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1 S! THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. Vol. 15. Raleigh, N. C, January 8, 1901. No 46 -1 AgricuL re. THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON. Mr. Merriam Tells How His Big Crops are Made. lT0rTV,.ponleneeof'The Progressive I-'armer. The principal function of cultiva tion is to put the land in such condi tion and keep it in such condition as will make the plant food it contains as fully available as possible. This, of onrse, includes deepening the soil j s- it will hold more water, for plant , food is not available for the use of crop except as it becomes soluble in j water, and also the keeping of a dust j mulch, or thin layer of tine, freshly- broken soil on the surface to prevent j the escape of this water after it has been secured. Now, cotton, while it does most of its feeding in the first four inches of surface soil, has, as you all know, a large tap root which plunges into the sub-soil to pump up water and plant food from below, and the people who make the largest yields of cotton are those who take into consideration the structure of the plant and fit their land accordingly. I have a friend in South Georgia who has made three bales of cotton j alKi during a dry time we go right to the acre. It is true he applied ahead when other farmers are afraid guano at the rate of 1,000 pounds per j to plow for fear of injuring the plants acre, but it is also true that he broke j by breaking the roots at such a time, his land lb inches dee). j If we have a long-continued wet I have often been asked how much i ;spell and the grass gets a start, we fertilizer can be applied profitably to j cultivate with the Planet Jr. culti the cotton crop, and my reply has j vator, using the ten-inch sweep to been that no rule can 1 e laid down ; kill the grass, and then go back to but that the profit would depend in j our fine-tooth cultivator with board a great measure on the condition of j or block behind, to rub everything the land and its ability to hold water , down smooth. sufficient to make the guano soluble ; j When we lay by, in August, we and it would also depend largely on j sow to crimson clover ; or in Septem the. guano itself, whether it was j ber, if the cotton is not too large, in properly balanced, and contained a j oats. Or later still, in October ana sullicient quantity of potash, to- j November, in wheat. All of which gether with the other elements of J are worked in between the rows with plant food to supply the needs of the ; the cultivator without re-plowing. soil and crop to which it was ap- . plied. Where very large quantities of fertilizers are used, especial prep- aration nmt be resorted to, as in i the case of my S uth Georgia friend, ! who not only broke his land deeply, but pulverized it thoroughly, apply- i ing bOO pounds of his fertilizer broad- ' cast, and 100 pounds in the drill, j The general experience is, however, j that under ordinary conditions 400 j pounds or 500 pounds of a high grade fertilizer to the acre will give the most profitable results. There is an old saying, that thor- ough preparation is half of the cul- j its leaching away during the heavy tivation. We have, proved this to be rains of winter. It is, however, ad eminently true, and each succeeding visable to fertilize these crops with a year llnds us spending more time and J few hundred pounds per acre of a labor in putting our land in the best j chemical fertilizer consisting of pot possible condition before planting. j ash and phosphoric acid. The land we shall plant in cotton next spring was subsoiled a year ago, the ground being broken at that time ;Jjout 15 inches deep. It has h-en in cow peas the past summer, and i n w in line condition for cot ton. We shall break this land deeply i:i the spring, with a two-horse plow, and work it down line with cutaway, M;i )thing harrow and roller. We then lay oft" our rows about th and a half feet apart, after win h tin guano will be applied on top ?.e ground in befven the-.' rows, and a line tooth cultivator run over it to work it in. The planter will follow this, putting in the seod on the general level of the land, thus stili lurtber stirring in the fertilizer. The rows that with laid oil' simply serve as a guide. tm,t. ,f,iu.v ,1 i. w.t;., 4.4-i I " 1 1 p ferhhzer with the see t, or applying it through a guano horn in a li 1 1 1 streak and all in one place i-, in mv opinion, a poor practice Probablv 4.1,.., - x-T . "I 1 111" ICltU 1U HI Ul limn immiiuii" there is so httle lertinzer used tothe vtvm is nof railroiuIs lmt, turn acre by the majority of farmers, pilc(.s aml maeadamized roads. There that tin- is the only means by which j is plenty