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Hi the Largest Oldest, Larg- est, and . only all pome-Print Farm Pper in that Rich Firming and Truckitg tion Between Rich mond, Va, and S7aanan t a. Has the largess circulation of acj family agricnlts ral or political paper published between R i c b mond and Atlanta - & THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUB PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. Vol. 14. O 1 RALEIGH, IT. 0., MAY 16, 1899. No. 14 WW r--w( 1 HE OeEESBIYl gMfflX PUBLISHED WEEKLY rvdftte on your label tells you when your wriPtion expires. Receipts for money on w-rirtion will be given in change of date on it not properly changed in two weeks, notify , "TcOVTINUANCES. If a subscriber wishes rony of the paper discontinued at the -x-fVtlon c f Bis subscription, notice to that effect hnnld be sent. Otherwise it is assumed that a rt'nuanceof the subfcriptioa is desired, and ill arrearages must be paid when paper is tiered su pped. Money at our risk If sent by registered letter or coney order, rieose don't send stamps. Pe sure to give both old and new addresses in ordering change of postoffice. a&L of Advertising Rates: ten cents per agate Uae. Liberal discounts for time and space. Thl item is marked to remind you that you .vnn d carefully examine This t-ample copy and ffml us 1 1 for a j ear's subscription. Will also Znd paver on trial 6 months for 50 cents, or a months for 25 cents. Or we will send your er free for one year if 3 on will fend us So in iew subscriptions, or free six months for $3 in ew subscriptions, at theue rates. We want intelligent correspondents in every -o-nty in the State, We want facts of value, ults accomplished of value, experiences of value, plainly and briefly toid. One solid, demonstrated fact, is worth a thousand theo ries. Ths Progressive Farmer Is the Official Organ of the North Carolina Farmers' State Alliance. J an standing now just behind the artain, and in full glow of the coming -nset. Behind me are the shadows on hie track, before me lies tit dark valley nd the river. When I mingle with its lark waters I tcant to east one linger nj look upon a country whose govem 'yn i9 0f the people, for the people, nd by the people, L. L. Polk, July ith, mo. PRACTICAL FARM NOTES. Written for The Progressive Farmer by the Editors, and Prof. Guy E. Mitchell. The American goldfinch or wild can ary ia as beautiful as it ia useful, and a3 a weed destroyer has few equals. It conflnea ita attention very largely to cne family of plants, the Compositae, and i3 especially fend of wild lettuce, thistles, wild sunflower and rag weed. It ia so often eeen gracefully poised upon thistlea that it is commonly called the thistle bird. It ia also very ISLdcf cul.ivated fcunflower eeedi Itetcteat area of American British possessions it estimated at about SOO million a:re3. The settler ba3 cut his way into the fringe of this vaet wood land, but hia depredations are nothing aa compared with the terrific scourge cf fire which has rampaged through it at difirent times. Tne United States has about 450 million acres of forest and this i3 beiDg repidly depleted by the axe and also by destructive fires, which the government, however, is now investigating means to prevent or control. Beet pulp haa been fed to dairy cat tie in California for many years with satisfactory results. Reports from Pecoa Valley, N. M., show the eatia factory feeding of large numbers of sheep and a good demand fcr pulp. In visiting the besUugar farms of Europe, says the assistant chemist of the Ag ricultural Department, an excellent condition among the beef and dairy cattle is quite noticeable. This desirable result is in a large measure traceable to the feeding of beet pulp from the eugar factories. In addition to the pulp, a small proportion of molasses is also fed. A French economic ornithologist etates it as hia belief, resulting from his investigations, that if the world were to become birdlees, man could not in habit it after nine years time, in epite of all the spray s and poisons that could be manufactured for the destruction of insects. He thows that birds eat hun dreds of millions of insects daily, which cannot be doubted when stomach ex animations show that all the insect eating birds are continually destroying large numbers of insects, most of them harmful to.agriculture. Birds are more the farmer's friend than he realizes. Impress thia fact upon your boy. Those interested in sorghum growing should send to "U. 8. Department of griculiure, Washington, D. C.," for a free copy cf Farmers' Bulletin, No. y'Jt "The manufacture of Sorghum Sirup." This is Decerning a rather great industry. In 18S9, 11 States produced over a million gallons of sorghum sirup each. It was produced in greater or lees quantities in 44 States and Territories. Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ar kansas, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Georgia, orth Carolina, Alabama, and Illi ncus, in the order given, produced the largest quantities, ranging from 2,721, 240 gallons in Missouri to 1,110.163 gal Ions in Illinois. The report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture shows that in 1890 that State produced 3 431 100 gallons sorghum sirup, not 1,484,937 gallons, as stated in the na tional census returns, thus placing Kansas easily first instead of fifth in sorghum sirup production. One of the best bulletins yet issued by the North Carolina Experiment Station ia 'farming in North Caro Una," by Prof. W. P. Massey. A re view of the work is unnecessary, aa any of our readers can secure a copy free by addressing a postal card rrqu.st for same to "Agricultural Experiment Station, Raleigh, N. C." We advise every farmer reader of this paper to send for a copy. By the way, when next you go to the posttffice, buy a supply of postal cards and do not let the supply become exhausted. Then when y ou see a reference to a bulletin or a manufacturer's catalogue which you need, send for it at once. Very often an advertiser in The Progressive Farmer offers a valuable catalogue free to all who apply, and a postal card request for same would in many in stances save the reader a snug little sum. The Horticulturist of the Virginia Experiment Station, Wm. B. Alwood, states that from hia experience it ap peara to be a simple matter for any in teilfgent farmer, to grow forest trees seedlings either for decorative planting or for wind breaks and forest belts All such seeds as silver maple and like early ripening species, it is necessary to sow as soon as ripe. They can be sown in the same manner and will grow aa readily as peas. All late ripen ing species should bo sown in the fall. Walnuts can be bulked down, several bushela in a heap, and then taken up and planted in the spring with perfect success. Also a simple plan with these species is to plant the nuts where the trees are to stand. If no stock inter feres they will grow with great cer tainty, and in rich soil so rapidly as to astonish one unfamiliar with the cul ture of forest trees. Most of the forest trees do best if set out at 5 to 8 feet tall; hence many should stand but one year in the nursery row. In 1898, co operative experiments were made with velvet beans for the Alabama Station by farmers in 14 kcalitiesin that State. In reporting re suits the great majority of experiment ers reported a more luxuriant growth made by velvet beans than by cowpeas. Almost invariably the yield of hay as judged by the eye was estimated as much greater than the yield of cow pea hay. However, it is easy to over esti mate the yield of velvet bean hay, for the growing vines present an imposing appearance and the hay is loose and bulky. Summing up, the Alabama Station says: "Giving due weight to these reports of results based merely on appearance and to our accurate expesiments at Auburn, where the product of large plots waa weighed, it appears probable that on good land the cow pea and velvet bean Lfford practically equal yields of hay, while cn poor, deep sandy land the velvet bean may afford a larger yield." At the station the yield of sorghum ? id oats after a crop of velvet beans was larger than after a crop of cow peas. In oat straw, however, the re verse was true. The Illinois Station has been record ing the variations of different cows and of the tame cow at different times, in the quantity and quality of the milk produced, and these records demon strate the following truths: The yield of milk from different cows under the same conditions differs greatly, and that from the same cow varies widely from day to day. The composition of milk is highly variable ; the ratio of fat to other solids, and that of solids to water, are not constant aa between different cows or for the same cow on successive days. The percentage of fat, or of other solids, is not always highest in the smaller yields, but cows that give milk with a high per cent, of eolids gener ally show a low total yield. Fat is the most variable constituent of milk, and its variations are depend ent of those of the other eolids; there fore the yield of milk ia a better index of the other solids than it is of the fat. A3 regards the first and last milk drawn, the proportion of solids not fat ia higher in the first, but the propor tion of fat is decidedly greater in the last. When the milking periods are un equal the longer period will generally, though not always, give the larger yield of milk, of fat, and of solids not fat; but the difference in yield does not correspond to the difference in time; that 13, the secretion calculated perhour ia greater during the shorter period. Neither day time nor night time ia shown to be superior as a milk pro ducing period. Another report to Congreas ia about to be made from the Agricultural De partment upon the development of the beet sugar industry in the United 8tates for the year. Mr. Ciarles F. Saylor, the author of a similar report for last year, has been preparing it, and has incorporated into it an inter esting account of sugar growing in Puerto Rico and other notes on the agriculture of the island. Mr. Saylor describes the methods of the natives as the most primitive imaginable, with consequently a minimum of results. All field work is performed by oxen, though ponies are used for riding. In stead of the ox yoke restiDg against the shoulder, it is fastened on the front of the head and attached to the horns and the cx propels the load by pushing it with hia head. Mr. Saylor states that the native workman docs not ac complish in a day more than one