Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Nov. 15, 1898, edition 1 / Page 1
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rj-nt Prcsre &t psimtr Is a Kd pxpcr-fr fe the aTcr- tfe best adTcrUi p printers' Ink. Hits the largest circulation of any family agricultu ral or political Eaper published etween Rich mond and Atlanta '2 Z7 THE DtDUSTEIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTEEESTS OF OUE PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. 2 . ol. 13. RALEIGH, N. 0., NOVEMBER 15, 1898. Ho. 41 1 (4 1 hHSTVTC UBLISHED WEEKLY 'The date on your label tells you when your iAriiticn expires. Receipts for money on -rmtiori will be given in change of date on Si If tot pioperiy changed in two weeks iotify as- foner at our risk if sent by reg! ered letter r money order. Please don't send stamps. are to give both old and new addresses in jniericg change of postcfflce. RjLsis of Advertising Rates: ten cents per agate I rt - wiit intelligent correspondents in every iVjy ia the State. We want facts of value. wLnlts accomplished of value, experiences of ive plainly and briefly told. One solid, faonstr&ted fact, is worth a thousand theories- The Editor.- are rot responsible for the views of Qcrre-rondents. fHg PBOOREssrvx Farmer is the Official Org&n of the Noith Carolina Farmers' State Alliance. " i urn standing now just behind t ie rtain, and tn full glow of the coming Mte. Behind me are the shadows on lt track, before me lies the dark valley ind the river. When I mingle with its lark waters I want to oast one linger ing look upon a country whose govern nent is of the people, for the people, xnd by the people. L. L. Polk, July th, 1390. KDITORIAL, NOTES. The Windsor Orient pays: ''Vote, vota eirly and late." Bro. Johnson evidently forget that under the new law no man can vote more than once on election day. - One of our exchanges says: "An Oklahoma girl advertised for a hus band and got him. The advertisement and wedding outfit cost eleven dollarp. Within a year he died and left her five thousand dollars life insurance. It pays to advertise." m m m The Progressive Farmer has made a splendid reputation as a "kicker." Is was not so very long ago that some said that our motto was: "Whatever is, is dead wrong." Although not so pessimistic or cynical, we did not get angry at thia remark, for kickers some timoa dxszano Rood work. Says Tho Com mm wealth: "The Governor of one of our States, in a recent speech, asked a vital ques tion, how the eo called bept citizens can be compelled to take an active part in city affairs in some other capacity than as mere fault finders. The ques tion has pungency in the way it is pu-. Fault finding alone is poor evidence of being the b2at citizen?, and when divorced from active endeavor to re form abuses, it only produces irrita tion and discontent. But the earnest and brave fault fiader has an import ant mission in this world. He has an ugly name, it is true, and is pretty sure to be found fault with and ulti mately hated. Still the world needs him. Jeremiah and other of the proph ets were mighty fault finders, and they fulfilled their mission by expos ing the corruptions of their day. Lit erature and art need their critics. So does civic life. Men who see what ought to be, and have power to point to better things and lead the way, will always be needed in this imperfect world." The Western Plowman denounces in the most emphatic; manner the chronic practice of the partisan vulture press of perpetually attacking public men whose political creed of acts are not pleasing to these libellers of character. Iteays: "If a man is a defeated can didate for high effije, or is one who while in office acted in an independent manner in hia policies and opinions, the flood gates of abu3e and mud are opened and the flood of slime never ceases to deluge the victim as long as he lives. Tilden wa3 abused a9 if he wers a pirate; Hancock was ridiculed as if he were a clown; Greeley was blackguarded into his grave; Hayes wa treated with all the disrespect that a devilish ingenuity could invent, and now Bryan ia the bespattered object of this eort of flendishnesa. It is no crime to run for the Presidency and bo de feated. It is no crime to become the Colonel of a regiment and to attend strictly to one's o n business, as Bryan eeems to be doing. The Plowman has no special interest in Bryan and never had in any of the men whose names we have mentioned, but it does admire decency even in the treatment of a dog. When editors become byenas, they cease to be men and ought to be ostra cised.'' If the editor of the Plowman had lived in North Carolina during the re cent campaign, he would have wit nessed a kind of j lurnalism worse than that he so well describes here. In this State the "hyenas" did not ston at abusing and villifying public men, but even attempted to degrade their native State in the eyes of other States be cause her officers happened to be men wxtn whom they did not agree politi cally. AGRICULTURE, HOW CROPS GROW. Correspondence of th Progressive Farmer. The growth of crops ia never an ac cidental circumstance. For every step in th8 