No. 3.

Let us now turn for a few moments to the expenses of running a good sized garden-Here you have the advantage over your eastern friend. While a few, say $3,000 to $5,000 would be a great help to you, still it is possible, as I know by experience, to com- mence with very little ready money; while at the east, several thousand dollars is an absolute necessity. And the first thing I wish to say upon this point is this. If you have any idea of cheap tillage, and half culture, discard them at once and forever. If your garden contains six acres, better by far to let one-half of it grow up with weeds, and thoroughly cultivate the other half than to attempt to cultivate the whole, and only half do it. I shall not deny that a wretched half system, or no system of cultivation, will sometimes result in showing a large crop. A kind Providence has arranged the natural laws of growth as well as the seasons, in such a manner that such will sometimes be the case; but such cases are the exceptions, not the rule.

Whereas you may, and you ought so to cultivate, that large crops will be the rule, not the exception; but to produce this result, you must spend more labor and more money upon an acre of land than is generally given to it.

1 know very well that insisting upon this plan, I am talking against the tide, and against the almost universal custom of our whole west, and I fear that I shall talk to little purpose upon this point; but, gentlemen, I am in earnest, and I know that I am right. Here I must refer to my own system again. I do not do so for the sake of boasting, but because it has proved a success, not as successful by far as I expect, and intend to make it hereafter, but still a grand success as compared with the system, or rather the entire want of system of the most of those about me.

I have found, and with me the rule has been invariable, not a single exception to it, that the more I have spent per acre in cultivation (and in cultivation I include manuring), the greater have been, not only my gross receipts, but the greater has been the net profit per acre. With each succeeding year, I have spent more in cultivating than in any previous one. The invariable result has been, not only a return of the investment, but a larger net profit from the garden than ever before. Last season I cultivated about fourteen acres. In the spring I commenced a more thorough and expensive cultivation than ever before. Soon a most terrible drought came on, and lasted till I began to get frightened, and even went so far as to consider the propriety of discharging some of the hands, but concluded to keep on and keep the garden in the best condition possible, so that it should get the full benefit of rain when it did come. I followed out this plan, and when light showers began to come, there was no crust on the ground to be die-solved before the rain could penetrate into the ground, there were but very few weeds to divide the benefits of the rain with 'the crops.

In a few days, the change seemed almost miraculous. The result of it all was* that although it was one of the dryest seasons ever known in our part of the state, and that in cultivating and marketing fourteen acres I spent $8,986, or $284 per acre, yet not only is the balance upon the right side of the ledger, but it is a nicer one than I have ever had before, and I see now that my cultivation during the drought was what saved me; and if I had carried it still farther in the right direction, I should have been hundreds of dollars better off than I was at the close of the season. The cost of manure must vary the cost of your cultivation materially. With our present imperfect knowledge of manures, stable manures will be your standard, with the use of superphosphates, plaster, lime, ashes, and other manures, as your experience and good sense will dictate.

If you can lay down manure in your garden for $4 per cord, you will need at least $60 per acre for manure, and $150 for other expenses, making $200 per acre; and after you have learned how to spend money to the best advantage, I believe that a larger profit may be made by laying out $300 per acre than with less. But I presume by this time, you are asking if the expenses are so heavy, what are the profits? For the first year or two, they will be nothing. And if you make it pay expenses, you will do' better than I have done with any land that I own. After the second year, if your land does not pay all of its expenses, and taxes, and ten per cent, on $1,000 per acre, there is something wrong somewhere. I have some acres of land that did not pay expenses for two years, but for a number of years past have not failed to pay ten per cent, on at least $2,000 per acre. I expect my whole garden to do more than that in a short time.

At present I am aiming to make my land yield 1,000 bushels of onions per acre, and then a crop of carrots or turnips, or 500 bushels of early potatoes, and then some other late crop; or if in strawberries, 12,800 quarts or 400 bushels per acre, and other crops in about the same proportion. I know that these figures seem large, but I am steadily gaining and nearing my mark; and, gentlemen, if I live, I shall reach it. Do you ask, what then? Well, I do not know where the next mark will be, but certainly a still farther advance. Our best cultivators have as yet but a very slight idea of the capabilities of an acre of land. Do not think me either wild or enthusiastic upon this point. Such is not the case. For many years I have been satisfied of the truth of the above statement, and every year's experience and experiments bring with them the arguments that convince me beyond all doubt, of the truth of the statement.

You are so situated that you must of necessity raise large crops, or your whole business fails; hence you ought every season to make a series of experiments, all aiming at some definite point which, if it succeeds, will result in a practical improvement in agriculture. You can do this more easily than most farmers could, and can follow it up for a series of years better than they can; for you must ever bear in mind that a single experiment, however successful it may be, is, as a general thing, worth but little. Let me illustrate this by an experiment of my own. Last season I wished to try a number of different kinds of potatoes, with a view of testing their earliness, yield, quality, etc., with certain kinds of manure. Well, what did I prove? Why, simply this: That a certain kind of potato, planted at a certain time in the season, upon a certain kind of soil, manured thus and so, cultivated in such a manner with just such a season as the last one was, produced potatoes of a splendid quality and at the rate of nearly 500 bushels per acre. Now, what is this experiment worth? Practically, very little, because very few, and possibly not a single person present, could comply with all the conditions which resulted in that yield.

But suppose that I follow up these experiments with that same variety for five years, try them upon different soils, with different manures, at different times of planting, etc., and at the end of five years I find that they have been of uniform good quality, and that the yield has averaged say 400 bushels per acre, I have shown that upon a good soil, and with good cultivation, they are a profitable potato; but suppose the yield only averages 100 bushels per acre, I have shown that either they are not a reliable potato, or that, if they are, I don't know how to raise them. Many of your experiments will prove failures to a greater or less extent, and some of them very annoying ones; but you must bear in mind, that when you have made one that is a success, you have not only benefited yourself, but the whole community in which you live. And it surely will be a pleasure to you to know that you have been the means of adding to the wealth as well as the comfort of those about you. If it is not, I hope that you will never enter my profession.