third as much work as a laborer in the United States. A great proportion of the natives, however, he finds living on 5 cents a day. In many cases they live entirely upon such a simple diet as raw sugar cane. Pure sugar ia not an uncommon ration in many tropical countries. He figures in detail that sugar can be laid down in New York (duty free) at less than 2 cents a pound. Slowly but surely the farmers are beginning to realize the advantages of mixing their own fertilizers. Of course not all farmers are prepared to do this, but any intelligent farmer who will carefully read Voorheea' Fertilizers" will promptly see the reason for home mixing, the way to do it, and the profit there ia in it. The farmer who knows nothing of the ingredients of fertilizers ia not better prepared to mix a fertili zer for weak and impoverished land than the man who knows nothing of pharmacy ia to compound a medicine for a sick man. But where the pharma cist must learn of scores of ingredients before being prepared to compound a mi dicine for a sick man, the farmer who wiahes to compound a fertilizer for a sick eoil needs to know the char acter and nature of but three elements potash, phosphorus, and nitrogen. Thus hia task ia a very easy one. It requires no college training, but merely the ability to read intelligently. This being the case, brother farmer, why not mix your own fertilizers and keep at home the tribute money you have been paying to enrich fertilizer compounders and their agents? Re ferring to this matter of home mixing, the bulletin, 4 Farming in North Caro Una," to which we have just alluded, says: "Fertilizing matters being a neces sity in the recuperation of the soil, their making is a matter of much im portance, and the farmer should know just what he is using and no longer buy his fertilizers on "the patent medi cine plan." By buying the materials and mixing them at home in the pro portions he needs, he can al waya be sure of having what he wants and of getting it at a much lower rate than the same value could be had from the manufacturers. Some shortsighted fertilizer manufacturers are trying to prevent the farmers .from getting the chemicals and doing their own mixing. But they are working against their own interest in thia, for the home mix ing of fertilizers is going to be the rule in the future, and the sooner the fertil izer men realize it and put all the f acil itie3 in the way of the farmer's getting what he wants the more they can make by sales of these things. It has been abundantly proved at more than one station that home mixed fertilizers give just as good results as the same grade of factory, mixed goods and cost far less." mmm Fine Ridge, N. C. Eds. Progressive Faemer: Find enclosed $1, for which please move up my subscription one year. I would order it to stop, but your paper gets better and better. I don't see how a farmer can afford to be without it. R. W. Boyles. PEANUT CULTURE. 3orresDondence of the Progressive Farmer. The peanut crop is yearly becoming of greater importance to the Southern farmer. It is a crop that ia peculiarly suited to the warm climates, and being a short season crop, it need not be planted until the soil is thoroughly warmed up, about the middle of May, or even early June is time enough to plant. I have known a very good crop made, planted aa late as the first week in July. Another point in its favor is that it can be planted after the rush of sprang planting is over and the most of the other farm crops are laid by. A good plan is to follow the oat or wheat crop with peanuts immediately after these are harvested. Oat and wheat stubble plowed under seems to have something in its get up favorable for the peanut crop, and I have never seen a poor crop of peanuts where it f ol lowed these small grain crops, provid ing the land was properly prepared and the correct fertilizers used. A eandy soil with some lime in its get up ia specially advisable to secure a good crop. The land must be thor oughly plowed and broken up, to let in warm air and eunshine, and put in as friable a condition as possible. It should be smoothed well over with a harrow, and at the last harrowing or working about 800 pounds per acre of a good fertilizer broadcasted and worked into the soil. This fertilizer should be of a very good grade, ana lj zing about eight per cent, of phos phor. c acid, and eight per cent, of potash. Some farmers prefer to drill in the fertilizsr at planting time, but this ia not to be recommended a8 the skin of the peanut ia so thin and deli cate, that a strong fertilizsrin the drill next to it, would be apt to impair its j germinating powers, so that to get best results and get a good stand, the fertilfzsr should be applied in the man ner already indicated and three or four weeks before planting time. When ready to plant lay off the land in furrows about thirty inches each way, checking it, eo as to be easy of cultivation when the time comes for subduing the grass and weeds that are sure to come. In each check a couple of seeds should be dropped and covered a couple of inches deep with the foot, and pressed down. Then in a few days the whole ground should be again har rowed and smoothed off obliterating these furrow marks. In about ten days from planting time, they should be