of stone at hand. , . . i i ii'T'i.v .x ... L.i.u 1 1, ; . . flir enougn can tie put in one place to ; have any marked effect. It is ail j It is ail ; ' ! put immediately under or arounutne ; seed and serves to give the plants a start, and that is about all. When farmers learn to Use enough fertili zer to make their crop, and not simply to start it off, we shall hear kss about guano helping to imp jvei j ish the soil upon which it is u-ed. j The cultivation of our cotton will j commence almost as souii as the seed is put in the ground. If it rains and a crust forms over the seed, the seed, the land will be harrowed as soon as it is dry enough for the stock to walk over it. This break ing of the crust insures a good stand and kills thousands of weed seed that would , otherwise interfere with cleaning the crop. As soon as the plants are well up, we run through, once to the row, with a line tooth cultivator, leaving the plants on a narrow ridge, when the work of chopping immediately begins. Great c..iro is taken to have the rows of uniform width, as we do the majority of our cultivation with these fine- tooth cultivators, and when the rows .ire CVen, one passage is su indent to break the crust nicely from row to rcnv By tllis method we are enabled to get over our crop a number of times with the same amount of work the ordimiry farmer with scooter and scrape employs in plowing his once. This has the double advan tage of keeping a dust mulch con stantly on the surface and leaving the land perfectly level, in which condition it retains moisture better, and is much less liable to wash. The cultivation is so shallow that the roots of the plants are not disturbed, At the present writing Dec. 17th oar this year's cotton patch is amass of green, having been planted to oats in September. When the ground freezes the cotton stalks will be knocked down and hauled out onto adjoining land, where they will be turned under in spring, as we object to the burning of anything that does not harbor insects, and can be made to create humus in the soil. The cultivation of cotton all the summer sets free a great deal of nitrogen in the soil, which grain or clover can utilize, and thus prevent F. J. Merriam. Fulton (Jo., Ga. AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN NORTH CAROLINA. Increased Wheat Acreage and Great Activity in Apple Culture in the West. Col. F. A. Olds had an interesting interview with Secretary T. K. Bruner, of the North Carolina Board of Agriculture last week. Among other things, Mr. Bruner said : "Great activity has been brought about by what T form the rediscov ery of the apple region in Yancey county. A great many orchards are now being set in that county and in Watauga, Wilkes, Madison, Hay wood, etc. That region is the habi tat of the apple. The seedlings de veloped there offer the world its finest app:es. lhe plan is to have an orcnaio- orchard of one kind of fruit. liis lis what we term a commercial or- cnani. You have spoken of the need of good methods of packing and also of bettor means of trans- v rt"- " Avl" teach how to pack:. mosi, umaoiu mm i-- f,1 ding ot wheat Ironi f11'1 seeding of wheat (Vntrnl Xortli (1 .linn tn tlu t;lins that may Ue 1)roi)Crly be termed a piedmont feature. ine next thing is the impetus given cat tle raising in the mountain country. More catt'e and improved breeds are demanded. Shorthorn, Durham and Polled Angus are coming in vogue. "The large shipments of lettuce from the east continues. It began December 15 and will continue until all the winter crop is exhausted. I consider the winter crop more profit able than the spring crop.' HARRY FARMER'S TALKS. IX. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Now the holidays are past, let us begin anew our farm work. Sup pose we get an account book and keep an account of the work on each field or plot of land on the farm and see which crop pays best for the work and fertilizer used. A farmer who rented land a few years ago said to the writer : "My crop this year did not pay me. I ought to have made $11 n day, but only got about $9.'' Of course this included his family of six or seven. I thought over these words and began to cal culate the real time devoted to the work of the farm crops and found the man was right. If you spend six days in planting, cultivating and harvesting a crop of corn on an acre of land that will yield 25 bushels of corn, 500 pounds of fodder, 8 bushels of pease, all worth $18, you get $3 per day for your work, fertilizer, land, etc. This is not counting the cost of harvesting the rn?as, and for that reason a low value is given the crop. Many farmers can tell you the cost of a cotton crop, but not of any other crops. I simply used the figures to