VOL. LXV
INDIANAPOLIS, SEPT. 3, 1910.
NO. 36
Written for the Indiana Farmer:
FAKM   MANAGEMENT.
By J. II. Haynes.
Farmers are the producers of the
wealth of the world, but unfortunately
they do not share equally with others
in the profits. To a great extent this is
their fault. We hear it said jof this or
that farmer: '"He ought to be well off
for he works 16 hours a day."
That brings us to the query whether
work or rnanagement is the key to success. We know farmers who might
work 24 hours a day and still be poor.
Why? Bad management. If the ordinary business men did their work as
loosely and carelessly as do many
farmers, the business world would be
bankrupt. System and order have
much to do with success in any undertaking especially that of the farmer.
There are more losses due to the
■ lack of management than to crop failures. In fact most crop failures are due
to bad management. Failure to make
the best use of land ls a very common
source of loss. A knowledge of one's
soil is necessary to enable one to do
this.
Corn is planted on uncongenial soil
because the owner does not understand
the nature of it. Again too much idle
land is left untilled each year. This
should not be. Every available foot of
land should be made to produce some
crop except weeds. Fence corners
where rail fences are still in use take
up quite an acreage over the country,
and these strips are producers of weea>-
of all classes that furnish the fields
with seed.
Another source of loss is in the employing of unintelligent help either sts
managers or laborers. Rented farms
sulfer most from this cause, and these
farms as a rule neither pay tenant nor
the landlord a just income. As renting
farms are on the increase great danger
of underproduction arises from this
cause.
Farm laborers should be as intelligent or more so than any other class of
laborers. When a farm once begins to
lose its producing powers it is hard to
get an intelligent renter to take charge
of it, and this leads to a continual going down under bad management.
Another fault Is in not keeping label ers constantly employed. If circumstances make it impoassible to do one
thing, perhaps there is other work that
could be done to good advantage. We
nave known farmers and their help to
go to town on wet days while many
things went undone, that could have
been done at such a time.
Another source of loss is a failure 'o
make the best possible use of lane?.
This necessitates the keeping of stock
of all classes to use lands that may lie
'die. It also requires the farmer to
keep up the fertility of the soil so that
it will produce to a good advantage.
The care and keeping of this stock
will give employment to the help
through many hours that otherwise
would be wasted. Every farm should
have a proportionate amount of stock
according to its size for reasons givea
further on.
There    are    always       unmarketable
produce on every farm that would be
wasted unless fed to stock or otherwise
utilized. The poultry, hogs or cartl^
can proflt by its use.
In the way of fruit when not fit f.ir
market much of it can be saved in the
many ways known to the prudent
housewife. We have seen orchards
where the ground was covered with decaying fruit because of bad management.
One more source of loss to the farmer is a want of proper storing places
for his products. If he threshes his
grain it is taken to the elevator because
bage, onions and other products of tho
garden, all of which could have, and
should have been produced at home.
But the owner could not trifle time
away in the garden. We have heard
farmers say lt was cheaper to buy their
strawberries than to raise them. Perhaps it was in their cases, but one
thing is true they never bought them
and the family never knew the pleasure
of having such luxuries. A well kept
fruit and vegetable garden pays a better per cent than any other investment
on the farm. Try them if you never
have.
he has no bins or granery in which to
store it. When corn husking time
comes around rail pens are built and
the corn exposed in it to the weather,
to the havoc of rats, etc. One years
loss from these sources would build a
well   protected   granery.
The implements are too often piled
in fence corners, or around straw
stacks, and quite often in the
field where last used. As a
result but few years pass until
the implement is consigned to
the junk pile while if it had been
properly housed, and an occasional
coat of paint given it would have been
in use for many years. The continual
buying of new implements and their
future treatment causes immense losses
to the farm world.
Ignorance in the buying and selling
prices of farm commodities causes
many losses. True they may be small
in single instances, but in the aggregate amount to much. Every farmer
should be posted daily of the market
prices of each and every product of his
farm and in connection with this information he should know the demands
of his home market. We know one
farmer who had paid off a $5,000 mortgage by a close watch of these
things. When home prices did not
justify him he shipped his products to
markets where  the  prices would.
