o with me so far as to say, the
greater the crops, the more manure they will make--and the more manure,
the larger the crops.

"Now, I object to any special farming, when applied to a whole great
division of country, such as merely raising grain, or devoted entirely
to dairying.

"I saw at Rome, N.Y., these two leading branches of New York farming
united on the Huntington tract of 1,300 acres. Three or four farms (I
forget which) had separate and distinct management, conducted by
different families, but each had a dairy combined with the raising of
large crops of grain, such as wheat, corn, oats, etc. These grain-crops,
with suitable areas of meadow and pasture, sustained the dairy, and the
cows converted much of the grain, and all of the forage, into manure.
Thus was combined, to mutual advantage, these two important branches of
New York farming. Wheat and cheese to sell, and constant improvement in
crops.

"In our own case, sheep have been combined with grain-raising. So we
have sold wool, wheat, and barley, and, in all my life, not five tons of
hay. Clover, you know, has been our great forage-crop. We have wintered
our sheep mostly on clover-hay, having some timothy mixed with it, that
was necessarily cut (to make into hay with the medium, or early clover,)
when it was but grass. We have fed such hay to our cows and horses, and
have usually worked into manure the corn-stalks of about 20 acres of
good corn, each winter, and we have worked all the straw into shape to
apply as manure that we could, spreading it thickly on pastures and such
other fields as were convenient. Some straw we have sold, mostly to
paper-makers."

"That," said the Deacon, "is good, old-fashioned farming. Plenty of
straw for bedding, and good clover and timothy-hay for feed, with wool,
wheat, and barley to sell. No talk about oil-cake, malt-combs, and
mangels; nothing about superphosphate, guano, or swamp-muck."

Mr. Geddes and Mr. Johnston are both representative farmers; both are
large wheat-growers; both keep their land clean and thoroughly
cultivated; both use gypsum freely; both raise large crops of clover and
timothy; both keep sheep, and yet they represent two entirely different
systems of farming. One is the great advocate of clover; the other is
the great advocate of manure.

I once wrote to Mr. Geddes, asking his opinion as to the best time to
plow under clover for wheat. He replied as follows:

"Plow under the clover when it