A PIONEER'S EXPERIENCE

This place which I have taken was as the Indians had left it, and for over twenty- two years I have kept on improving it. I ^taited in with hardly any means at all ; had even to work out at 75 cents a day to earn the money to buy my first spades, which cost me then $175 apiece. Not even the shadowof a plow, wagon and team. Sol had not a very easy row to hoe, and my talk about work is not from hearsay only.

Last year one of my three sons made an experiment in raising oats, in a way some- what differing from the common one. Hav- ing our own blacksmithing outfit, he had made himself a drill for planting his oats (and other small grains of com) in rows about 3)4 feet a part, so as to have room af- terwards to go through with a light one horee outfit of his own make also, aud to cultivate his oats about the same way as drilled com. The chances for the crop had not been the very best under ordinary treat- ment with which they might have yielded about 25 bushels to the acre, but after every shower he went through with his pony and cultivator breaking and pulverizing the crust and the result was 183 bushels of splendid oats from 3 acres, — not that chafiy stuff that so often passes as oats , but grain , that would be just the thing to be worked up into oat- meal if we had the appliances for it, and weighing abont 40 pounds to the bushel. And when we made a close calculation we found, that one man's work, for one hour with a pony, had produced 3 bushels of gram.

Now it takes about one pound of oat-meal to go for a breakfast for us five persons ; al- low 25 pounds of meal for a bushel, the rest.

15 pounds being chaff, (evidently too much of the latter) and we arrive at the result, that it would take about 1 5 bushels of such oats to supply us with our morning's repast for the whole year ; and these can be pro- duced by 5 hours of work of one man , horses aiding him in it, aud no hard work for them either. Reduce it to one person, and you have one hour's work for a whole year's breakfasting; of course the trouble of cook- ing not included.

Taking up our wheat crop and figuring ou the work it took to supply a person with the necessary wheat for one year's use, I set the quantity at 5 bus. enough, if you use whole wheat, and not only abont one fourth ' of its value, as is done by the use of super- fine flour. I found that those 5 bushels had cost: lyi hour of team work, from 2 — 4 horses at a time; and 5 — 6 hours of a man's work, including the driving of horses and 20 cents pay in cash for the steam thrasher.

I made a calculation on melons, and found that one hotir's work, mostly hand work with the hoe, had produced about 200 lbs. of melons. Butthatonly includes the work of producing them. I,ast year an hour's labor, with and without horses, was about equivalent to 100 lbs of grapes. I believe about the same ratio will apply to apples, pears, peaches etc.

To sum it up : a radical Vegetarian can produce the materials for his sustenance in less than half an hour a day and this is the outside limit. Part of the work of course takes a man who can handle horses and machinery, but the greater part of it can be done by ladies and children just as well.

So it seems, with the general adoptionof Vegetarianism the milleniuni would be at

d by Google

hand. With half an acre of tillable land for a person and not quite work enough to keep the blood in healthy circulation, there might be plenty for all, and all could apply them- selves to mental self-culture and develop their gifts.

Vegetarianism must deliver ns rich and poor, there's hardly any difference, from the slaving and toiling for our physical existence.

It would be no trick at all to organize a vegetarian agricultural and industrial colony even on the capitalistic basis, giving the invested capital all possible security and a liberal share in the earnings, and yet make life so easy even for the laborer, who has not a cent to invest in it, that fear of want or care for the future would be as foolish as it now would be, to stand out in a January blizzard yammering for a mouthful of fresh air. There is enough of it, and the million- aire has not one jot nor tittle of advantage over the poorest tramp.

If the Vegetarian who can live on half an hour's labor a day, cannot wait for re- turns I wonder who else should be able? They could even embark in gardening, in contradistinction to the now prevailing van- dalism of the cattle raiser, This again points to the hard fact, that the path to the promised land leads through co-operation and collective ownership.

This social development must and will come in one shape or other, and then will be thebegiimingof a fearful revolution, as radi- cal and wide reaching, as the world never yet lias witnessed, and that we could set up a sliining example very soon is the sincere and ardent wish of the wTiter. — Hermann Studer, Cedar Vale, Chautauqua Co. Kansas. SEAWEED FOR MANURING?

Would not the famous salt and lime mix- ture, proportion i to 2, or 3 to 5 (in 8) be . very effective for filling kelp (seaweeds) for fertilizer? in a shape calculated to turning

it readily under, well covered, and out of reach of tillage.

Much of so called manure is so lightly tucked down as to miss the intention of the farmer. The sun ought not to have the chance of striking and wilting, causing loss of ammonia. Short material only can be thus secured, and said mixture will do that thoroughly. — R. Hecker.