development of vegetable mat ter, nature has provided laws which my not be broken. With care and attention to particular wants, crops ioiprove both in quality and quantity. This improvement of plants is the un derlying principle of agriculture. Plants are improved in quality and quantity of their products, by eur rounding them with conditions moat favorable to their growth and develop ment, this may mean simple tillage of the soil, liberal feeding with fertilizars or other manures, or protection from injurious diseases and the attacks of in sects. In a manure, all of these meth ods of improvement are dependent upon another. Liberal manuring of itself cannot make good the damage caused by improper or insufficient cul tivation. Panta illy cultivated or scantily fed, fall an easy prey to the various plant diseases. Plants grow, therefore, by giving them soil conditions favorable to their development, and by giving them ample food of the right kind and at the right time; in this is comprised practically the whole art of successful agriculture. The soil must be thor oughly broken, and kept in a high state of tilth by frequent cultivation Heavy soils should be plowed in the fall, or very early in the spring; light soils are not improved by fall plowing. The seed bed must consist of open por ous soils, and this means a deep soil in most cases. N 3 two soils are precisely alike, so that the f aimer must exercise judgment for his individual conditions. II will never do to let well enough alone An effort should be made to make each crop an improvement over its prede cessor. Each year's work should be studied closely, or nothing is gained from experience. The feeding of plants is perhaps the mcst important feature in modern farming ; because it involves the use of materials in a more or less blind man ner. Manures or fertilizers are applied to the soil before the crop has appeared, and once applied are no longer under the apparent control of the farmer. As a matter of fact, the action of manure is very much under the control of the farmer throughout the whole stage of plant growth. If the soil is kept thor oughly tilled and a surface layer from one to two inches in thickness main tained constantly in a dry pulverized condition, either fertilizers or farm manures are mush more effective. In a large manures, the profits in farming depend on the amount of sales made off the farm ; and, consequently' it is impossible to keep returning to the soil, all that is taken off. No farm caa be maintained in normal condition by the sole use of the manures made by feeding the roughage, as in such cases more plant food is taken from the soil each year than is returned. As a result, chemical fertilizers must be used sooner or later, and it is a wite farmer who does not wait until his soil is nearly exhausted before making use of them. The proper use of commercial fertili sers is one of the most important prob lems in agriculture, and one on which there are many disagreements. Tee best practice at present seems to be in using the farm made manures ontjorn, or other crop 3 having a clean cultiva tion throughout the year. On all other crops the chemical f ertilizsrs are best used, and even on the clean-culture crop?, applications of the mineral fer til.z irs, (potash and phosphoric acid), are very profitable in most cases. As all farmers now know, chemical fertilizers are materials cf commerce which contain the fertilizing principles found in farmyard manures; that is, they contain ammonia, potash, and phosphoric acid. Some of these chem ical manures contain only one of the fertilizing ingredients, others two of them, and in a few cases all three are found. They are generally much richer in plant food than farmyard manures, and are consequently much more cheaply applied. One of the points of disagreement is the proper quantity of fertilizars to use, and the pounds of potash and phosphoric acid which should accompany any given amount of ammonia. There seems to be no positive agreement as to the propor tiona of ammonia, potash, and phoa phorio acid likely to prove most profis fitable, but it may bs taken as a fairly safe rule that the chemical analysis of the crop indicates about what the crop needs. Tables containing the analyses of all ordinary farm crops may be ob tained from any 8tate agricultural ex periment station, free of coat to farm ers. Besides these chemical f ertilizsr, in direct fertil zsrs sach as lime ara a most important aid. Lima n&i only improves the mechanical condition of soils, but also tends to increase the effectiveness of chemical manures. It should be applied at, least once in every rotation, say every third or fourth year, and at the rate of 2) to 40 bushels per acre. In conclusion, it is well to note that plants grow by and with the aid of the farmer's skill as a husband man. He must not blindly follow the track laid down by past generations, but mu3t study his business and take advantage of every step forward proved by the experience ot others as well as the points gathered from his own experience. R Garwood. FARMERS AND RAILROADS. Jorrespondence of the Progressive Farmer. Farmers cannot