Now that the silo is an assured success, except under rare conditions, soiling, or the partial soiling system, should be adopted on many farms, especially in the dairy districts. The object should be to provide a continuous and full supply of food, and comfortable conditions for the animals at all times. In May and June the pastures are succulent and the grasses usually abundant, and the annoying flies are not present. When the animals are first turned out on the pastures the nights may be too cold and damp for comfort, in which case they may be stabled and fed a small supplemental ration; in fact, cows in milk should always receive some dry, concentrated food for the first few weeks after they are turned out to grass. Often the early grass is over-succulent and deficient in food constituents to such an extent that the cows cannot eat enough to sustain life and produce the most profitable quantities of milk. When the pastures begin to fail, the flies appear and the days are hot, manifestly the animals will be most comfortable in the stables in the day time and in the pastures at night. This system will permit of reducing the pastures nearly one-half, and the removal of all fences except those which surround the permanent pasture land. If it is desired occasionally to pasture a part of the unenclosed land, a light woven wire fence, which can be easily erected and removed, may be constructed. All changes in the present system of summering animals should be towards smaller areas of pasture-land, fewer fences, more comfortable conditions for animals, economy of effort, and control of food-supplies for the animals at all seasons of the year.
In most of the states the laws require each farmer to restrain his own animals without the aid of the neighbors; hence the road-fence, often the most unsightly and ill kept of all the fences, may be discarded. How many of the inside fences would best be removed depends upon circumstances; but certain it is that a more rational system of restraining and feeding cattle will be adopted than the one now almost universally in use. We cannot destroy the hornfly; we can remove the useless fences and house the animals in stables from which the pestiferous flesh- and milk-reducing flies are excluded.
ORCHARDS
In some fruit districts the farmers are cutting down their orchards, saying that they cannot afford to bother with them, and that fruit-raising must be carried on in a large way by specialists to be profitable. This is tantamount to saying that they are not intelligent and enterprising enough to manage six or eight acres of orchard successfully, while their neighbor is competent to care for ten times that acreage. The man who owns the smaller orchard should, other things being equal, secure a relatively larger profit than the owner of the large orchard, since he will be able to give it more personal attention. The man who overcomes the difficulties of fruit-raising is constantly adding to his education and power, while the man who is appalled with the difficulties of orcharding, and falls back on rye, buckwheat and oats as money-crops, sinks in intelligence and loses courage. The orchard, when intelligently cared for, seldom fails to give much larger profits than a like area devoted to the cereals. As a rule, the most difficult crop to raise or the most difficult business is the one which brings the most liberal reward after the difficulties have been surmounted.
When convenient, the orchard might well be set to the north or west of the buildings, in most sections of the United States, but not so close to them as to prevent a good air passage between it and the dwelling. Low-headed fruit trees should not be set in the house yard or near to it. The trees in most orchards are set too close together, and even when set appropriate distances apart it will be found to be unprofitable, in the long run, to grow two crops on the same land at the same time, as wheat or oats and apples. Specific directions for the care and management of orchards can now be found in well written books and bulletins; therefore there is no occasion for treating orchards in detail here. Suffice it to say that the farmer without an abundance of fruits in their season is like the lad with empty pockets outside the circus tent: lots of fruit and fun, ready to be enjoyed by those who have made thoughtful provision for the gratification of desires which always come, sooner or later. Every farmer should grow most of the fruits suited to his soil and climate,—enough to eat and to sell and to give to the worthy poor.
FARM GARDEN
The farm garden should be ample and contain not only enough vegetable and small fruits for the use of the family, but a surplus to sell or to give away. The farmer used to large areas is reluctant to undertake anything so small as he imagines the garden to be; hence, too often he plows it and leaves the planting and cultivation of it to the “women folks.” If he knew how to manage a garden he would find that the half-acre of land devoted to small fruits and vegetables could be made the most profitable and pleasurable part of the farm. Higher remuneration is received for the time spent in harvesting the products of a large, well kept garden, than in harvesting the cereals or milking the cows. It must be said, however, that there are good reasons for the farmer’s distaste for gardening, for the gardens, as usually laid out, necessitate the maximum of hand-culture and the minimum of horse-culture. The result of such gardens is a minimum of products secured by maximum of effort, and a resultant surplus of weeds.
Fig. 138. Plan of a home garden.
The garden should be about four times as long as it is broad, unfenced when possible, near to the house, and should be, in miniature, a farm with the cereals, grasses, and large fruits left out ([Fig. 138]). The side farthest from the dwelling should be devoted to the perennial plants, such as grapes, currants and other bush-fruits. Everything should be planted in straight rows, with spaces sufficiently wide between the rows to admit of horse-hoe culture. The grapes and blackberries might occupy one row, the raspberries and currants a second row, rhubarb, asparagus and like plants a third row. The spaces between these various fruits should be eight feet, as it is poor economy to so crowd vines and bushes as to force them to struggle the year through for plant-food and moisture. A rod or two of land, more or less, virtually amounts to nothing on the farm; crowding the plants is only admissible in the city or village. Here the plants may receive unusual care, and often may be irrigated at fruiting time from the city hydrant. The rows of ordinary vegetables may be thirty inches apart, except in case of such plants as onions, lettuce, and early beets. These small, slow-growing esculents should be planted in double rows. Starting from the last row of potatoes a thirty inch space is measured off, a row of lettuce planted, and then one foot from this a row of beets or onions; then leave a space thirty inches wide and again plant double rows, if more of the small esculents are wanted. The larger spaces may be cultivated by horse-hoe and the smaller spaces by hand-hoe. The entire garden which is to be planted in the spring should be kept fertile and plowed early in the spring, leaving that part of it which is not designed for immediate planting unharrowed. It may be necessary to replow. It certainly will be necessary to cultivate several times that part of the garden which is used for late-growing crops, such as cabbage and celery. As a rule, the farmer cannot afford to attempt to raise two crops on the same land the same year, since labor is everything and the use of land nothing; therefore, better prepare the ground by two or three plowings for the late crops, than to attempt to raise them on land which has parted with much of its readily available plant-food in producing the early crop. Then, too, land which has produced one crop is likely to be deficient in moisture, while land that has been plowed two or three times during the summer and kept well harrowed will be moist and contain an abundance of readily available plant-food. Early in the spring, when the land is cold and often too moist, it is best to leave the soil rough for a time if it is not to be planted immediately, that it may become somewhat dry and warm. As a rule, the garden should not be fenced, but the chickens should be restrained by fences a part of the time; at other times they may have free access to the garden, where they are often very beneficial in reducing the insect enemies.