Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Dec. 13, 1892, edition 1 / Page 1
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PKOGKESSIY 1 J THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. RALEIGH, N. C, DECEMBER 13, 1892. No. 44 FARMER. I lilt 'TTttoWAL FARMERS' ALLI- NCE AN UNION. L. Locks, Huron, l. Dakota. . -r, - Eg, president Marion uuuer, vim L N. C t. TT Tfwlnr. Sn Terrell, Seguin,Texas. EXECUTIVE BOARD. tfT Loucks. Chairman; L. Leon-?r;ri- Mann Page, Virginia; I. in York; H. C. Demming, kylVanilJTOICIARY. . i Cole, Micmgan, a W. Beck, Alabama. J D Davie, Kentucky. --,V4L LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE. a L Loucks, Chairman. iT.,n Washmelon. D. C f P. Featherstone, Forest City, Ar- Ifp. Qwiiin, White, Tennessee. arfl CAROLINA FARMERS' STATE ALLI- ANCE. Ttsir't-Marion Butler, Clinton, Vice-President-T. B. Long, Ashe- ie ' A : ' Tncuror W R Barnes. iLecturer-C. W. Thompson, Rich- lOhaplaia-Pvev. Jno. Ammons, Madi !nCo., N. C. , T3.ii:,- Door-Kccper K . neurj, juujcajt, C "distant Door-Keeper H. E. King, anut. N. C. 3erg?Tiit- at-Arms J . S. tioit, onaiK State Business Agent-W. H. Worth, Trustee Business Agency Fund W. Graham, Machpelah, N. C. ITTTVK COMMITTEE OF THE NORTH AROLISA FARMERS' STATE ALLIANCE. j n AWnrwW Charlotte. N. C. T X Mowhnmft. ivinaton. C. ; J. S. Johnston, Ruffin, N. C. aTS ALLIANCE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE. paw T,Aflzcr. N. M. Cul- kh, M. G. Gregory, Wm. C. Connell. 'ATE ALLIANCE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE. r t Pnxrpll "Rfllpisrh. N. C. : N. C. fcglisii, Trinity College: J. J. Young, Jolenta; II. A. Forney, Newton, N. C. jitth Carolina Reform Press Association. s J. L. Ramsey , President; irion Butler, Vice-President ; W. S. imes, Secretary, PAPERS. ' Wressive Farmer, State Organ, Raleigh, N. C tacasian. Clinton, N. C. le WorkingTcan s Helper, Finnacie, im, Salisbury, N. C. anners' Advocate, bnntry Life, Jercury, attler, ricaltnral Eee, itiiance Echo, l : l T- ' 'larooro, rs. t . Trinity College, N. C. Hickory, N. C. Whitakers, N. C Goldsboro. N. C. Moncure, N. C. ictiai lui'iiuifr, polina Dispatch, (Each of the above-named papers are Hertford, N. C. e first page and add others, provided ey are duly elected. Any paper fail g to advocate the Ocala platform ivill ' dropped from the list promptly. Our .cpk can noiv see xvJiat papers are Mi&hed in Vieir interest. MONEY. Mr. Editor: I hava nomd with I - J viiuuunui cojaj o iij pur columns on the niture and func- yna ut money. Many ot them, though irned, miss the points aimed at by reform movement. Here it would p ell to state those point's as a guid hce for cur thoughts: 1. To le?sen the interest on money. 2. To place money out of ths control : corporations and persons. 3. To stoD tribut.o. t.n forr.; vo" ti n xl Tr rv, -1 , , . . . " uuiiey yieia to the de pnds of trade. J We will discuss these points in order, jiatisticg show the general increment i tiuuuauy m tne United r-ates is 2 per cent. Tho nrv-.f I - "ivi II p money should not be any more than aJ, n wm nnally absorb all opsrty and has in the last thirty ears absorbed three fourths of it Any position then to diih, jf ;ka am3Dg the people or money rnongthe Stites nr Rtnt a Jl tend t0 remedy this evil. f To plac3 mJ out of tho control l,,tl- r"."-"" rannot t8 remedied bv hlt0 a multde of corpora Co i Stfatebank will the mere ot moTOy to 50 per capita do Zl T!y Wi" cumulate to the :? e onrme- Whati3th k Stncj t0,the peopl Lot Sf.tetoforeizn uyeuectual y checks arrymg out the principle3 o Toa nd 2, the loworino. 4N0a- 1 akiog to our own LTZT1 aQd W its own money ntTOl -'00,000 to 300,000,000 of gold annual to foreign nations. This was brought about by our high interest on money and our liberal laws to corporations to rob productive labor. Pass the anti alien land law, issue money direct ta the people at 2 per cent., establish the postal banks, repeal all laws allowing corporations special privileges. Stop monopolies and trusts, increase the amount of circulation to $50 per head and Americans will be freemen. 