get along without railroads and certain it is that railroads would be poor property were it not for the farmers. The interest of railroad companies and farmers are, or should be, mutual. There should be a good understanding at all times between them. One should not wrong or at tempt to wrong the other. On the other hand, eacl should champion and guard the interests of the other as oc casion may require. It must be admitted, however, that the farmer has little opportunity to wrong the railroad, while the railroad has abundant opportunity to wrong the farmer by demanding excessive charges for the transportation of bis products. One does not need to try hard to remember when railroads were prospering, drawing the corn crop of Nebraska and some other Western States, while at the same time the money that the farmer got out of the same crop hardly paid him for draw ing it from bis farm to the railroad station, to say nothing about the use of his land and the labor expended in raising the crop. Of course the railroad officials would claim that thoy were working on a very close margin, yet at the same time they were not only paying good dividends, but in many instances pay ing them on stock heavily watered. More than that, the officials of the roads were all liberally paid, as were most of the employees, many engineers, conductors and even fireman earning in a year more than many a farmer would receive for his labor in three years. The above is not written to stir up ill feeling between farmers and rail roads, but to call attention to the sit iiation, hoping to suggest some way to improve it. The foundation on which any govern ment must rest is a good understand ing. Yes, thoroughly good relations must first be established and then con stantly maintained. And where any advances are to be made they should as a rule be first made by the railroads. This, because they are the stronger party and the one having all the ad vantage. Let the railroad companies show to the farmers on their respective lines that they appresiate their patron age and feel an interest in their farm ing operations and their successful re sults, then the first step towards a gocd undertaking has been taken, Representative railroad men should meet representative farmers. Where shall they meet? The answer is that many good opportunities are to be had at agricultural conventions and farm ers' institutes, whenever and wherever held. At such gatherings the officials connected with the freight department of railroads could learn direct from farmers what grievances they have or think they have. And at the same meetings they could present the rail road's side of the case. The writer holds that anything that tends to make farming pay better helps at the same time the railroads. There fore the latter should do all they can to encourage farmers to adopt better methods. The more agricultural meet ings held and the batter attended the greater will be the improvement in agricultural matters in the sections of tb.9 country where held. This is a statement that can be easily proven and one of which no intelligent obser ver will deny the truth. Railroads should not only be repre sented at agricultural meetings, but they should encourage the holding of euch meetings. Further, they should sometimes take the initiative in getting them up. At all times they should render all reasonable assistance to thosa farmers who spend their time in organizing and conducting them. F. W. MOSELEY. Clinton, Iowa. . MORE WHEAT EXPERIMENTS. The Kentucky and Ohio stations hive also been experimenting to ascer tain the best varieties of wheat and the best methods of treating rust and smuts. At the Kentucky Station Early Ar cardian gave the best yield of twenty varieties teated, Jones' Winter Fife and Eirly White Leader standing sec ond. Bat the Arcadian was one of the poorest milling wheats in the lot;, and the other two heavy yield era also ranked rather low in milling qualities. The best milling wheat was Jersey Fultz, which stood eleventh in yield. Acid phoephate seemed to give bet ter rc&ults than any other fertilizer containing but one element, though a complete fertiliz3r consisting of one fourth (by weight) of nitrate of soda, one fourth muriate of potash, and one half acid phosphate, gave much better results than acid phosphate alone. This was in western Kentucky. Ia the limestone lands of the bluegrass region, potash is more needed than phosphate. In regard to rust, this Kentucky bulletin (No. 71) says: "In s rust grows on all the small grains and many of the grasses. In becomes common here in midsummer and does its greatest injary then. From what has been said of its develop ment it will be apparent that direct applications to the attacked plants cannot be made with any assurance of success. The parasite grows in the in terior of its host plants, and only ap pears at the surface to form its spores, and after its growth is complete and its injury done. Applications of such subitanoes as bluestone at this time would doubtless destroy many of the3e spores, but we not consider the appli cation of any solution cf this kind practicable after grain is