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Ha the Largest Circulation and is the Oldest, Larg est, and only all Fome-Hrint Farm Piper in that Rich Farming and Truckitg section Between Rich mond, Va , and Savannah, Ga. i 'i I Has the largest circulation of any family agricultu ral or political paper published between Rich mond and Atlanta THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY, Vol. 14. RALEIGH, N. 0., APRIL 18, 1899. No. 10 : W U H MH Affl QQI Y PUBLISHED WE The date on your label tells you w. m your subscription expires. Receipts for m aey on subscription will be given In cbange ol late on label. If not properly chanced in twc -weeks, notify us. DISCONTI NUANCES. If a subscriber wishes bis copy of the paper discontinued at the ex piration i f his subscription, notice to that effect ebould be sent. Otherwise it is assumed that a continuance of the subscription is desired, and all arrearages must be paid when paptr is ordered stopped. Money at our risk If sent by registered letter or money order. Please don't send stamps. Be sure to give both old and new addresses in ordering change of postofflce. Basis of Advertising Rates: ten cents per agate line. Liberal discounts for time and space. This item 19 marked to remind you that you shou.d carefully examine ibis sample copy and send us $1 for a j ear's subscription. Will also end paver on trial 6 months for 50 cents, or 3 months for 25 cents. Or we will send your paper free for one year if j ou will send us $5 in new subscriptions, or free six months for J3 in tew subscriptions, at these rates. We want intelligent correspondents in every county in the State, We want facts of value, results accomplished of value, experiences of value, plainly and briefly told. One solid, demonstrated tact, is worth a thousand theo ries. The Editor are Lot responsible for the views of Correspondents. Thb Progressive Farmer Is the Official Organ of the North Carolina Farmers' State Alliance, u I am standing now just behind the attain, and in full glow of the coming -unset. Behind me are the shadows on he track, before vie lies the dark valley ind the river. When I mingle with its lark waters I want to cast one linger ing look upon a country whose govern stent is of the people, for the people, nd by the people!. L. Folk, July ih, 1SS0. PRACTICAL FARM NOTES. Written for The Progressive Farmer by the Editors and Ho a. Guy E. Mitchell Have a patch of sorghum for your hogs to run cn. There is no cheaper way of giving; them quick develop ment and keeping them healthy and vigorous. A writer in the Practical Farmer say?: I have cured my horses of colic several timrs with common salt Take a large handful and put it back as far in the rmuth aa possible. Hold up the head 83 they cannot spit it out. More ealt will not hurt them. They will generally be all right in an hour or two. The beautiful white laurel which will soon be in blossom, ia not only a deadly poison to sheep, but ia poisonous to cattle, horses and even goats. Even ca3eac f human poi3oniog may occur indirectly from eating the meat of ani mala which have eaten this shrub. Its poisonous qualities are shown in ex periment3 which have been made with chickena which were fed laurel leaves and then killed. Their meat, well boiled and well cleansed, was fed to cata with nearly fatal results. Cases have been known of children becoming poisoned through eating the young laurel shoots mistaking them for win tergreen. m All the leguminou3 crops clovers, cow peaa, vetches, field peas, etc are deep fee Jers. They perform three im pliant functions, absorbing free intro gen from the Qir, extending their roots down into the stiffer and more com pact 8 lbsoil, looser ing and opening it and bring its fertilz'ng qualities up to the surface where they can be utilized by surface feeding crops, such as cereals, grasses, root crops, etc. There is no section of the country that is not adapted to the growth of eome legum inous plant, which will not only in the manner indicated, improve the soil conditions, but at the same time raise a heavy crop of forage. The Soy bean, (incorrectly termed 3oja bean) which is gradually coming into cultivation in thia country aa a stock food, haa been used aa a food for man ia Japan and China fcr hundreds if not thousands of yers, while lately it haa been also cultivated in Europe for thi3 purpose. AUpough supposed by many persons tobcundigestible, the Soy bean is a food ric ia nitrogen and capable of largely taying the place of meat for a working man. In this ro epecfc it is much stronger than the or dinary white navy or kidney bean. In Japan very peculiar preparations are made from it. A dish called natto ia prepared by boiling the beans in water for five hours. The hot mass is then wrapped in straw, the bundles tied at both ends and placed in a cellar in which a fire haa been kindled. The cellar ia then closed for twenty-four hours, and the cooked beans allowed to ferment in the warm, moist atmosphere. They are then ready for consumption. The J.ip ancee a'so make a b?an chezeo or tofu The beans are soaked in water for day and then crushed between mill stones. This material ia boiled for about an hour and then filtered through cloth, producing a