4. To make money yield to the de mands of trade will be fully carried out in tho above and the Sub Treasury idea. It is said that Great Britain prices our wheat and cotton. We cannot prevent this without the help of the government. This help by any monarchy in Europe would be at once given.. Bur American legislation be ing as mu m bought and controlled by foreign powers as by American, is slow to move. The farmers cannot concert and control this market. They could have done it twenty years ago, but now they are too poor. Your learned correspondent, James Murdock, seems inclined to the idea that we can do without metallic money, gold or silver. This I confess is a little further than I can eee. No doubt we can float two or more billions of legal tender and it would be good and at par with the metallic dollar, but what is our standard of valuation if we have not the metallic dollar? Will it be a bushel of wheat or ten pounds of cot ton? If we make any other thing a standard, we have gained only this, we have discrowned gold and silver, the god of the Mammonites, and set up an independent god of our own. Can we do this? The Mammonites will worship at any shrine we set up. Then we must look to some other means of stopping money worship besides put ting up new idols in the" place of the old. Fdr it must be understood we have 4 a unit of value and measure of account ' as nearly all nations have and must continue to have to which all paper money is referred to determine its value. This value depends on the marketable value of these metals and this value ii determined y supply and demaud. My opinion is that vie will find it easier and more practicable to knock off the limbs of this dragon un til nothing but the stump is left by the propositions above set forth being well aware we will have achieved all things desired. W. R. Lindsay. If our monopolies would only consult thir own interests they would be eager to meet the people at least half way. Their stubbornness in holding out against the popular will and demand argues an incomprehensible ignorance of the American character. If any thing is well established it is the fact that the people of this country can al ways be quieted, however great their excitement, by comparatively small concessions, unless they have arrived at a point where forbearance absolutely ceases to be a virtue. But our monopolies act as if they were masters of the people and owners of thb country. They make no conces sions whatever. Every move they do make is in the direction of strength ening their position and of further usurpation. Wrongs that are so bold and burdensome that no living being can harbor a doubt of their character, are openly upheld and practiced by these combinations, against remon strance against the dictates of honor and humanity and against the laws of the State. There must be an end to this. It h utterly idle to think that this state of affairs, if continued, will not result in an unfortunate conflict. Injustice cannot perpetuate itself in a country like this. The spirit of equal rights may be sleeping, but is not dead. It will awake to life, as the volcano awakes to action. In mon archies tyranny and wrong may sway the scepter for years and for genera tions, for there is not among the people the untrammeled freedom of thought and action that there is in a republic. Men who have been born and bred un der tyranny, do-not know their power. They are like the horse which has never been free enough to learn that he is really the master of the driver's life. But in a republic every being from the cradle to the grave is a king or thinks himself one. He 13 taught from the beginning that no other human being in the world is any better than he or has any greater privileges. And this cultivated spirit of freedom is abso lutely dangerous to the peace of society if opposed beyond a certain limit. Chicago Express. Don't stop, brother, until The Prp gressive Farmer goes regularly to every home in your neighborhood. ROAD MAKING. Editors Western Union: Road mak ing is our next great physical improve ment for the whole Northwest. Ever since I came to the West some sixty years ago, I have noticed wherever I have been or traveled that, on ground thoroughly underdrained, bur prairie mud or .soil will make a first-class road, if duly mixed with sand, and vice versa. Our sand banks and flats can be made into good roads only by being mixed with the mud or soil. The reason of this is that the soil will pack under the wheels and horses' feet only when it is comparatively dry, but the sand will pack only when it is wet. Hence, the two together properly mixed, will pack under the wheels, whether it is wet or dry, and you have a good surface road in rains and in drouths. Usually, it takes about half and half for the first surface foot of the road bed, sometimes more and sometimes less, according to the purity of the sand and mud used. Sand is better than either gravel or pounded stone, because it will stay up on the surface and pack with the soil, and not sink into the depths below ; for