show you the necessity of keeping accounts so that you can tell when you are making or losing on your f arm operations. . Read the article written by Prof. Irby on the oat crop in The Pro gressive Farmer of Dec. 4th. The writer has made money just that way. Make up your mind to give one acre a trial and bo convinced. Or a better plan is, to see if the supply of forage is not short in your neigh borhood, and sow about live acres of oats and supply that neighbor of yours who has gone mad over the high price of cotton last year. Some body must supply him with hay and you can do it and make more money than he will. As usual, the price of poultry was very low just before Christmas and everybody wanted to sell. The thoughtful farmer will not be caught in that trap again. Eggs sold well and are still bringing good prices. Give your hens a little red pepper in some meal on cold mornings and it will help egg production greatly. Do not depend upon government seeds for your garden. Harry Farmer has been disappointed more than once by sowing such seed. Looking over the columns of The Progressive Farmer you can find a number of reliable seedmen who will be glad to send you their catalogues, from which you can make selections. Harry Farmer likes vegetables and nearly always has a supply the year round. Harry Farmer. Columbus Co., N. C. FERTILIZERS FOR TOBACCO. CorrrsionUViu-e of The l'rojrressive Farmer. The following letter has just reached me : Mr. Jr. Jrasty Raleigh, X. C: Dear Sir I have read a good deal from you on fertilizers, and in 1899 you sent me a good formula to make a tobacco fertilizer. I would like now to have your opinion cn this subject : I have a good deal of coarse stable manure, oak loaves and cut corn stalks I am thinking of cleaning out and composting with kainit and rich dirt. Would you so advise and in what quantity should I use the kainit? Please reply by letter or in The Progressive Farmer. Respectfully, T. Y. Allen. Mecklenburg Co., Va. While the addition of the kainit to the stable manure will improve it as a general manure, it will not make it a good tobacco manure. If you want to use it on tobacco never use kainit nor muriate of potash, but any high grade sulphate. And be sure that it is a really high grade sulphate and free from chlorides, for there is a good deal of so-called high grade sulphate on the market that has a large percentage of chlorides in it, and hence is not good lor to bacco. The potash in the kainit is in the form of sulphate, but it is as sociated with such a large percentage of chloride of sodium (common salt) that it acts as a chloride. If for ether crops, the addition of kainit to the manure will be a good thing as it will tend to prevent the loss of t.mmonia from the manure. As a rule I do not think the lands of Mecklenburg county, Va., lack potash greatly, and while kainit is a good thing in stable manure to pre vent the loss of ammonia, it is the most costly form in which you can buy potash. Kainit has but about 1 i per cent, of actual potash, the rest t iing mainly common salt, which is of no value as a manure, and at your distance from the ports of entry the freighting of 88 per cent, of useless matter is a serious thing when you can get muriate or sulphate which has 50 or more per cent, of actual potash. Of course you will have to pay more per ton for the concen trated article, but you do not have to buy more than one fourth as much to get the same amount of pot ash, and the potash is all that is valuable in either. But I would re peat, never use muriate of potash or kainit on tobacco, as they will injure the quality of the leaf. The formula I gave you for tobacco cannot be improved upon, and for the sake of others I will give it here again : acid phosphate 900 pounds, dried blood GOO pounds, nitrate of soda 100 pounds and high grade sul phate of potash, free from chlorides, 400 pounds, to make a ton. Use 700 pounds per acre on tobacco. This formula has made the tobacco that brought the highest price in Gran ville county in this State. W. F. Masse y. Wake Co., N. C. SUMATRA TOBACCO IN CONNECTICUT. The Agricultural Department Successfully Grows a Crop Under a Cheese Cloth Cover. Correspondence of The Progressive Fanner. Milton Whitnev, Chief of the Di vision of Soils, reports a successful termination of experiments con ducted in co-operation with the Con necticut Experiment Station in the production of Sumatra tobacco near Hartford. One-third of an acre was planted under a cheese cloth shade nine feet high, and cultivated and fermented under the direction of M. L. Floyd, tobacco expert of the De partment. The yield of cured to bacco was 700 pounds, making an estimated yield for one acre of 2,100 pounds. This lost about 