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CHAPTER IX.

A

A FURTHER STUDY OF THE FARM.

[BY L. A. CLINTON, Assistant Agriculturist Cornell University.]

The Farm as a Home.*

NY person who contemplates purchasing a farm, upon which to establish himself, and secure a living, should make a most careful study before deciding upon the farm to be purchased. There are many features which should be considered besides the one of securing a competence, "for it is not all of life to live." First, there should be considered the adaptability of the farm for a home. Unless it possesses in itself and by environment those qualities which go toward making a pleasant and healthful location for a home, then the study should not proceed further, but some other farm should be selected.

In selecting the site for a home there should be considered healthfulness of location, character of the people in the surrounding district, nearness to churches and schools, quality of the land in the neighboring farms, nearness to the market town, and quality of roads leading to and from the farm.

Healthfulness of location should receive first attention, for if the land is so located that the conditions are unsanitary as regards drainage, water supply, etc., and these conditions can not be remedied, then no matter how favorable the other conditions may be, the farm should not be selected for a home.

The character of the surrounding people, whose intelligence and honesty will very largely give the reputation to the community, will materially add to or detract from the value

*For a more complete discussion of this subject the reader is referred to a book entitled "Rural Affairs," now in preparation, by Prof. I. P. Roberts.

of any farm as a home. The social advantages, the schools and the churches, will be no better and of no higher order than the people who compose the community. We are influenced more or less by the people with whom we come in contact. The children of a home are influenced for better or worse by their playmates. Then in selecting a home an important consideration should be the character of the people who will be our neighbors.

The churches and schools are important civilizing and educational agencies. A live church in a community adds to the desirability of that community as a home. It tends to create a better moral atmosphere; it raises the general standard of the people; and, whether we will or not, its effect is to increase the value of any district as a location for a home. The importance of the country schoolhouse is generally recognized, and its importance is increasing each year as better methods of instruction are adopted and more attention is paid to education. All classes, educated and uneducated, recognize in the school an agency the influence of which is second only, if not equal, to that of the church. The desirability of the home is increased then as it is located within easy reach of the schoolhouse, so that the children of the family can receive the benefits of the instruction there imparted.

It is not only important that the land be fertile on the farm. to be purchased, but also that the neighboring farms be fertile. The character, disposition, and temperament of people are very largely influenced by the amount of labor necessary for them to secure a living. If the surrounding land is poor, and of such a nature that it requires the maximum expenditure of labor for a minimum of results, then the opportunity of people who live upon such land for intellectual development is limited, their interest in public improvements is likely to be small, teachers hired for the public school are usually the cheapest that can be procured, and thus, in many ways, is the value of a farm as a home enhanced or diminished according to the nature of the surrounding lands.

Distance from the market town is, to a large extent, determined by the quality of the roads. With the advent of good

roads, when it will be possible at all times of the year easily to reach the town, the distance in miles will become of less importance. But with conditions as they are now in a very large proportion of our rural districts, when, for a part of the year, the public highways are in an almost impassable condition, the distance through which one must travel such highways in passing to and from the market should have an important influence in determining what farm should be selected for a home.

The Farm as a Source of Income.-Being in possession of a farm, there is then at hand abundant opportunity for study, and the ways in which different ones will take up the study will probably be as various as the farms to be studied. There are, however, certain important considerations which should be given careful thought, for, no matter how pleasant the location as a home, if one can not secure a competence upon the farm, then it will be necessary to look to other employment as a means of sustenance.

With the farm there is possessed not only a certain area which can be measured in acres, but also a vast amount of plant food, raw material, from which are to be manufactured certain products. The plant food in the soil really constitutes the stock of the farmer. The value of this stock will be determined, very largely, by the treatment the land has received, the availability of the plant food in the soil, the texture of the soil, and the methods of agriculture to be pursued.

There will be found certain fields of the farm which exceed the average in fertility, and other fields will be found deficient. Those fields which are deficient will naturally receive attention first. A fertile field is one which will produce crops at a profit. If a field is found not to be producing crops at a profit, then investigation should be commenced at once to determine the causes. The most common causes of infertility are abuse of the land, poor texture of the soil, lack of adaptation of soil to crop grown. It is probable that the first cause mentioned is the most difficult of any to detect, and it is one of the most common causes of infertility.

The abuses most frequent are the annual removal of crops

without any returns in the way of manures, fertilizers, or organic matter, and the leaving of the land naked during the rainy season, and thus exposed to the action of rains and floods.

So generous has been the supply of plant food that the abuse first mentioned may have been going on for several generations. On the newer lands of the west, this system of soil robbing is still going on. On the older-cultivated lands of the east, the ruinous effects of the system have become apparent, and the practice has, of necessity, been checked. If it is found, upon a study of the various fields of the farm, that this form of abuse has been going on, then, first of all, the practice should be discontinued, and means taken at once to restore the land to a fertile condition.

The loss of fertility is not because the plant food has all been used, for that has been impossible. Only that plant food has been used which could be most easily extracted. There still remains an abundance of plant food in the soil for the production of many crops. It is some other feature besides plant food, then, which needs first to be studied and remedied. The organic matter or humus of the soil has been so depleted that it is no longer loose and mellow, slightly springy or elastic when trodden upon, but is heavy, compact, and runs together in an almost impervious layer under the action of beating rains. This condition must be remedied. Returns of organic matter must be made either by the plowing under of green crops or by the use of barn manures. Humus is capable of holding over one hundred per cent of its weight of water. A soil that is deficient in this important constituent, humus, is thereby deficient in its moisture-holding power. As the humus of the soil is increased, within certain limits, the power of the soil to hold moisture is increased. If a careful examination of the condition of the soil shows that it is lacking in humus, one of the cheapest and best ways by which it can be supplied is by the plowing under of leguminous crops, as clover, peas, beans, vetches, etc. If the land is so poor that these plants can not be grown, then any plant which is hardy in the locality and is what we call a “coarse

feeder" may be grown. Among such feeders may be mentioned rye, buckwheat, spurry, and weeds of infinite variety, for a crop of weeds plowed under is far better than nothing. But why all this work and apparent loss of time?-Simply to bring to our command some of the vast stock of plant food which we possess, that we may be enabled profitably to manufacture the raw materials of the soil into a product for which there is a demand. The fermentation and decomposition of organic matter in the soil creates carbonic acid; this acid acts upon the elements of the soil and makes available some of the plant food which has been heretofore locked up; the condition of the soil has been ameliorated and brought into a condition more favorable for the production of a higher class of plants than formerly. When the soil has been thus improved, commercial fertilizers may be tested, not because the soil is deficient in potential plant food, but because the supply of available plant food may be deficient.

One practice which is most wasteful and improvident is that of permitting the land to remain naked during the winter and thus allowing it to be washed and plant food wasted. Lands which are left naked, that is, with no plants growing upon them, during the rainy season, lose more plant food in the drainage water and by surface washing than would be removed by several crops. Where thorough tillage is practiced on crops grown during the summer, a large amount of plant. food, especially nitrogen, is made available in the first few inches of surface soil. Not all of this plant food is used by the crop growing upon the land. If, when the crop is removed, the land is left bare, this soluble plant food in the surface soil is washed out or changed into a form which is less available. To prevent these wastes the soil should, at all times when possible, have plants growing upon it. Rye or wheat may be sown in the late fall after the regular crop is removed. While the plants may not make much growth, yet they feed upon the soluble plant food and thus prevent its waste; the roots permeate the soil and hold it in place, and when the land is plowed in the spring some addition is made to the organic matter of the soil. Seed for this cover crop

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