instance, the city of Minneapolis. The older parts of it stand on a prairie plateau that looks much like our own, but on clo3er examination will be found to have sand enough in it to pack when wet under wheels and hoofs, while it was thoroughly underdrained by a natural gravel bed. Hence for years they did all their continuous heavy hauling of lumber, grain, and other vehicles without any sort of a pave ment or even ruts in their streets, while in the undrained muddy sloughs round about, a team would go in all over, if not constantly and carefully worked and prepared. In the rainiest weather the natural streets were only a little disagreeably muddy and sloppy, while here in Illinois we have seen a two and even a four horse team hopelessly mired with an empty wagon on a soil that would not pack, and wo had to deliver our goods in hand-carts on the sidewalks. All over Nebraska and Kansas wherever the prairie soil is underdrained by gravel-beds, and has sand enough in it to pack under the wheels, they have no trouble in making good roads, even though their soil may be black and fertile as ours is. Indeed, in the entire range of what they call their "dobe" lands, under the range of the Rocky Mountains, from North Dakota down to Texas, and up from Texas, through the whole length of the Pacific Coast, they have no difficulty as far as I have ever seen or heard in making good roads, wherever the soil is naturally underdrained and has sand enough in its surface to pack when wet under the wheels, as what they popularly call their "dobe" soils usually have. I have noticed theso facts for many years, whether in this State or in other States, and as a result I have come to this conclusion : 1st. You can nowhere make a good road without proper drainage. 2d. You can nowhere make one with pure mud or pure sand. But they must everwhere be so combined as to pack under the wheels, whether wet or dry. If have your sand, you must cart, on j-our mud, and, if you have your mud you must cart on your sand until you get something like a foot of eolid packed surface, that will 8tay where it is put, and let the rain water that falls on it. or is detained, right down through it into the drain age below. Then you will have solid, even though "sloppy roads, whether wet or dry. But with sand alone or mud alone this cannot be done, and not half as easily with gravel or pounded stone, for your gravel and poundrd stone will not stay and pack with your soil, but will be forever sinking below it. If I were to make permanent roads on all sorts of mud soils in Illinois, therefore, I should first begin in the center of the road and lay a first class drainage pipe right under its center, just below the frost line of the contem plated road, with free outlets for water at each side at all the lowest places into the fields and drainage ditches round about. If your pipes and outlets in these low places come above the natural surface, all the better. After the pipes are laid, scrape and cart on and round up your road-bed out of the dirt at hand, whatever it may be, making it as high, narrow and well rounded as convenient. Then cart on sand, the purer the better, but any sort of sand will do, though it would take more of it, till you find your soil will pack beneath the hoofs and wheels, whether wet or dry. Of course, in some soils it will take more and in some less, probably, on an average about half and half for the first foot. Your road bed will, at first, be a hard one to travel and will rut and become rough, like all new road-beds; but har row it or scrape it smooth again, till the sand becomes thoroughly mixed with the soil. Then it will begin to pack beneath wheels, and will con stantly let the surplus water that lodges on it down into the drainage be low. Put on more sand whenever needed till you have a sufficient strength of solid packed surface to hold up any load that passes over it ; and as your ground is at all times drained and hard and dry beneath it, it will not take a very great thickness on such a founda tion to make a permanent, hard and solid road. There is sand enough not far away that would do to make all our roads, usually much nearer than either gravel or stone could be found. Our railroads also would undoubtedly deal most generously with any neigh borhood or county that desired to make a permanent improvement in their road3 in all matters of hauling to their depots the necessary commodities. In li such matters they are proverbially public-spirited. For road making is right in the line of their whole busi ness. These are my ideas Mr. Editor, about