white liquid having somewhat the appearance of milk but tasting like malt Analysis shows it composition to be quite similar to that of cows' milk. Another Japanese pro duction of the 8oy bean resembles in odor and taste a gcod quality of meat extract. All these preparations are highly butritious and largely take the place of beef. As Soy beans contain nostarch,they have been recommended as food for persons who cannot digest this constituent. A Soy bean bread ia manufactured for this ourpose in Paris. The attempt has recently been made by some dealers to place this bean on the market as a new substi tute for coffee and to sell it under new names at an exorbitant price. Succulent foods silage or roots ere generally believed to be highly advan tageous for fattening lambs. The ani mals can bo kept much healthier than when fattened on dry food. In an ex periment at the New York Station two lots of five lambs each, about eight months old, were fed alike except that one lot had corn silage and the other hay. In nineteen weeks the five fed on eil3ge made a total gain of 132 pounds, while those fed on ha gained 124 pounds. The silage ration was esti mated to be the cheaper. At the Michi gan Station corn and hay were com pared with corn, roots and hay. Ten sheep cn the former ration gained 328 pounds in fifteen weeks, while ten others fed on corn, roots and hay gained 397 pounds. The results of the government experiments show that while there ia not much difference in the pre fit from a succulent ration over a dry ration, there is a decided advan tage in favor of the former because of the decreassd risk of deaths due to digestive derangements. Suma, who has been giving eome sensible and practical articles to Breed era' Gszstte on the management of swine, say a: "Another thing that I have thor oughly learned by dear experience ia the vital importance of keeping the youngsters out of the mud One week of cold, rainy weather in a mud pen, even if they do have a dry, warm sleeping place, will put piggy back at least two weeks in growth. Keep them out of the mud, especially in cool weather, even if to do this you are obliged to confine them to a board floor. But the ideal way is to have your lots so arranged that the pigs can have the run of a grass lot when the weather is good, and can be readily confined to the board floor when it is bad. The mud bath may have its ad vantages for matured hogs, especially those that are infested with vermin but I don't want any of it for my pigs, neither do I want it mixed with the slop so that the pigs will be compelled to eat it. Ill fact, I consider mud bad very bad for a pig, whsther taken internally or applied externally." The Department of Agriculture ia preparing to publish a document of about 100 pages on some of the injuri ous insects to garden and orchard, and of giving the best known remedies and treatments. This should be espe cially useful, coming at a time of the year when everybody is garden plant ing and must prepare .to combat the inroads of fquash and cucumber bug?, equah borers, melon worms, cabbage worms, flea hoppers and many others which are prone to contest the posses sion of the farmer's garden. The bul letin is entirely too lengthy to even at tempt to summarize, but it goes into th9 life history, i. e., the tim3 of first appearance.matingtime, length of time required to hatch eggs, etc., of some thirty common injurious insects. Among others the common equash bug ia described. This bug, especially the adult, ia usually resident to insecti cides. A spray strong enough to kill the mature insect will at the same time destroy the vine. The best reme dies that can be suggested for thia bug are the repellents, such as land plaster saturated with turpentine or kerosene, planting an excess of seed to distribute the attack and particularly clean land. The bugs can be trapped by means of pieces of board or bark placed on the ground in the garden. The bug prefers e quash to other plants of this family, and a plan recommended for cucumber patches infested by them is to plant sod?o equash vines to serve as traps. The Fquash vine borer is also an ex tremely k jurious insect to the squash tribe. The worm eats into the wcody portion of tho stems and does especial damage when near the roots. Ordinary insecticides are of no value against this inaests when once it has entered the vine and repellents are also prac tically useless. The only measures that have been found of particular value are in brief : to avoid planting the infested ground; to plant early varieties for the protection of late squashes; to harrow infested fields late in the fall and plow deep in the spring or reverse this operation to prevent moths from issuing; to encourage the growth of secondary roots by covering the vines at the joints with earth. In fighting the cucumber beetle it is stated that a weak solutions of Paris green is effective in destroying the in sect when on the surface of the leaves. Paris green is also effective when ap plied dry diluted with flour. Prof. Alwood, of the Virginia Experiment Station, uses kerosene very success fully. When the beetle first appears ho sprays tha hills early in the mora ing when the buga are sluggiah and lie hidden under