showing above ground, and being at a time of the year when weeds and grass are likely to be troublesome, the cultivator and sweep must be kept busy to keep down weeds and pulverize the soil, for weeds grass, and peanuts don't grow well to gether. If the ground has been put in good condition, previous to planting, the crop will not require much cultivation during the growing period, and when ever the blossoms begin falling, all cul tivation should cease, and the last should be of a nature to throw as much soil on the vine as possible, thus assist ing nature in burying joints on which poda form. Whenever the vines begin to take on a yellowish tint, the nuts are full grown and are beginning to ripen. If the crop is intended to be saved and houses or stacked, it should then be dug up and thrown in windrows for a few days to get dry enough to shake aU the sand off, then hauled to the barn and thrown over racks to cure thoroughly. If intended for hog feed, the pigs can be turned in and allowed to do their own harvesting. Take it all in all a crop of peanut3 is to be specially recommended, as it is a very profitable one. Fifty bushela per acre is a very ordinary yield, and when we consider its fattening properties and the love all stock has for it aa food, we should make it a point to grow as large an acreage of it aa we possibly can. C. K, MiQuarrie. PLANT PUMPKINS. For milch cows, whilst they are un dergoing the change from pasture to dry feed, there aie few, if any, kinds of food that will keep them to their milk as well aa pumpkins. They are splendid for calves going into winter quarters, and make an excellent and healthful food to give with corn to fat ten pigs. In moist situations, such as river low ground?, a great abundance of pumpkins can be grown along with the corn. For quite a few years we have grown pumpkins this way! Enough seed is mixed with the corn that one will be dropped to every fivt or six hills. The corn is in no way damaged by the pumpkins rather benefited, a3 their umbageous leaves keep the sun from striking the ground, and also, to a large extent, shade out weeds which, on river low grounds, make considerable growth after the corn has been cultivated the last time, when the season is favorable. The only cost ia that of drawing and stor ing in the buildings. The Virginia Mammoth does well when planted on bottom lands with corn. They are large, have thick, firm flesh, and do not rot readily. Last year we had over fifty tons, which were stored in a building dur ing the latter part of September be fore frost touched them. They were fed to cows, calve 3 and pigs, and proved a ualuable adjunct to the ordi nary foods. The cows and pigs re ceived them till the middle of Decern ber and the calves till the 10th of Feb ruary. A few were set aside to Bee how long they would keep, and only rotted about the first of March. Those stored until cold weather were well covered with straw. We have been advised often to let pumpkins have one good frost on them before storing away, but I am confi dent they would not keep as well for it. I noticed some that got touched with frost during a cold spell in Jaou ary became soft very soon after they thawed out. Albert R Bell wood, in Southern Planter. THE CORN CROP. But it is not the hog alone that can make use of the corn crop when it ia produced as it should be, beyond the point of being mere "supplies." The whole State needs more and better beef, butter and milk. Here in Raleigh it is practically impossible to get a piece of beef fit to eat by anyone who knows what good beef is. Our people have been taught that beef can be made from feeding cotton seed meal and hulls. And so it can of a certain kind, but far from being good beef. It is rank and rammish in taste and smell, and not fit for a respectable table. When fed to dairy cows, the butter is made crumbly and white and is far from being "gilt edge." Cotton seed meal and hulls should be relegated to the compost pile. They make good manure, and the land needs them, and the farmajcan grow better food for animals and food that will make eat able beef and butter. And here ia where the corn crop comes in again: In the feeding of beeves and co ?s the whole crop can be utilized at once by turning into ensilage. There are too fe w silos in the State, and too few good cattle to be fed from them. There is no way in which the corn crop can be more profitably used than by turning it into ensilage and feeding stock on this for beef and milk. Years ago when I was filling silos in Virginia with corn that wo aid make over 50 bushels per acre if left to ripen, a neighbor said it was a shame to waste such fine corn in such a way. I told him to figure a little. The 50 bushels of corn there would be worth as grain 40 cents per bushel or $20 per acre, and the fodder saved in the usual way by cutting it off at the ground and curing in shocks would perhaps, if saved, well be worth another ten dollars. In en silage the crop made me twenty tons per acre. The feeding value of this ensilage waa fully $3 per ton, and in some experiments I had made it was worth half as much as timothy hay for mules, and timothy hay was worth there then $10 per ton. But taking the lower figures the crop as ensilage was worth $75 against a possible value of $30 