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c :c,: u . j THE INDUSTEIAL AHD EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OP OUE PEOPLB PABAHOUHT TO ALL OTHER (MSIDERAIIOKS OF STATE POLICY. r Vol. 16. Raleigh, N. .C, September 3, 1901. Ho. 30 rat Agricultuf . HAEBT FASHZS'S 3 .SS. XLI. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. If you have nbt made your plans, begin now. Here is an ppening for the farmers in the South whioh does not come often and the ones who will $ake advantage of the situation can reap a harvest long to be remem be red. The corn and hay crops of the West are short. Price of feed will remain very high. As most of the horses in the towns and cities are fed on Western hay and grain, the demand in these markets will be ex ceptionally good. Thousands of farmers in the South enlarged their cotton crops this year at the expense of the hay and grain crops, which will curtail the supply of forage in thatregion, so that these same farm ers will have to buy feed next year, thus still further enlarging the mar ket for feed. These things being so, the wise farmer will prepare his landthoroughly and put in a crop of oats, crimson clover and other for age crops early. By the first of May he can have some ready for market, at a time when the demand is great est. Red rust proof oats sown in the southern or eastern part of the State the first of October will be ripe the last of April or first of May. We have had but little experience with crimson clover, but sowed some the last of October and had it ready to cut the first of May. A neighbor sowed some timothy last year and, as backward as the spring was this year, he had a good cutting in May. So you see that it will be no experi ment. Get out all the manure you can and do your best and sucoess will crown your efforts. A recent visit to a village in whioh lives a retired physician gave us some good ideas of what can be done with little or no labor. On entering the yard we noticed some evergreens around the borders, just as you often SCO all over the country, but the plants looked more like cape jasmine than anything else we ever saw, and on inquiry we were told that the bushes were Chinese tea plants. They have beautiful white flowers in the fall and make a seed that looks like filberts. We have used some of this tea and find it better than the imported article. It will grow any where that cotton will. As straw for bedding was hard to get in the village, and having a piece of bottom land that was worthless, it was allowed to grow up in old field pines which furnishes an abundance of straw for bedding purposes and banking sweet potatoes. It will pay every farmer to have a few acres in pines convenient to his barn. The main thing to make it successful is to keep stock off the land, especially hogs. Harry Farmer. Columbus Co., N. C. HO -FENCE LAW. When I was a boy all farmers in my native country . fenoed their Isolds, but for thirty years, perhaps, they have abandoned that expensive unci laborious custom, and while at -rtmany opposed this course, yet utter putting it to the test they are ail satisfied, and find that it is far better to let each man fence his own stock rather than to fence out all the stcck of his neighbors. When the no fence law goes into operation, each man, if he wishes to, can con tinue to fence all his land. But in a few years the people will find that it is great saving of labor to dispense :th fences, and besides it is a great having of timber. We have post P T;ned this matter already so long t- .t timber is quite scarce in many tions. -vappose a man owns a farm of one J kindred acres and he needs twenty ucres of land. Now, whioh is better ' r him to fence, 100 acres or 20 ucres? To fence 20 acres would cost him only one fifth as much labor as to fence all his farm, and it would require only one-fifth as much timber. Each man, in keeping up his own stock, will take better care of them, and they will not be committing dep redations on other people. Let each one do his duty and this will make better neighbors. Our members of the Legislature have done a worthy deed for the peo rle of the v county generally in abol ishing the fence law. In a few years those who are now opposed to it will, upon mature and calm observa tion, reflection and experience, thank these, our worthy members, for this aot. P. B. Gold, in. Wilson News. One' mistake which I made the past summer, and Jwhioh 'many others make, is in spending our money be fore we have it. I set out to make a great many improvements, and as my money ran out before I finished what I had started, I ran my credit rather far Toefore I realized, it. It is so easy to get credit that one hardly thinks about the amount until the bills begin to come in. I intended to pay all these bills with the money from the sale of my grain, also counted upon having a surplus with which to purchase bran and a few other necessary things. Although the grain money paid all my old bills, I had nothing left with which to buy bran, etc, with. I believe that every young man and woman will do well to make a rule to never buy anything unless they have the money with which to pay for it. Of course there are emergencies, and excep tions to all rules, and we must use our best judgment. Geo. C. Borck, Grand Haven, Mich. TTKVJ& OF THE FARMING WOULD. Oar Washington Correspondent Tells What Progress it Being Hade in the Various Sections of the Country. Oorreepondenoe of The Progressive Farmer. A recent artiole printed by a Geor gia farmer contains a hint by which others may perhaps profit. He is a very successful farmer, BUT DOES NOT GROW COTTOW as most of his neighbors do, sowing the ground that he would use for this, in hay and "makes $60 on every acre of it," getting at least four good crops each year. He says no farmer in his