clod3 and around the sterna. The emulsion is applied so as to thoroughly drench the soil. Slugehot and pj rethrum are alao eff ictive. For the destruction of the garden flea hopper kerosene emulsion is recom mended. This bulletin, written by Mr. P. H Chittenden, is an able and ixhausive treatise of the various insects men tioned and contains valuable informa tion for farmers, but so much space ia occupied in elaborate descriptions, histories, etc., that it ia doubtful if there will bo much demand for it among this class of readers who is a rule want terse easily digested publica tiona giving unmistakable and popular descriptions of insects or plants and brief statements of best methods of treatment, cultivation, &c. AGRICULTURE. THE COW PEA. The Cheapest Sourse of Nitrogen and a Splendid Forage Crop. C jrrespondence of the Progressive Fanner. For many years the cow pea has been used by cur best farmers in the South to renovate the soil. Of course the story to them is old, but there are so many new farmers coming on each year, and so many who have to have "lino upon line and precept upon pre cept," that it seems necessary to tell often of the benefits to be derived from the cow pea. Oar Northern farmers are waking up to the advantages to be gained by planting this valuable crop though the seed have to be imported from the South each year. The pea crop is valuable to the farmer in three ways. 1 It is one of the best of feeds either cut aa hay, or allowed to mature and the seeds used for feed. It is very rich in nitrogen and in fact is rich in all the nutrients. Cut just at the proper time and nicely cured it makes almost a perfect food. I have seen mules doing hard plow ing kept in splendid condition fed on nc thing but pea vine hay. The peas ground up into meal make a most excellent focd for milch cows when fed in connection with other food not so concentrated. To be convinced that it is one of our best feeds, one needs but to try it. 2. The mechanical effect of a pea crop on the soil is very valuable. No crop loosens up the soil and makes it so porcus and light as the pea crop sowed broadcast. There is a dense mat of roots that fill the soil and when they rot they leave the soil a perfect network of little channels or canals. These allow the water to soak in the soil freely and serve to drain the soil by causing the water to sink down and pass out through the subsoil, which of course is the ideal condition for many reasons. It not only aids in drainage, but in the working the soil the next season. Every one knows who haa worked a crop after peas that the soil is in the best possible condition. 3. The chemical effect on the soil for the succeeding crops is unsurpassed. Whether to cut the crop, or turn it under is a question that will have to be decided by each individual farmer; and he will of course be governed by the richness of the soil, what crop he wishes to follow the peas, and by the value of hay in his section, and amount of stock on hand. To illustrate: If the farmer haa co stock and could get but little for the hay if cut and sold, then it would pay to turn the crop under, but if he has stock that could furnish a home mar ket for his hay, then it would pay and pay well to cut and feed to them. If the land is very thin and quite a dis tance from the barn, it might pay then to leave the peas on the land. My advice, however, is to cut and feed it poesible, as we then get a double benefit. If sowed for hay, they should be put in broadcast, if for seed then the best results are obtained from sowing thick in drills about three feet apart and cul tivating. Sow two bushels per acre if broadcast and one peck if in drills. As to the value of the pea crop from a chemical standpoint, or aa food for the succeeding crop, it cannot be Eur passed. That it ia one of the best nitro gen gatherers can be proven by look ing on the roots of a good healthy vine. Hundreds of tubercles will be seen and upon examination by a microscope theae will be found to be the habitation of myriads of colonies of bacteria that possess the peculiar faculty of taking up free nitrogen and storing in up as plant food. Thia of course is readily available for the next crop, matters not what that next crop may be. The rest of the plant is very rich in the three elements usually contained in a fertilizer nitrogen, phosphorus, and pctash. It is so rich in nitrogen that on good loamy soil, that element is usually left out of the fertilizer that is applied to that soil next year, especially as it coats more per pound than the other two combined. So where a pea crop has been turned under, or even where a good pea stub ble has been turned under, it will be economy to simply use a phosphorus and potaeh fertilzsr. This formula I would suggest about two parts of phosphorus to two parts of potash: Say 400 pounds of acid phosphate and 200 pounds kainit per acre. This mixture used on our ordinary crops after a good pea crop will be found very beneficed. Putt in plenty of phosphorous and potash and the previous pea crop will do the rest. My favorite varieties are the Black or Stock pea, Uaknown, Clay, Speckle cr Whippoorwill. Try a crop one time and you will continue to grow the best of food and fintst of land renovators. B. Ieby. CAN HEMP BE GROWN IN THIS STATE ? The Opinion of the Agriculturist of the Experiment Station. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. We have been asked a few times about the advisability of growing hemp in North Carolina. There is no doubt but that this old cultivated crop can be successfully grown here. The question is more one of market and freight rates after the problem of breaking and hetcheling out the fibre is solved. The crop is as easily grown as oats It needs only to be sown and harrowed and until harvest time it takes care of itself. It is not particularly exhaustive but should be sown on rich land and if manured with chemicals should have aa heavr an application as the land needs to produce 12 or 15 cwt. of fibre The Kentucky Station has given some attention to manuring hemp lands and has proposed a commercial manure to contain 4 per cent, nitro gen, 12 per cent, potash and 6 per cent. DhoeDhoric acid. It would be well for growers of experimental plats to remember tais. We cannot advi33 farmers to go into hemp culture. Hemp may be high just now, but it is not very likely to remain so for very long. We under stand that some European crops in 1896 and 1897 were very low and the Philippines cannot be counted on for 1898 or 1839 crops. Foreign competi tion may therefore be abated enough for some recovery, but the United States Statistician gave a rather gloomy outlook for this industry in the last census report. Nevertheless in an ad dress by a gentleman interested in and familar with the industry in New York State, it is placed in a better light. When the crop is raised after flower ing, the flowering plants should be cut just as the flowers are falling off. This part is stacked in bundles until the seed is nearly ripe when the crop is cut with bush scythes or cradles and tied in bundles and cured for the seed. When eeed is beaten cut the stalks are 'rotted" and then dried; after it is dried it can be stored for breaking and hetcheling out in winter if this last process is done on the farm now. Thie is done in a coarser, heavier break than that U89d for flax. The fiber is then tied in bundles and baled for market. This fiber is used in making a num ber of varieties of cloth for ropes and binder twine. If enough capital were directed to ward this industry in North Carolina and a price could be guaranteed for the fiber by parties who would perhaps manufacture the fiber raised here near the farms where it was produced, it may become quite an industry here, but without such an assurance we doubt the expediency of any farmer's attempting this crop, Herap has been grown in North Caro lina, and there are old ''breaks" in ex istence now in the State, no doubt, on which the fiber has been separated by "breaking" in the olden times. Fbank E Emery. WHAT CREDIT COSTS. Did you ever think of how very ex pensive a luxury credit is? It doubles the expense of book keeping, doubles correspondence, multiplies worry many times over, often destroys confi dence, wrecks business galore, and makes mischief of all kinds without limit. More than all, many of these things enter into the cost of nearly everything which is bought and sold, and even the ca?h buyer, with all his discounts off, pays enhanced prices be cause of the cost of other people's credit. Imagine the world running a month without the credit system I Next to the millenium it would do more to create and maintain general happiness than any other condition that could be introduced. National Stockman and Farmer. COW PEAS FOR HOGS AND HENS. L. W. Lightly, writing in the Na tional Stockman, says: "A neighbor of mine asked me to get him some seed (cow peas) to sow for eoiliDg, but an extra wet season gave plenty of pas ture and the cow peas were allowed to ripen, whereupon the fowls started to harvest them, and he told me that his chickens never laid so many eggs in the same length of time as they did while the cow peas lasted, and right in the fall, too, when chickens generally stop laying and leisurely change their clothes and make up their toilet. Eggs were a good price, and the crop of co w peas was the most profitable crop be raised that season, and he did not have the trouble to harvest it either. The Kaffir corn he harvested for a winter feed for the poultry, and reports it a good thing, but by no means equal to the peas as an egg-producing food. If you turn a lot of pigs into a field of cow peas when they begin to ripen, you will be astonished to find a lot of hogs in a remarkably short time," SALT AS A FERTILIZER. The use of salt will not prevent in juries by worms in the soil. Salt in sufficient quantities to repel the worms would prove injurious to the crcp. Where beneficial, salt acts rather indi rectly than as a direct manure. It attracts moisture and helps to bind the particles of soil, thus enabling it to hold water much more retentively, and en abling it therefore to raise water by capillary attraction from below in greater quantities. Salt, moreover, sometimes assists to make inert plant food which is present in the soil avail able to the crop. Salt is not itself taken up by plants of most kinds in such quantities that it becomes necessary to apply it in or der