western road making. If the roots of trees should stop up the drainage pipes, it would soon be come apparent through the soil; and a trench should be dug near the trees and the offending roots cut off, or the tree itself cut down. For we must have roads, whether we have shade trees or not. This i3 the way that niture has made all the best roads over deep soils there have ever been in the country, viz : by thorough underdrain age of the roa 1 bed itself, and such an admixture of soil and sand on the sur face as will let the water freely through and pack under wheels and hoofs, whether wet of dry. It is as good for stock yards and gateways as it is for roads. Any common prairie soil that will underdrain is just as good as solil rock for the whole road-bed, except the surface foot, which must be so inter mixld with sand with tho plor and harrow that it will pack under wheels and hoofs, and still let the water freely through it, and not tread up into mortar and retain it. On hill sides dug down into clay that will not underdrain, tur face soil that will underdrain must be carted in for the road bed, or the clay itself mixed with sand until it will underdrain, as the quick riddance of the water is everywhere and always, the main element of success. This every farmer knows who ever drove a team along over his drain tiles in the lowest and muddiest parts of his farm. Open side ditches and piling up dirt between are utterly worthless toward this end; and, if the stuff piled up reaches down to tho clay, they are worse than worthless, as they only in crease the po ver and depth of the mud , and mortar made by the treading. And if there is no sand in the clay they can never be made half as good as was the old naked prairie. All who have studied the subject or closely observed things passing right under their eyes all over the country, know these facts to be true. Why not then put them into use? Our newspaper press cannot be opened to the discussion of a more important subject to the farmers, and to the whole people, than this is to day, and it will continue to be so, until it is fully decided. J. B. Turner. Morgan county, Illinois. A FATHER'S WOE. Too Poor to Bury His Child, He Seeks to Save it From Potter's Field About 6:30 o'clock last evening, a man not over 25 years old staggered into the City Dispensary and dropped a large sized cigar box upon the desk of Dr. Fowler, who was in charge. Among sobs he stated that the box was a coffin, and that it contained the body of his only child. He wanted the city to bury it, claiming that he was too poor. The child had died of a minor complaint, and the certificate produced by the man revealed that his name was William Simpson, and that his wife was Ella Simpson. They live at 701 North Eleventh street. Simpson was to take the body to the Morgue, as nothing could bo done for him last evening. He sorrowfully de parted, carrying the body of his child with him. This is a city where wealth abounds on every hand! Where hundreds of churches point their spires to heaven I In a Christian land! Where we boast of our advanced civilization! Is it possible? St. Louis Monitor ON WITH THE ALLIANCE. The Western Watchman," of Eureka, Gives Timely Advice. Sow that the excitement of the elec tion is over, every Allienceman, every reformer should return with redoubled interest and earnestness to his Alliance meetings. The Alliance is the true foundation of reform thought that has spread so far and wide. The lodgeroom should hold a new charm for every member, an added interest for every toiler who has not yet aligned himself with this great educational Order. Form new committees, introduce new and instructive features, and enter resolutely upon a new campaign of education. We had it personally from our new State President, J. L Gilbert, while in Sacramento, that it is his intention to formulate some plan by which to push lecturing and organization into every county, and to thus bring every county into thorough organization in the F. A. and I U. This is well, but where there is al ready a good working county organi zation, such counties should them selves take the initiative and com mence the work through the county organizer. Friends, brothers and sister?, the battle for a fairer adjustment of con ditions lias only begun. You have seen some evidence of the effect of educa tion and organization, yet those effects mark only the beginning of the revolu tion that is to save the Republic save the homes of the yeomanry of America Turn now with anxious care to the building to broader, higher, grander proportions