10 per cent, in the fermentation. The crop has just been sold by L. B. Haas & Co., of Hartford, to Michelson & Hib bard, of Kansas City, for -173.70, making an estimated value for one acre of $1,421. The cost of produc tion, including the whole cost of the shade the frame for which will last five years will not exceed 500 per acre, leaving a net profit of over 900 per acre. This was an average price of 71 cents per pound. The crop grown in the same field, without the shade, and fermented in the same way yielded about the same quantity and brought 27 cents per pound or at the rate of 507.87 xer acre. Deducting the cost of culti vation, fertilization and treating, this would leave a profit of about 300 per acre. The ordinary crop of the Connecticut Valley brings farm ers 20 cents per pound of 200 per acre and deducting the cost of ex penses leaves a irofit of about 200 per acre. The Sumatra" tobacco grown under shade has been submit ted to New York and Philadelphia business men and has been pro nounced entirely satisfactory and fully equal to imported Sumatra. These facts, taken in connection with the award at the Paris Exposi tion of 2 points for the Florida-grown Sumatra over that given for the im ported Sumatra, show that we can grow Sumatra tobacco of the high est quality in this country and save to our farmers between 0,000,000 and 7,000,000, which is now sent abroad annually for the foreign grown leaf. This work is the re sult of the soil survey made in the Connecticut Valley two years ago, and similar results can be expected only from very limited areas where the soils and climatic conditions are similar to those in the Connecticut Valley and in Florida. B. Washington, D. C. INJURIOUS INSECTS SOME FUNDAMEN TAL PRINCIPLES REGARDING THEM. Entomologist Sherman Talks of the Rapidly Increasing Number of Crop Pests. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Farmers, as well as truckers and fruit growers, are obliged to keep up a constant warfare with injurious in sects if they are to secure a jvroper remuneration for their labors. Thus, the apple, our most common and highly prized fruit, is subject to seri ous attack in this State, from not less than eight standard pests, as follows : Scurfy scale, San Jose scale, woolly aphis, green apple aphis, flat head borer, round head borer, codling moth, and tent cater pillar. Corn, one of the staple crops, is liable to serious injury from a no less number,- to-wTit: Army worm, corn worm, corn root worm, cut worms, wire worms, white grubs, bill bugs and chinch bugs. The above mentioned insects do not by any means include all those which attack these plants, but they are only those that occur to the mind of the writer at the present time, with out even referring to any articles on the subject. If our older farmers will look back ward for fifty years, or even less, they will at once realize that in their boyhood, the number of pests was' not so great, nor were their attacks so serious) as at present ; and to find out the reasons for these differences, as well as to discover remedies for the pests, is the work of the ento mologist. And it is because of late years our insect pests have come so much mre prominently into notice than formerly, that States are now laying more stress upon entomologi cal work than ever before. Now the entomologist, in spite of any suppositions to the contrary, has no remedy to offer for injurious in sects that does not imply labor in its application, and he has little patience with the man who writes for infor mation, declines to follow advice, and then complains of his losses. In jurious insects will be from this time henceforward a permanent factor in farming and horticulture, and the men engaged in these pursuits need to meet the problem, not try to hide from it. Probably ninety-five per cent, of the farmers of North Carolina have one or more aiple trees, upon which they depend to supply them with wholesome fruit. Probably one-third of the crop which these trees would produce is destroyed each year by the codling moth alone, and of these not less than seventy-five per cent, might be saved by the proper appli cation of the proper insecticide at the proper time Nevertheless, the fcirmer allows his tree to shift for it self, and takes the fruit as it comes, good, bad, and indifferent. The writer does not propose to discuss the matter of insecticides at this time, but simply to point out the places where the farmer needs to mend his methods if he is to combat these enemies rightly. For the tobacco grower, one of the worst enemies is the flea beetle, which causes small holes in the leaves, and the proper application of L insecticides in the fall of the year, after the crop is harvested, will