The knowledge of these things will
protect the intelligent farmer against
designing tricksters on the markets. A
very common source of loss to the farm
is the want of a well kept garden and
fruit patch. We have had farmers
come to us at threshing time for cab-
MAINTENANCE* OF   EARTH ROADS.
By R. M. Dolve, Prof. Farm Mechanics,
N. Dak. Agricultural College.
In order to make our roads good the
greater part of the year a system of
continuous maintenance must be
adopted. Many have argued that every
farmer should keep in repair a certain
definite piece of road near his farm
but this system, although often productive of a great deal of good, has
never been entirely successful. The
trouble is that the farmer has too much
important private business to atiend to
and cannot always give the ~oad his
attention when the condition of the
road requires tt. Ther too thU system is against the tendency of the
times which is for division of labor and
intense  specialization.
The present day farmer is a specialist in the true sense of the word. He
no longer concerns himself about the
making of his shoes, clothing, tools or
other equipment; he no longer worries about the bringing of his mail and
the time is coming when he should no
longer be bothered about the direct
maintenance of his roads. The farmers' mail is brought to .his door and
he takes it as a matter of fact, stopping to consider the system which
brings it there only when the mail for
some reason or other fails to appear.
Likewise the ideal system of road
maintenance is one by which the roads
are kept in repair as automatically but
as surely as the delivery of the rural
mail.
One of the best implements yet devised  for  repairing  roads  is the  King
split log drag or some modification of
it which may be made either of wood
or steel. The roads should be dragged
with this implement as soon after a
rain as possible; when the drag
squeezes the water out of the soil leaving a smooth layer of puddled soil on
the road surface which bakes hard
when dry and "sheds water like a
duck." The effect of the drag is accumulative in a way very much similar
to the application of paint on a building, for the thinner the coats and the
greater the number the more lasting is
the paint. Every time the drag is
used a new layer of puddled soil is
smeared on top of the previous one until, after several years of the accumulative effect of dragging, a road crust,
consising of a large number of thin
layers of puddled soil is formed that
will support the heaviest traffic without
breaking up. The drag not only keeps
tho road smooth and well crowned
but also koops the ditches clean so that,
if outlets are provided for thom as
there should be, water will run away
from the roads and the grade thus remains firm.
There is a total of seventy-two miles
of road in a township but usually less
thnn thrty-five are travelled to any
extent. In many townships one man
and two horses could maintain the
roads perfectly throughout the summer
months with a road drag. In others
two men and four or six horses would
be required to do the work when it
should be done. This system of maintenance would not be at all prohibitive and it would be found that in old
townships where the roads are already
graded there would be little use for the
road grader. About the only repair
that would have to be attended to outside of this system would be the building of bridges and culverts and this
could, in time, be almost eliminated if
reinforced concrete were used in their
construction wherever possible.
PROTECT   THE   TOAD.
B. W. Douglass, State Entomologist,
in his annual report for 1909 speaks
very favorably of the toad.      He says:
"As a matter of fact the common
toad does more to rid our fields anu.
gardens of noxious insects than many
of the feathered songsters of which we
hear so much. But simply that he is
ugly—emphatically and most unmistakably us'y—the toad has all manner
of defamation and libel heaped upon
him.
"Early superstitions have charged
the toad with about all the vicious
qualities possible for one creature to
possess. Some of these traditions, however, are of such a nature as to render
the toad an individual to be avoided
rather than to be sought and killed.
But in spite of his ugliness the little
animal is about as harmless as any we
can find in our woods and fields, and
as a destroyer of insects his value has
been established beyond a doubt.
Ninety-eight per cent of the food of
the toad consists of animal matter,
and of this the greater part is injurous
insects."
Mr. Douglass believes that farmers
and gardeners should provide suitable
places in their gardens and fields where
the toad may breed, and that their protection should be encouraged in every
way.