of the Alliance. It is the plowman's school, the young men's lyceum, the woman's symposium, where fraternity should be welded in closer boncU of affection, where honor, manhood and womanhood are some thing more than a gilded mane, where blighting, .wasteful enmities should fade and disappear before the glow of a common interest the warmth of a common brotherhood. Before the, next quarterly Alliance meets we should number twenty in stead of ten Sub-Alliances The next quarterly meeting will be an impor tant one, for there will be much of interest to report from the State Alli ance; new systems have been adopted, and it will be required of Humboldt Alliances to do some earnest work in their own behalf. WINTERING HOGS. In feeding and the care of swine the proper food "elements are of the first importance and the next in order are the sanitary condition and the manner and form in which the foods are sup plied, as to regularity, etc. A writer in the Ohio Farmer says : The meat supply of the country is one of the most important subjects that can be presented for consideration. Physi cians are almost unanimous in the opinion that beef and mutton are much more wholesome articles of food than pork or bacon ; yet for the present, and we fear for along time to come we must rely for our supply of meat mainly upon the hog. This must be the case until we have entirely changed or at least modified our system of farming, by paying more attention to the culti vation of root crops and feeding of mutton, as the English farmers do. In England, mutton is considered the best meat they have; here a strong preju dice exists against it, which is entirely owing to our manner of fattening sheep. There is no domestic animal that suf fers so much from exposure to cold and wet as the hog. He is a native of a mild climate and should be treated as his nature demands, if we would turn his peculiarities to our advantage. And during winter he should be provided with warm, dry quartern, plenty of warm, clean bedding, and an abun dant supply of nutritious fat and heat- Eroducing food. After the ground has ecome frozen and the pig can no lon ger root for a living, cooked roots and meal we consider the best and most economical food. Some put - their shoats on raw potatoes, turnips or beets. Hogs can be kept in this way and will even do pretty well, but we consider it more ecenomical to cook the food, believing that a better growth can be obtained with a smaller amount of feed; and where such fixtures are employed as may be easily furnished, the cooking will be cheaply accom plished. ' We have a steamer that cost about $100 set in a rough building, twe lve feet square, attached to the end of my hog house. It is stuffed in all around and overhead, eight inches thick, with sawdust, to deep it from freezing, so I can feed cattle or hogs all winter. Then I have an alley about fifty feet in length and six feet wide with a row of troughs on each side and a swing door over them, to keep the hogs out of the throughs while feeding, or in case the feed is hot, until it cools. The entry has a wooden tra ik the whole length, and into the main building, with a car that holds six or eight bushels. We have a well, and the water is pumped directly into the steamer and into the cooking boxes, which hold eighteen bushels each. A cord of wood will last twenty days, to cook for a hundred hogs, if meal; but if corn, about ten days; maybe uncareful hands it would last longer. We have kept hogs well on boiled rutabagas alone. Beets, carrots, par snips or potatoes will do as well. But the present system of feeding will in clude some firain ; and -if the roots be mashed while hot and the meal mixed in, a partial cooking of the meal will result, which will be very beneficial. We can keep hogs well on English tur nips cooked and mashed up with meal, though a little more meal is required than with more nutritive roots. Clover hay is sometimes used as an auxiliary in wintering hogs. If fine and well cured and especially if cut and boiled or steamed, and mixed with meal, it will do very well. But roots are so cheaply grown, when one has learned how, that a cheaper method of feeding can hardly be desired. I would advise those who intend to get steamers to get one capable of standing ten pounds pressure per inch, for they will surely need it in cooking stiff pudding and large quantities of corn, also get one larger than the amount of work to bo done; then in case there is more stock to feed, they will not be perplexed and troubled with a small steamer. Every thing fed to our hogs is