les sen their numbers materially for the next season. Nevertheless, not one tobacco grower in twenty takes the least T)recaution against them. The same story might be repeated with regard to a dozen of the stand ard pests, but the writer forbears to carry the illustration further. Let us now see if the numbers of serious insect pests is greater than formerly. The San Jose scale was unknown in the East until about twenty-five years ago, ard made ite appearance in North Carolina about 1888, so that here is a pest that is really new. The Hessian fly is a native of Europe, and appeared in this coun try during the latter part of the Revolutionary War, and has been spreading slowly over the country ever since. Here, then, is another pest which has not been with us always. The white cabbage butterfly is a native of Europe, and first made its appearance in America about 1868, and is now a standard pest. We see, then, that this pest is compara tively new. The potato beetle is a native of the Rocky Mountain region, where it habitually fed on a certain wild plant closely allied to the potato, but as cultivation spread to the West ward, the lands were cleared, its na tive food was destroyed, and, find ing a suitable substitute in the culti vated potato, it has since lived on that, and spread to all places -where it is grown, to the dismay of the grower. We have here, then, two primary causes of the great prominence that insects now assume in our farm practice, (1.) Commercial develop ment, as illustrated in the case of the first three insects discussed, and (2 ) Destruction of the native food plants of the insects, as illustrated in the case of the potato beetle. But while the insects have been ex tending their range, and have been ravaging our crops, the farmer has not been energetic in his warfare, else they would not now have the hold upon him that they have. But, granting that they have been neg lectful in this, the question remains as to the course that he should now pursue, and the answer comes, that he must first be brought to recognize that the first principle in an intelli gent warfare against insects lies in the intelligent use of the spray pump. For such pests as the Hes sian fly, which affect grasses, etc., spraying is not practicable, but for the vast majority of our garden in sects it is the best means of combat, and the writer looks for the time when a spray pump shall be as much a part of the outfit of the garden, as the drill is for the wheat field. The writer expects to insist on this first fundamental idea until the farmers adopt it, for he believes it to be the first true step, in the solu tion of our insect problems. If the reader has been troubled every year with insect enemies, let him no longer bemoan his loss, but let him be assured that regret will net re lieve his distress, but that it can only be relieved by his making an ener getic effort himself. The writer is glad to correspond with those con cerned in these matters. Franklin Sherman, Jr. Entomologist Dep't of Agriculture, Raleigh, N. C. AGRICULTURAL GLEANINGS. The rural mail delivery system grows rapidly in popularity. A carrier tells me that during August, the first month of the service, he handled 1,373 pieces of mail, while in December he has handled over 5,000, says Col. Olds. The white farmer, therefore, who thinks of his own future, and of the future of his children, should not shut his eyes to the plain and inevit able drift of things. He should put his house and his farm in order. Grain growing and stock raising (they go inevitably together) is the white farmer's avocation. Cotton is his natural surplus crop. Macon Telegraph. On 20 acres of land, 4 in one solid body, J. F. Ratledgemade 1100 bush els of corn. Mr. Ratledge bought this land one year ago and paid $25 per acre, so this year's crop more than pays for the 20 acres bought. In the tract there was 80 acres and should the whole amount have been in corn it would come near paying for itself and the cost of production. Considering that all crops were short this year there would seem to be a little money in farming yet. Davie Times. The Kaleigh Post recently refer ring to the tobacco sections of the State left Wilkes out entirely. Bro. Furman should not so easily forget that a portion of Wilkes is one of the finest tobacco sections on the globe, and that tobacco raised near Boomer, Wilkes county, took the premium at the International Fair at Vienna several years ago. There is no squabble about this fact, and the records in the Agriculture De partment no doubt shows these fac Wilkesboro Chronicle. L
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Jan. 8, 1901, edition 1
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