a considerable share of the Woolens in which we are clad, but we also import a considerable proportion of the Wool wherefrom we manufacture the Woolens fabricated on our own soil. In other words: while we are a nation of farmers and herdsmen, we fail to grow so much Wool as is needed to shield us against the caprices and inclemencies of our diverse but generally fitful climates.
There is a seeming excuse for this in the fact that extensive regions in South America and Australia, are devoted to Sheep-growing where animals are neither housed nor herded, and where they are exclusively fed, at all seasons, on those native grasses which are the spontaneous products of the soil. I presume Wool is in those regions produced cheaper than it can permanently be on any considerable area of our own soil; and yet I believe that the United States should, and profitably might, grow as much Wool as is needed for their own large annual consumption. Here are my reasons:
I. When the predominant interest of British Manufactures constrained the entire repeal of the duties on imported Wool, whereby Sheep-growing had previously been protected, the farmers apprehended that they must abandon that department of their industry; but the event proved this calculation a mistake. They grow more Sheep and at better profit to-day than they did when their Wool brought a higher price under the influence of Protective duties, because the largely increased price of their Mutton more than makes up to them their loss by the reduced prices of their Wool. So, while I do not expect that American Wool will ever again command such high prices as it has done at some periods in the past, I am confident that the general appreciation in the prices of Meat, which has occurred within the last ten or fifteen years, and which seems likely to be enduring, will render Sheep-growing more profitable in the future than it has been in the past. At all events, while our farmers are generally obliged to sell their Grain and Meat at prices somewhat below the range of the British markets, it is hardly conceivable that they should not afford to grow Wool, for which they receive higher average prices than the British farmers do, who feed their Sheep on the produce of lands worth from $300 to $500 (gold) per acre.
II. Interest being relatively high in this country, and Capital with most farmers deficient, it is a serious objection to cattle-growing that the farmer must wait three or four years before receiving a return for his outlay. If he begins poor, with but a few cows and a team, he naturally wants to rear and keep all his calves for several years in order to adequately stock his farm, so that little or no income is meantime realized from his herd; whereas a flock of Sheep yields a fleece per head each year, though not even a lamb is sold, while its increase in numbers is far more rapid than that of a herd of cattle.
III. Almost every farmer, at least in the old States, finds some part of his land infested with bushes and briers, which seem to flourish by cutting, if he finds time to cut them, and which the ruggedness of his soil precludes his exterminating by the plow. In every such case, Sheep are his natural allies – his unpaid police – his vigilant and thorough-going assistants. Give them an even start in Spring with the bushes and briers; let their number be sufficient; and they are very sure to come out ahead in the Fall.
IV. Our farmers in the average are too much confined in Summer and Autumn to salt meats, and especially to Pork. However excellent in quality these may be, their exclusive use is neither healthful nor palatable. With a good flock of Sheep, the most secluded farmer may have fresh meat every week in haying and harvest-time if he chooses; and he will find this better for his family, and more satisfactory to his workmen, than a diet wherefrom fresh meat is excluded.
V. Now, I do not insist that every farmer should grow Sheep, for I know that many are so situated that they cannot. In stony regions, where walls are very generally relied on for fences, I am aware that Sheep are with difficulty kept within bounds; and this is a serious objection. In the neighborhood of cities and large villages, where Fresh Meat may be bought from day to day, one valid reason for keeping them has no application; yet I hold that twice as many of our farmers as now have flocks ought to have them, and would thereby increase their profits as well as the comfort of their families.
The most serious obstacle to Sheep husbandry in this country is the abundance and depredations of dogs. Farmers by tens of thousands have sold off, or killed off, their flocks, mainly because they could not otherwise protect themselves against their frequent decimation by prowling curs, which were not worth the powder required to shoot them. It seems to me that a farmer thus despoiled is perfectly justifiable in placing poisoned food where these cut-throats will be apt to find it while making their next raid on his Sheep. I should have no scruple in so doing, provided I could guard effectually against the poisoning of any other than the culprits.
In a well-settled, thrifty region, where ample barns are provided, I judge that the losses of Sheep by dogs may be reduced to a minimum by proper precautions. Elsewhere than in wild, new frontier settlements, every flock of Sheep should have a place of refuge beneath the hay-floor of a good barn, and be trained to spend every night there, as well as to seek this shelter against every pelting storm. Even if sent some distance to pasture, an unbarred lane should connect such pasture with their fold; and they should be driven home for a few nights, if necessary, until they had acquired the habit of coming home at nightfall; and I am assured that Sheep thus lodged will very rarely be attacked by dogs or wolves.