to keep up the supply. Salt is pres ent in moderate quantities in all soils, or at least ita constituents, soda and chlo rine, are present and commonly in amounts fully equal to the require ments of our crops. A possible excep tion ia the mangel wurzel, which often appears to be benefited by application of salt. It appears to be possible to get all the indirect benefits which sometimes fol low the application of salt to light, dry soils by an application of muriate of potash, which in its chemical proper ties is very similar to salt. In osher words, by an application of muriate of muriate of potash the soil attracts moisture more largely and holds and conducts water to a greater extent. Now if, instead of salt, we employ the muriate of potash we get the im provement in the physical condition in the soil and at the same time we have in addition one o the mo3t valuable and most frequently deficient elements of plant food potash. Especially is it found that light, sandy soils often contain too little of this element. Ap ply muriate of potash at the rate of 300 or 350 pounds to the acre. Put this on in the fall if possible, but do not hesitate to apply it in early spring. I should prefer to spread it after plow ing and harrow in. In place of the muriate of potash it may possibly be expedient, once at least, to apply kainit to each of the field 8. This contains considerable common ealt aa wjll as potash. It costs about $15 a ton, while the muriate of potash costs about $40. The kainit, however, must be applied in consider ably larger amounts To get the same amount of potash as would be con tained in 300 pounds of muriate of pot ash it will be necessary to use about 1200 pounds of kainit. The immediate benefit to the soil would undoubtedly be greater in the case of the kainit than with the muriate of potash. W. P. Brooks, Massachusetts Agricultural College. DEEP OR SHALLOW PLOWING. 4Poor Richard," who originated many sayings that cannot be taken literally in these days, must no doubt be held responsible for many mistakes from following his advice to "Plow deep while sluggards sleep And you shall have grain to sell and keep." Thos, Convey, one of the directors of Wisconsin institutes, has this to say on this subject: 'Now, with reference to the matter of plowing deep or shallow. It is a subject that every farmer should care fully study from his own standpoint. 8ome subsoils are comparatively rich in fertility. There, of course, the soil may be deepened by deep plowing, but the plowing should be a little deeper each year until the desired depth ia obtained. Where grass cr manure is plowed under of course it is better to plow shallow unless it might be for a root crop and of course deeper plowing would have to be depended upon in that case, but for a corn crop on grace land, and especially grasa land top dressed with manure, shallow plowing four or five inches in depth will give good results. There is a serious objection to shallow plowing, and that is, the deeper scil is prepared, the greater the capacity of the soil to take up and retain moisture, so that if the soil is deep it will take up the rainfall to the full point of saturation. It haa been determined that land prepared to the depth of ten inches will take up two inches of rainfall, which would be an extremely heavy rain, of course." Probably in Franklin's day deep plowing would have been what Mr. Convey calls shallow foar or five inches in depth. The times have changed since 1750 A. D. NUTRITIVE AND STIL3ULANT MANURES. The word "fertilizsr" has a wide def inition, because it really includes every thing that adds to the fertility of the soil. Fertilizers may be divided into two classes direct and indirect or nutritive and stimulant. Direct or nutritive fertilizers furnish the ele ments of plant food needed to give sus tenance and vigor to the growing crops. In other words, they hold the same re lation to plant that bread and meat bear to man. This claes of fertilizers is of the greatest importance, and therefore deserve special consideration at the hands of farmers. When we speak of nourishment for the plant we refer to those elements of plant food which must be supplied to them by man. The value of these ele ments has been so thoroughly estab lished, and is so well known, that to speak about them is very much like telling an old story. The elements are nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash, and upon their proper use depends largely the eucces3 or failure of farmers crops. These three elements of plant food can be purchased on the market in various forms. Nitrogen, for ex ample, can be procured in the shape of nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, dried blood, fish scrap, tankage and cotton seed meal. At the same time it can be supplied to the soil still more economically by the cultivation of a legume like clover or peas, which crop3 possess tha peculiar and distinctive property of absorbing nitrogen from the atmosphere and transferring it to the soil. The forms in which phosphoric acid CONTINUED ON PAGZ 8. 2 ; i i i ! I ! i l ; f - ! 1 i 1 ' I
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 18, 1899, edition 1
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