The Farm.
PROF. D. I. MINER.
Since the present school year commenced it has been a matter of a good deal of study with us, who are now in charge of this institution, how to so employ the labor of the students as to have it a source of some income to the school. During the past year, the farm brought in very little revenue, owing to drought and other unfortunate circumstances, and we have been compelled to purchase largely some things which the farm ought to produce in excess of our needs.
We are expecting to cultivate seventy or eighty more acres than was attempted last year, and, with better cultivation and the blessing of God, it is hoped we shall produce as much corn, hay, potatoes and vegetables as we consume during the year, even if there should be no surplus to sell. On April 1st we had over sixty acres of corn planted.
During the winter term we have had forty-six young men working for half their board. The principal work in January and February was preparing wood for a year to come; but since the 1st of March, the farm and garden have taken all the labor. And this will be true for the remainder of this school year, which closes in June, when our heaviest crop (corn) will be “laid by.”
We are hoping gradually to work into crops which will occupy less ground, and still be more remunerative than corn and potatoes. To this end, last fall, we commenced in a small way with strawberries by setting some two thousand plants, which are doing remarkably well. From these, we expect to increase till we have several acres in strawberries. Being on the line of the Illinois Central and New Orleans Railroad, we have direct communication with a good Northern market for such fruit.
The prime want of the farm is fences. During the war, and the few years immediately succeeding, the fences in this part of the country were nearly annihilated, in consequence of which the plantations are almost all connected together, with no line of fences between them. We need at least four hundred rods of fence to divide this farm from neighboring plantations. If there was rail timber on the place, we would soon have the fences; but such timber is scarce here, and lumber must be obtained for this purpose from the pine region, fifty or sixty miles south of us. Much is lost every year, in consequence of the exposed condition of our crops.
Industrial Department for Girls.
MRS. G. S. POPE.