As yet, our farmers have not generally realized that enhancement of the value of Mutton, whereby their British rivals have profited so largely. Their fathers began to breed Sheep when a fleece sold for much more than a carcase, and when fineness and abundance of Wool were the main consideration. But such is no longer the fact, at least in the Eastern and Middle States. To-day, large and long-wooled Sheep of the Cotswold and similar breeds are grown with far greater profit in this section than the fine-wooled Merino and Saxony, except where choice specimens of the latter can be sold at high prices for removal to Texas and the Far West. The growing of these high-priced animals must necessarily be confined to few hands. The average farmer cannot expect to sell bucks at $1,000, and even at $5,000, as some have been sold, or at least reported. He must calculate that his Sheep are to be sold, when sold at all, at prices ranging from $10 down to $5, if not lower, so that mechanics and merchants may buy and eat them without absolute ruin; and he must realize that 100 pounds of Mutton at 10 cents, with 6 pounds of Wool at 30 cents, amount to more than 60 pounds of Mutton at 8 cents, and 10 pounds of Wool at 60 cents. Farmers who grow Sheep for Mutton in this vicinity, and manage to have lambs of good size for sale in June or July, assure me that their profit on these is greater than on almost anything else their farms will produce; and they say what they know.
The satisfactory experience of this class may be repeated to-day in the neighborhood of any considerable city in the Union. Sheep-growing is no experiment; it is an assured and gratifying success with all who understand and are fitly placed for its prosecution. Wool may never again be so high as we have known it, since the Far West and Texas can grow it very cheaply, while its transportation costs less than five per cent. of its value, where that of Grain would be 75 per cent.; but Mutton is a wholesome and generally acceptable meat, whereof the use and popularity, are daily increasing; so that its market value will doubtless be greater in the future than it has been in the past. I would gladly incite the farmers of our country to comprehend this fact, and act so as to profit by it.
But the new region opened to Sheep-growing by the pioneers of Colorado, and other Territories, is destined to play a great part in the satisfaction of our need of Wool. The elevated Plains and Valleys which enfold and embrace the Rocky Mountains are exceedingly favorable to the cheap production of Wool. Their pure, dry, bracing atmosphere; the rarity of their drenching storms; the fact that their soil is seldom or never sodden with water; and the excellence of their short, thin grasses, even in Winter, render them admirably adapted to the wants of the shepherd and his flocks. I do not believe in the wisdom or humanity, while I admit the possibility, of keeping Sheep without cured fodder on the Plains or elsewhere; on the contrary, I would have ample and effective shelter against cold and wet provided for every flock, with Hay, or Grain, or Roots, or somewhat of each of them, for at least two months of each year; but, even thus, I judge that fine Wool can be grown in Colorado or Wyoming far cheaper than in New England or even Minnesota, and of better quality than in Texas or South America. And I am grievously mistaken if Sheep husbandry is not about to be developed on the Plains with a rapidity and success which have no American precedent.
XXXV.
ACCOUNTS IN FARMING
Farmers, it is urged, sometimes fail; and this is unfortunately true of them, as of all others. Some fail in integrity; others in sobriety; many in capacity; most in diligence; but not a few in method or system. Quite a number fail because they undertake too much at the outset; that is, they run into debt for more land than they have capital to stock or means to fertilize, and are forced into bankruptcy by the interest ever-accruing upon land which they are unable to cultivate. If they should get ahead a little by active exertion throughout the day, the interest would overtake and pass them during the ensuing night.
Few of the unsuccessful realize the extent to which their ill fortune is fairly attributable to their own waste of time. Men not naturally lazy squander hours weekly in the village, or at the railroad station, without a suspicion that they are thus destroying their chances of success in life. To-day is given up to a monkey-show; half of to-morrow is lost in attendance on an auction; part of next day is spent at a caucus or a jury trial; and so on until one-third of the year is virtually wasted.
