SUCCESSFUL FARM ENTERPRISES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 16

SUCCESSFUL FARM ENTERPRISES.

One of the most important points to be emphasised is the fact that haphazard fertilisation is not effective in maintaining soil fertility. If one starts out to establish a five-course rotation and builds up the fertility of his farm under a rational system, he will obviously not obtain the full benefit of the rotation till he begins to get crops from the second round, which will be the sixth year from the beginning. It happens ' constantly, says Thomas F. Hunt, that during the first rotation the increase in crops has not paid for the cost of the fertilisers applied. Profit in farming does not consist in raising one big crop but in the return through a long course of years, and results only through hard work and close application to details. One of the difficulties to successful farming is to find one man both interested and capable along the various lines essential to successful farm enterprise. The danger is that a man will ride his hobby to the detriment of the other activities of the farm. If one visits a high-grade breeder of dairy cattle he is apt to find his pigs but of ordinary character, and the specialist in pigs possibly with scrub cows. A man may be an expert at growing wheat and an indifferent potato-grower, and the reverse. The breeder of live stock is likely to he lacking in his methods ot producing farm crops, while the general farmer is not likely to be a lover of live stock. In like manner, a man may be a successful farmer, dairyman, or horticulturist from the producing side, but a poor salesman. It is not expected that the young farmer will be materially different from his hundred of thousands _of predecessors. but the better he is trained the more likely he is to succeed in the country. For this reason it is necessary to get as broad a training as possible. It is necessary for him to study those things which he dislikes rather than to study the things for which he has a natural taste.

There was a man in our town^. And he was wondrous wise,— He knew that if he wanted crops He’d have to fertilise. It’s nitrogen that makes things green. Said this man of active brain; And potash makes the good strong straw. And phosphate plumps the gram. But it’s clearly wrong to waste plant food On a wet-and soggy field; I’ll surely have to put in drains If I’d increase the yield. And after I have drained Hie land I must plow it deep all over; And even then I’ll not succeed, Unless it will grow clover. How, acid soil will not produce, A clover sod that’s prime; So if I have a sour soil, I’ll have to put on lime. And after doing all these things, To make success more sure, I’ll try my very beet to keep From wasting the manure

So I’ll drain, and lime, and cultivate, With all that that implies; And when I’ve done that thoroughly I’ll manure and fertilise.