as grain and dried fodder. Not that the ensilaging added any food value to it, but it put it into a shape that made it more palatable and in which it waa all saved and eaten, while there was a large waste in the ordinary saving of fodder and a loss in the eat ing, as cattle discarded the hard stalks which are all eaten as ensilage. In all this I am going on the a e sump tion that the grain raised on our farms is to be utilized on the place with the exception of the wheat, which must be manufactured elsewhere, and with the increased crcp3 of thia the mills will increase and add to the wealth of the State. But no raw product that can be utilized on the farm to make a more valuable product should ever be sold in a raw state We have never found any way in which the corn crop can be more profitably used on the farm than by making it into ensilage. Many have been deterred from attempting to make ensilage because they imagine that a very costly building is needed. The only requisite in a silo is that it should be aa near air tight as possible at bottom and sides and freely open above. The corn is cut into the eilo when in the roasting ear state, and when the silo is full a cover of straw is put over it or a layer of cotton eeed hulls to take the mold at the top and the whole thing is done. The corn can be stored dripping wet if need be or it can he left to wilt in the fields a day or so. The weather never need interfere with the work. Then too when the corn is cut and stored the land ia ready and clear for the fall crop. Here at our college last season we had a crop of cats that were cut for hay. The land was then plowed and corn planted for erzeilage. This corn was cut and stored and the land well prepared again and seeded down to gra33, and to day there is not a finer piece of grass around the city on the land where a year ago the oats were growing and corn was after wards raised. The cutting of corn at the ground is heavy work when done by hand, but we now have machines that cut and bind the stalks in bundles so that the hauling and handling are far easier. Of course it is not worth a man's time to build a silo if he has but a cow or two, but we are advocat ing the feeding of more and more stock as the very foundation of successful farming with any crops. We can here only give hints. But I shall have out from the press in a few days a bulletin on the improvement of our lands, and any farmer in the State can get a copy by eending a card for it, and can have hia name entered for all we publish. W. F. Massey, in Christian Advocate. FARMERS' SONS ANE THEIR READING. This paper he s urged the importance of making a study of the elementary principles of agriculture a part of the course of common echool education in Texa?, and so many thoughtful men are of the same opinion in this that only an organized expression is needed to secure thia amendment to the school courses The matter will doubtless be presented to the proper authorities and the change effected within a reasonable time. It is certain that public senti ment among thoughtful farmers and others whose dutiea or business has them to consider the agricultural de velopment of the State is ripe for the change. But the farmer can at home do some thing that will go a long way in pro mo ting the agricultural education of his boys, only commenced in the school. What to plant and when to plant are the first questions for the field. Breed ing, feeding and management of Uve stock are becoming of more interest to farmers as attention is more directed to the live stock industry. In all these departments of agricultural work new thoughts evolved by discussion and the work of the experiment stations are continually appearing, and unless the farmer is a reader he will fall be hind the front of his industry. Unless his son becomes a reader he will not be able to rightly understand the im provements needed to make his toil profitable and to preserve the fertility of his inheritance instead of westing it. Works on agriculture and journals treating of agricultural and live stock subjects are becoming every year more important in the farmer's home. They should be supplied for the young people and they could be encouraged to carefully read them. This will lead to thoughtful interest in all the depart ments of farm work, will tend to estab lish farmer's meetings, will give to the matters of daily employment an inter est and dignity that will make farm life far more attractive than under former conditions when euch a life waa one of only monotonous, sordid toil. It is worth while to make the life attractive and the toil remunerative. Much can be done in this way by en couraging the boy to keep up with the latest agricultural thought. The ablest minds cf the country are giving their labors to agricultural science and con tributing to its literature, and are hav ing a practical effect upon the farm work of the country. Unlesa the boy reads he will be a century behind when he himself becomes the manager of the farm, Texas. Stock and Farm Journal. Mention The Progressive when writing to advertisers. Far me
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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May 16, 1899, edition 1
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