pretty well grown; and, as has been intimated, the spores do not become apparent early in the spring. "The fact that winter spores remain in stubble and straw is the most im portant one from the practical point of view which my eketch of the develop ment of red rust discloses. It is always this old straw and stubble which fur nishes much of the rust which appears on wheat, and where rust is trouble some, injary can be reduced by care in removing and burning straw refuse, and in burning off the stubble after the grain is harvested. Stable manure containing straw from bedding is a common source of injary from rust, and is not to be recommended for use until well rotted. "I have no evidence on this, head myself, but it is believed by good au thorities that red rust is hereditary; that is, the small growing threads of which I have spoken penetrate the kernels of grain while the latter are still immature and remain there dor mant until the kernels produce plants, when they become active and produce spores. It is asserted that seed grain saved from badly rusted wheat or oats produces badly rusted plants, and that by avoiding euch plants in getting seed, then using the precautions in the matter of straw and stable manure which I have recommended, rust need not be feared." The Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station has, for several years past, conducted experiments in the preven tion of the smuts in wheat. There are found on wheat in Oiio, loose smut and stinking smut. The looee smut is that noticeable at .blossoming time, which destroys, usually, the entire head. It is, perhaps, more general, though usually much less destructive than the stinking smut, which converts the kernels of wheat into masses of dark brown, ill smelling fungus spores. This station has been successful in pre venting both of these smuts and recom mends the following methods: In all the methods employed for stinking smut it is probably advisable to immerse the grain in cold water, with stirring, and to skim eff the smut balls which will, in this manner, riee to the top of the water. After thia is completed the following treatment may be employed : Immerse this skimmed seed, con tained in gunny bag or suitable wire mesh veaael, for ten minutes, in hot water, at a temperature of 133 degrees Fahrenheit. Then dry on smut free surface, cooling quickly by thoroughly stirring, cr cold water may be em ployed to cool the grain. Remember, these temperatures are to be determ ined by a thermometer; longer immer sion than ten minutes, at that tempera ture, may injure the grain. . For loose emut it is best to use a modified hot water treatment as fol lows: Soak the seed grain for four hours in cold water, let stand four hours more in the wet sacks, then im merse for five minutes ia hot water at a temperature of 133 degrees Fahren heit, spread at once on a emut free sur face to dry, and sow. Use one-half more seed to replace that injured by the treatment. LETTER TO THE BRIGHT BOY ON THE FARM. No 2 From Wallace's Fa mer.l Last week I talked to you about matters and things in the cow lot and asked you to open your eyes and test certain theories and see how they work in with your father's practice. Inasmuch as you are in the habit of feeding pigs, sometimes at least. I want you to test some theories in the pig pen. I have a theory that farmers are going a little daft on pigs; that they think a good deal more of the nics, fine looking, chuff y, animated lard keg that waddles around the yard with a pretty little kink in its tail and makes the young girl who visits your father's farm exclaim, "Oh, how cute, aren't they sweet, little things; too sweet for anything!' If you have this kind of pigs cn your farm, which I suspect you have, I want you to no tice how they are fed. You will find they have about all the corn they want to eat. If your father is a breeder of fine hogs and is fixing them up for the fair you will probably find that he gives them of the milk of the dam and probably slips in a little fresh cow's milk in addition. Now my theory is that nature don't intend a pig to grow that way; that she intended it to grow in bone, in muscle, and to be something of a rustler, and when you come along, whistling in the dog fennel or rag weed in the pasture and get close to them, they start off as fast as they can and make a queer noise which I cannot put on pap?r, but which, I think, is intended for a pig's laugh when something touches its tickle bone or when it sees the point of a joke. They mean to say to ycu, "You young rascal, catch us if you can." These fellows have corn, but they run on clover, and they have oats once a day or pos ibly some bran and shorts, and they feel as funny as a boy going out the Fourth of July or racing home from school when he knows that his mither has prepared a supper of fried chicken, sweet potatoes and apple dumplings for her boy when he comes. Now my theory is that these last pigs are fed what we call a balanced ration ; that is, the proper proportion of flesh formers, foods that make muscle, of bone formers that is, of the ash elements and of carbohydrates, or the fuel