cooked, but nothing is ground. We feed altogether on corn and potatoes. To one bushel and a half of potatoes, mashed up, we add three pecks of dry corn in the ker nel, and then with a liberal supply of water in a kettle almost steam-tight, we cook for at least three hours. The kernels are then three or four times their original size and the potatoes are mashed, and when thoroughly mixed the dish is as acceptable as can be pre sented to a lot of hogs. And as every particle of the food is, or can be re duced to a paste by the slightest masti cation, much more by the action of the stomach, there can be but little if any loss. An addition of a few quarters of rye and an occasional peck of oats, making a little variety, is always a judicious plan, either of which is as easily cooked as heavier and larger kernels of corn. Hogs should also have a good supply of water, as it is impos sible for them to digest their food with out water to dissolve it and convey it into the blood. They should be kept constantly supplied with salt, coal and ashes, bait is a valuable stimulator of the appe:i .e and digestive organs. The advantages are that you save the time of taking your grain to the mill and the toll, and have your grain al ways at hand in a proper condition to use ; there is a steadiness about the food that is ore of the main elements of success in feeding animals. CLOVER GROWING. The farmer who grows clover never wants manure. If he fee ds it his cattle return to him not less than 80 per cent, of its money value in the form of ma nure, and this is equivalent to the con- et ant and abundant fertilizing of the soil and the ensuring of perennial fertility. If he turns it under it decays with so much rapidity that the next crop is able to consume it and make a satis factory growth. If he makes the first growth into hay, the aftermath will supply an abundant manure for the wheat or corn following. It is thus an invaluable plant for the farmer in what ever way he may use it. But it is not always used as its great value deserves. When it is to be sown, few give much or due consideration to the requirements of the invaluable plant the profit of which depends con siderably on the manner in which the land is prepared for the seeding and the sowing of the seed. While no other crop deserves so much attention, none is so frequently neglected as this. The seed is mostly cast upon the ground to grow or die, as the accidents of the weather may happen to be favorable cr adverse. How many farmers who have sold . fall grain have given a thought in the preparation of soil to the seed they in tend to sow some time in the spring? The condition of the ground will be favorable or otherwise for the-sowing as it has been well prepared now. Im perfect plowing or narrowing will then show in such a condition of the surface as will make the successful sowing of the clover seed a very questionable matter, and to sow the seed on a hard, unfertile soil is to risk its total or at least partial loss. And this los3 does not stop with the clover. The use to which this plant is put in so many ways'renders all other crops following it dependent on it for their success. If the clover i3 a partial failure they are equally so, and this is not so well considered as it deserves to be. PHENOMENAL SHRINKAGE, Thomas Bell, of San Pedro, has re turned from a trip to his old home in Ohio. He reports that a great change has come over that country. "Land that was selling at $70 to $80 per acre eight years ago, when I was there, is now selling at $30 to $10 per acre." Yet many unthoughtful men tell us the country is prosperous ! The monetary commission of 1876 composed of Senators and Representa tives chosen to enquire into the cause of the shrinkage of values declare: "There can be no general fall of prices that was not preceded by a shrinkage or money." . R. M. Widney says: "Ninety-five per cent, of the business of the country m 1890 was done on credit. ITive' per cent, of cash was not enough to go around on pay day. Hence there was over ten billions of dollars loss in one year, in shrinkage of value, and it called the full financial power of, the United States to prevent general ruin." The loss and bankruptcies of 1892 will exceed those recited! The idle few, the beneficiaries, prospered. The businessman and toiling millions see the value of property shrinking year by year. ' M. Watch the label on your paper and renew ivlcen your subscription expires
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 13, 1892, edition 1
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