section can realize $60 per acre from cotton. In addition, he claims there i little labor or expense and no risk in hay. It is reported that there is only one creamery in the United States (located in Iowa) whioh can make butter equal to that universally pro duced in Denmark but in no other country in the world A BUTTER THAT WILL STAND TROPIC HEAT, melting and solidifying again with out damage as it passes from warm to cold climates and baok again. Usually, this change entirely de stroys the flavor, leaving the batter like ordinary grease or oil. The Danes, however, produce a quality which will endure this ordeal with out affecting its flavor or sweetness! being the .only people of whom this may be said. Therefore, it is the popular impression that some secret process is used either in the prepara tion or the packing of their butter. This, however, is positively denied, it being asserted that there is no secret process, no preservatives used, no chemical change produced before packing. Nevertheless, none of the butter packers there will allow their factories to be inspected, thus giving strength to the suspicion of some seoret process. Agriculture is not yet one of the important industries of Alaska. A bulletin just issued by the Census Bureau sets forth the faot that THE VALUE OF THE ALASKAN AGRICUL TURAL PRODUCT is only 12.7 cents for each inhabitant of the territory and 24.4 cents each for each inhabitant of the Southern district, in whioh all the farms are located. Just twelve farms were re ported in Alaska in 1900, the total area of whioh was 150 acres, of which 104 acres were devoted to the cultivation of vegetables and hay, the remainder being used for pastur age. The total farm products are valued ' at $8,046. The total farm wealth of Alaska was $15,686, of which $2,196 is invested in live stock. The immense area of Alaska oontainsone bull, four oxen, thirteen dairy cows, five horses, ten swine, three dogs and 176 chickens. A. B. Marriott. Washington, D. C. OBSERVATIONS OF S0TJTHES1T FAE1I LIFE. Mr. Joseph E. Wing, of the Breed ers' Gazette, has written that paper an interesting artiole regarding his reoent trip through the South. From it we quote the following paragraphs which should interest our readers : I have been' making a study of grasses for tlie South. Of course the soils vary, yet in general off the limestone the best grasses seem to be tall meadow oat grass, orchard grass, red top, poa compressa (or Canadian wire-grass) and Bermuda. Red and white and crimson clovers all do , fairly well when fertilized somewhat. . Japan clover is the best for fairly thin soils and off the lime stone. Orchard grass seems the best of them all to my mind and as it grows in bunches it ought to be sown with red top or bromus inermis which run in the interstices. Bromus has not been thoroughly tested yet but is promising. It is looking ex tremely well on Woodland Farm, and this is the fifth year for it with us. We have sown more of it. A friend whom I visited in the red soil of Virginia is bringing up his land in this way. Finding it too poor at present to pay for cultiva tion all over he has it divided into about six fields; He takes these fields in the fall and sows on them a home mixed fertilizer made of tank age, aoid rook and kainit. He uses about 300 pounds per acre. Then he sows thinly winter turf oats, plenty of orchard grass and red top and some red clover sowing more in the spring. He sows a sprinkle of white clover in March and a little Japan. He grazes part of the oats, mows some for hay and cuts the rest for grain. He has sheep, not too many, and grows winter lambs out of doors. Now he has a fair spd on whioh to graze, but not at all what he wants, so he says: "Very well, here is some use of all my land and I will lay it by to be taken up and im proved as I can." Then he takes some forty aores each year and fer tilizes heavily in the spring, besides turning under same rye on whioh the sheep have grazed, plants to cow peas, cuts some of them on the richer soil, turns the rest under, sows to grass alone in the fall with another good dressing of fertilizer. This time he gets a meadow and a rich pasturage and where he can spore the manure in sufficient amount he gets alfalfa, but it will not grow for him without the manure. He plans to go over the entire farm in this way. His oorn is grown after peas, too, and peas are always sown, in the corn. He puts most of his crop in a home-made silo. He practices win ter grazing somewhat, but supple ments it by liberal feeding under open sheds, where all the manure is saved and his sheep are neither allowed to tramp the muddy fields nor yet get soaked with rain. It is really wonderful how he has brought up this old farm, though it has cost a good deal in the way of fertilizers. He has been able to dispense with a great dtal of labor by confining his plowing and cultivation to the fields that are fertile. He tells me that his earlier mistake was in cultivat ing land that was to'o poor to be re munerative; he now lets it lie in grass, even if the grass is scant, till he can get to it with his restorative course. He gives as a reason for the final sowing alone of his grass that after he has the soil pretty rich the oats are apt to be so heavy as to smother out the grass. It is mighty pleasant to see a farm coming up like this ; it makes one feel that he is a god to that field and indulging in a little creation on his own ac count. I suspect that it takes some patience and some money to do it, However. But the sun shines, the blizzards do not come, the lambs grow faso and New York is a night's run away. I believe the most gener ous treatment of fields pays in the long run. It is the man who can make the long run who gets the prize, in farming orv anything else. If there is any plant adopted as a sort