element, that which keeps the pig warm and stares the surplus as fatwhile the little chuff y fellows are like spoiled children, filled up with sweets corn, the milk of their dam and co 's milk and hence, like some boys who are pretty to look upon in these nice suits and with their hair parted in the middle and well oiled, but of not much account when it comes to running a race or doing a hard day's work, or even hunting rabbits. I want you to notice further the brood so -vs that ran your father's fat tening cattle, and notice particularly the strength of pigs which they will furnish next spring. My theory is that a brood bow is a pig factory and that ehe must be fed with food that furnishes the raw material that makes a little pig bone, gristle and muscle; blood and hair, with not much fat about it and, therefore, the brood sow must be fed with food that furnishes these; and that tne corn which she gathers up in the dropping of cattle furnishes too much fat, which is not wanted, and not enough bone and mus cle, which are wanted. I want you to notice carefully and see whether your Uncle Henry's theory on this works out. He likes to construct theories and repair them from time to time when they don't account for all the observed facts. He finds it to hia ad vantage to have a working theory, of the correctness of which he is never right sure until he sees that all the facts fit in nicely about the theory. When he gets this one ho puts it in the paper. He has a great lot of theories which he has not worked out yet, but he thinks thia cne is pretty near correct. Now I want you to no tice whether these brood sows, and especially the younger orica that run after the cattle, have fall litters that are up on their feet before you can find them in the morning, or whether they come weak, hzy ; born tired, and don't care whether they live or not. My object in writ'ng to you is to make a sort of farm sharp eyes boy who no tices everything that is going on and put this and that together and draws conclusions. Uncle Henry. fciftfaM. 1" i i i r- EDITED BY FRANK E. EMERY, M. a. Agriculturist North Carolina Agricultural Ex periment Station, and Secretary-Treasurer North Carolina Dairymen's Association. Inquiries regarding Dairying cheerfully an swered. CREAMERY SHARKS. Oarreeponderioe of the Progressive Farmer. It eeems as though the same clats of men who at one time were engaged in the sale of lightning rods had found a better paying kind of swindling, and one that can be worked on a larger scale, in the organizing of stock com panies for the purpose of erecting,, out fitting and selling to such companies public creamery plants at never less than double legitimate prices and many times at much higher rates. A few years ago this class of swind lers plied their vocation for a time un molested and at that time their profits were even oeiier man now. uni alter awhile the agricultural and dairy papers got after them, roasting them pretty thoroughly under the title of "creamery sharks. " Tnis went on till onn concern by which the "creamery sharks" were mainly sent' out, finding its business wai being seriously inter fered with decided some thing must be done. We soon find that concern very lib eral advertisers in agricultural and dairy papers, which they had not pre viously b9en. Soon after that took place the term "creamery shark" fell into disuse in such papers, and the promt t3rs," as they were called, of stock companies for building creameries had smooth, sailing. Such companies wore organized and large butter and cheese factories erested and fitted cut where there were not cows enough to supply milk, for even a small plant. The average cost of euch plants com plete was for a time about 17,000. The average history of a large me jrity of them is that they were usually operated one season, and a short one at that ; in some instances only a few weeks the first season and that ended it. Such plants have com? to be shunned by in surance companies es they have a habit of mysteriously disappearing in smoke. There were some exceptions but that was the rule. It is worthy of note that the one word or term that was used largely by the "promoters" of such companies was "cooperation" or "cooperative creameries." These terms seemed to take with farmers and helped to secure their subscription for stock. The above state of afiEiirs continued b2caus3 there was no one to champion the cause of the farmers, vho had been swindled and others who were prospective victim?, until a paper in this city (Clinton, Iowa,) took the matter in hand and ventilated it thor oughly in an editorial. The immediate cause that led to this was to protect farmers in the paper's own county. But the effect of that editorial did not end there, but extended all over the country. It resulted in dealing a blow to the creamery shark interest, from the effect cf which it has never recov ered. The above is a brief account of the cause set in motion that brought about the second and lasting reaction against CONTINUED ON PAG3 8.
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 15, 1898, edition 1
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