Now, the men who have achieved eminent success, within my observation, have all been rigid economists of time. They managed to transact their business at the county-seat while serving there as grand or petit jurors, or detained under subpœna as witnesses; they never attended an auction unless they really needed something which was there to be sold, and then they began their day's work earlier and ended it later in order to redeem the time which they borrowed for the sale. I do not believe that any American farmer who could count up three hundred full days' work in every year between his twenty-first and his thirtieth ever yet failed, except as a result of speculation, or endorsing, or inordinate running into debt.
I would, therefore, urge every farmer to keep a rigid account current of the disposal of his time, so as to be able to see at the year's end exactly how many days thereof he had given to productive labor; how many to such abiding improvements as fencing and draining; and how many to objects which neither increased his crop nor improved his farm. I am sure many would be amazed at the extent of this last category.
If every youth who expects to live by farming would buy a cheap pocket-book or wallet which contains a diary wherein a page is allotted to each day of the year, and would, at the close of that day, or at least while its incidents were still fresh in his mind, set down under its proper head whatever incidents were most noteworthy – as, for instance, a soaking rain; a light or heavy shower; a slight or killing frost; a fall of snow; a hurricane; a hail-storm; a gale; a decidedly hot or notably cold temperature; the turning out of cattle to pasture or sheltering them against the severity of Winter; also the planting or sowing of each crop or field, and whether harm was done to it by frost in its infancy or when it approached maturity – he would thus provide himself with annual volumes of fact which would prove instructive and valuable throughout his maturer years.
The good farmer will of course keep accounts with such of his neighbors as he sees fit to deal with; and he ought to charge a lent or credit a borrowed plow, harrow, reaper, log-chain, or other implement, precisely as though it were meal or meat of an equal value. I judge that borrowed implements, if regularly charged at cost, and credited at their actual value when returned, would generally come home sooner and in better condition.
But the farmer, like every one else, should be most careful to keep debt and credit with himself and his farm. If a dollar is spent or lent, his books should show it; and let items and sum total stare him in the face when he strikes a balance at the close of the year. If there has been no leakage either of dimes or of hours, he will seldom be poorer on the 31st of December than he was on the 1st of the preceding January.
Most farmers fail to keep accounts with their several fields and crops; yet what could be more instructive than these? Here are ten acres of Corn, with a yield of 20 to 40 bushels per acre – a like area and like yield of Oats; a smaller or larger of Rye, Buckwheat, or Beans, as the case may be. If the produce is sold, most farmers know how much it brings; but how many know how much it cost? Say the Corn brings 75 cents per bushel, and the Oats 50 cents: was either or both produced at a profit? If so, at what profit? Here is a farmer who has grown from 100 to 800 bushels of Corn per annum for the last 20 years; ought he not to know by this time what Corn costs him in the average, and whether it could or could not with profit give place to something else? Most farmers grow some crops at a profit, others at a loss; ought they not to know, after an experience of five or ten years, what crops have put money into their pockets, and what have made them poorer for the growing?
Of course, there is complication and some degree of uncertainty in all such account-keeping; for every one is aware that some crops take more from the soil than others, and so leave it in a worse condition for those that are to follow, and that some exact large reënforcements of fertilizers, whereof a part only is fairly chargeable to the first ensuing product, while a large share inures to the subsequent harvests. Each must judge for himself how much is to be credited for such improvement, and how much charged against other crops for deterioration. He, for example, whose meadows will cut from two to three tuns per acre of good English Hay may generally sell that Hay for twice if not thrice the immediate cost of its production, and so seem to be realizing a large profit; but, if he gives nothing to the soil in return for the heavy draft thus made upon it, his crop will dwindle year by year, until it will hardly pay for cutting; and the diminution in value of his meadows will nearly or quite balance the seeming profit accruing from his Hay. But account-keeping in every business involves essentially identical calculations; and the merchant who this year makes no net profit on his goods, but doubles the number of his customers and the extent of his trade, has thriven precisely as has the farmer whose profit on his crops has all been invested in drains permeating his bogs, and in Lime, Plaster, and other fertilizers, applied to and permanently enriching his dryer fields.
"To make each day a critic on the last," was the aspiration of a wise man, if not a great poet. So the farmer who will keep careful and candid accounts With himself, annually correcting his estimates by the light of experience, will soon learn what crops he may reasonably expect to grow at a profit, and to reject such as are likely to involve him in loss; and he who, having done this, shall blend common sense with industry, will have no reason to complain thereafter that there is no profit in farming, and no chance of achieving wealth by pursuing it.