of national flower by the South land it ought to be the cow pea ! It brings more blessings in its wake than can be mentioned in a para graph. The Southern house of the typical sort is rather wide and square, with a wide hall running back, a cross hall behind the front rooms, making it airy and cool, a front veranda or gallery 12 feet wide running the length of the house and two stories high, this gallery covered with roses and vines, within plenty of fire places and a smiling hostess who knows apparently how to seoure good ser vice and keep her home neat and sweet without worry, a sideboard with fresh mint leaves, plenty of easy chairs and the latest books. The Southern farmer has seemingly given more thought to his home and the ground surrounding it than his Northern brother ; there is plenty of room 'about his house which may set back half a mile from the highway, there is good and abundant planting of tree and shrub and climber. We of the North can learn some good lessons of these Southern farmers in the way of . planning and adorning our homes. The Franklin county, Vermont, creamery makes 15,000 pounds of butter a day, or five carloads each week. THE ADVANTAGES -OF NEAR MARKETS. Correspondence of The Progressive Fanner. In locating on a new farm the aver age farmer probably gives less atten tion to the advantages of a near mar ket for his produce than he should. Most try to get on the line of some transportation company, but that is not sufficient. Good water trans portation with a railroad ... as a rival always improves the farmer's advan tages. It is this condition that en ables Southern truck gardeners to supply New York with their produoe at prices as low as those obtained by Long Island and New Jersey farm ers. A single railroad which enjoys a monopoly is seldom a friend to the farmer. It is better t find a loca tion where there are two rival lines. But better than all are the advan tages of being located near a large consuming centre. With a certain market for your' goods there is always a better ohance to make profits from farming. It matters little to a man if he has a thousand acres of good wheat or corn if there is no good way to get the produce to a paying market. The farmer with ten aores of cultivated land within ten miles of a city is far better off; It is not so much more farming land that we need in this country, but better cultivation of the land near the large cities and markets. We need farmers who will take advan tage of the markets near by. To do this he should not raise wheat, corn and other unperishable crops whioh caa be raised just as well a thousand miles away, but he should devote his attention to the raising of perishable crops which cannot stand long trans portation. Our large city markets are glutted every day of the year with perishable farm produce shipped from distant points which arrives in the most deplorable condition. The shippers were making a mistake either to raise or send such articles so far from market. There is money to be made to day in farming near cities and towns when the right sort of articles are raised. These articles should be those whifch distant shippers cannot well supply. Then they should be of the very best. Efforts should be made to produce only perfect prod ucts of tree or vine, and then there will be little or no competition. If they are as inferior as the poor stuff shipped from distant places they stand no better chance of selling at a profit than the latter. Good, inten sive farming is more in demand on these farms than in those far distant from market. Every foot of soil should be made to produce its quota of fine produce. This. is necessary because the land is higher priced and its acreage naturally restricted. One must be content in such places with ten acres where a farmer five hun dred miles away can enjoy his hun dreds. But the difference is made up in better farming and better near-by markets. James S. Doty. Live Stock. SHEEP IN THE SOUTH. XL Ewe a at Weaning Lambs the Baby Flock Spiritual Picture Unblemished Lamb Teeth Permanent Incisors Age of Sheep A Bunch for Mutton in Summer Easiest of all Fresh Heat to Keep A Year of Sheep Business Illustrated Southland Uniquely Adapted to Sheep. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Turn the ewes from whioh the lambs have been taken on a dry pas ture, or very short one ; or in fact as well put them on dry feed in the barn lot for two or three days, watch ing them closely, draw the milk from any that seem to need it, being very careful not to let the udder of any one ulcerate or cake, whioh is not at all likely if previous precau tion is followed. Should the udder of any one be ruined, mark that ewe for mutton and not allow her to have another lamb. As soon as they are dry give them abundance of pasture. If they are to be kept and bred another year, the purpose should not be to load them wifh fat, but to have beem en- tirely recovered from the suokling period and, in good health, in good strength and sprits and gaining in flesh by the time they are to be mated with the ram. The flock of lambs from the time they are dropped until they are a year old should ever be in the care ful shepherd's mind as the Baby Flock and receive his special atten tion. The reader will bear with me here while I refer to one of tbe most beau tiful spiritual piotures that was ever delineated and brought before the mind of man in all history. ' Jesus, that humble One, spoke of himself as being the shepherd of the sheep, and said, "Suffer little chil dren to come unto me, for of suoh is the' kingdom of Heaven." Let us pause far a moment and behold this picture of him taking his seat and saying those words to his hearers, to the - disciples;' to his ministers and teachers of Divinity then, and down through all time, while he took in his arms the infant, and laid his hands upon the children and blessed them ; and again He said, "Feed my lambs." What was the emblem used by this author in drawing this spiritual pic ture? It was the shepherd and the lambs. The human shepherd of the ani mal flock here may well strive to have the emblem resemble the pio ture more and more and as he looks on, and becomes imbued with fcthe sentiments of that picture, he will tenderly care for the lambs, firs 6, be cause he will realize that all the ele ments of the successful future flock is in them for development, and that he is largely responsible for their life, their growth, their comfort and prosperity, and that after this, and and secondly, as surely as the day follows the night to him the mate rial profits of sheep husbandry will follow. A well-fed, growthy lamb will loose its two front lamb teeth before it is quite a year old, and two per manent incisors will grow in. Be fore the end of the second year two more incisors will shove out two more, one at each side of two first. Before the end of the third year two more will appear, and before the, end of the fourth year, two more perma nent incisors, making eight in all, will have taken the place of the two last lamb incisors. The baok or double teeth are called molars. In sheep parlance among shep herds and sheep men, a lamb is prop erly called a lamb until it is one year old, then it is called a yearling until it is two years old, and a two-year-old until it is three years old, and a three-year-old until it is four years old, and the four-year-old note among traders some times hangs on till the sheep is six and seven. Com monly the age is determined by the teeth ; two, four, six and eight teeth indicating respectively, one, two, three and four years old ; but actually it will be found that highly-fed and .rapidly-matured young sheep of any breed may have lost all their lamb incisors and have "full mouth" of, permanent incisors before they are quite three or much over three years old, and some times a poorly-fed, ill or slow-grown young sheep will not have raised its last incisors until about five years old. Of the latter, the writer has found hundreds among the thousands on the Pampas of old Mexico and on the plains of our own Southwest, where little or no hard-grain is fed. At seven years old the front teeth are worn down some and the gums may be leaving them ; at eight and ten they may be slim and leaning to- -warn the middle or falling out, but commonly there is but little cer tainty in determining the age from the mouth after the sixth or seventh year, for as the conditions change the time of "full mouth" so condi tions change the time of "broken mouth." There is no doubt but many ewes are good breeders at ten and even fourteen years, but commonly at eight to ten years it is best to fatten them for mutton. If properly fat tened, they make exceedingly good tender mutton that is better to keep fresh and use in summer than any other kind of meat. A little bunch of such ewes drawn out of the breeding flock in the fall because they are "broken mouthed" and nioely wintered with the lamb flock, which is supposed to be care fully fed by itself, then shorn early in the spring, kept in a convenient pasture and fed twice a day on meal or chopped feed, they will soon be very fat and continue so. In Virginia it was our custom to have a little bunoh of such sheep fat from the beginning of summer, out of whioh to draw a savory mutton at least every vweek. We didn't then use Western hog meat. We have to. . Supposing that the readers have fcindly followed me through this writing about sheep, illustrating-a year's period of the business, I might wellstop. If I do, it is with the feeling that much which should have been written has not been, for I have tried to condense and cujt short, rather than expand and lengthen. There are special features that are legitimate outgrowths of the busi ness, in general, which properly! should and must have attention, v Some of these possibilities belong uniquely to our great Southland and cannot elsewhere be embraced by the progressive people in other parts of our glorious nation. In a future artiole I will, as I be- lieve, prove clearly to the mind of every one, especially to our highly intelligent cotton growers that if one-half the number of acres on & given plantation now devoted to cot ton shall be devoted to sheep hus bandry, the result will be that the remaining half will produce as much cotton as is now reoeiv6d front the whole, leaving the net profits from the sheep a dear gain to the planter over and above what he now receives from his whole plantation for cotton farming. I will not say it will require a less outlay for industrial labor, but even should it require more, the increased returns will foot the bills, and leave a profit. Besides this, I shall show that under such a system the land actually farmed will soon begin to appreciate in value at thejrate of at least $2 per acre annually. Labor in the South is abundant and. is waiting to be intelligently employed on the plantations. ' If it could be so vigorously instructed and used and promptly paid, as it would be from the sheep business, there would be less of it in the chain lgang. The hog, or pork, is the . natural product of the great corn belt of the Mississippi Basin. Heavy cattle for beef as naturally reach their highest development in that region. The grass lands of the East, of the Western plains and mountains and the fibrous and legumous growths of the cotton lands of the South may be classed together as excelling in the products of the Dairy and of Cotton, Wool and Mutton. . Samuel Archer. Marion, McDowell Co., N. C.s ii
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 3, 1901, edition 1
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