Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / Dec. 17, 1901, edition 1 / Page 1
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THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL IBTEKKSXS OF OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. Vol. Ifi. Raleigh, N. C, December 17, 1901, No. 45 Agriculture. SOIL AND SOIL TEEATIIEF Oirr-iuiiiiH-e of The trojfre8slve Ki r. The earth was made for posf of gro vmg plants. it is well and widely made. T soil is perfectly adtpted to growir egeta tion. It neither grows v ry nor worn oat in the work. Plants wt re created to grow in the soil. S3 perfect is their- adaptation to t'ii busines thtt instead of ex hi- rating the soil they leave it better by growing in it. The larger the growth upon any given area this year, the 1 vrger still is the possible growth nex6 year upon the same soil. Sach is the mutual relation ship between the powers of the soil and the work of the plants in grow ing, dving and decaying, that it is possible to gr iw crops continuously upon t ie same - soil, with ever-in-oreasiug capacity for growing more and larger crop, on the part of the soil. ITt)V THEN DO SOILS GET POOR? It is Le .iesult of bad management, and not of the demands made upon the so.l by the growing crops. Vege tation upon an average is seventy five per cent water, twenty-two per cent, air, and only three per cent, soil. Good farming returns to the soil go muoh f this organized water and air, that it more than compensates for the three per cent, taken from the soil. Hence it is a mistake to pay lhat tae soli is exhausted or made poorer by tae small part it furnishes the crop. Then you ask why do we find fields and farms, alter years of cultivation, become poor or non pro ductive? The causes are many. Mainly bid management in plowing when the soil is wet and in plowing so shallow that the soluble plant food is washed away or leached out by the ram water. Continuous clean culture and burning the waste vege table matter helps to hasten this con dition. MECHANICAL CONDITION OP THE SOIL rllie power ut any Soil to produce depends largely upon the mechanical condition or the suil. Hard, com pact suils will not turn loose theij elements of plant food in sufficient quantities tj make large crops. good soil must be a finely pulverized soil. Suallow soils with hardpan under them will not yield large crops They do no6 permit sufficient root growth. Tne tender rootlets cannot pierce this hardpan in search for food. Again they do not furnish sufficient water lor rapid and lull growth. Plants require very large supplies' of ,ater to furnish their food in solution and keep up healthy circulation. About three hundred pounds of water pa9S through most plants to lei-ve one pound of dry matter. Tais would require about two thou-and pounds to pass through a corn stalk to make One pound of corn, and the same to pass through a cotton stalk to leave one pound of lint. The s iil must be fine and deep and pulverizel, not made into mud or mortar. It must also contain rotting vegetable matter, to furnish the humus, without which plants cannot grow. Soils in this condition will be rich. It will produce large crops. It matters not if it be red or gray, sandy or clay. MORE ATTENTION TO SOIL MANAGEMENT, LESS TO FERTILIZERS. Sj muoh otour land has been put in bad mechanical condition that but few farms will produce large crops. Hence the necessity of using com uierciai fertilizers. These contain phosphoric acid and potash readily Kilublo and available. They greatly increase the yield because of this f They feed the growing plant, more vigorous the plant the they help. Just as it pays to ni' r give xtra feed to a thriving pig or b9 3f So we see that even the help f ilao of fertilizer is dependent v. pen the mechanical texture of the - ,11. Tie farmers' constant study f-iou!d be "How can I improve the ii echunical condition of my soil?" Upon his intelligence in answering thlj question will depend largely his success as a farmer. Your bottom land is rioher thm your upland be cause it mechanical condition is better. Your garden is rioher than your farm because its meohanioal condition is better. These nre not rew discoveries, but so few farmers are acting upon them, that they need to be- restated. Where the farmers use two, four and six horse plows, their soil is deep and fine and productive. Any soil may be made so by proper treat ment. Your soil is largely a thing of your own making or unmaking. The success or failure of yonr crops for the next year will depend very largely upon the cond tion of your soil when you begin to plant. v James B. Hunniout.- Fulton Co., Ga. HABBT FAEMEB'S TALES. LV. U irreepondence of The Progressive Farmer. A leader of The Progressive Farmer wishes us to give a talk on RAISING MOLES AT FIOME. We suppose he refers to North Carolina, though The Progressive Farmer goes beyond this State in its circulation. This is one part of farm work that we have had no experience in, for our youngest mule was three years old when we commenced with him 'We began our work with mules at the early age of niae years and have worked all kinds, both native and Western. Some of our neighbors have raised mules and we have often discussed the matter with them They were unanimous in one opin ion, and that was that it does not cost any more to raise a mule than a calf so far as the feeding is con cerned. THE COST OF RAISING. The figures are about thes 3 : Ser vice fee, $10; extra feed for mare, $5; feed for colt, first year, $10; seoond year, mostly pasture, $15. Total; $40. Ten years ago it was a common thing to see mule colts any where in this county. But the low price at which mules sold a few years ago stopped our farmers from rtis ing mules and hordes. We have seen mule colts sell for $40 to $50 at five months and never sold for less than $75 to $100 at two years. Males raised here are HARDIER THAN THE WESTERN stock. We worked one once which was the toughest animal we ever tried. You had to put the plow in deep and push to get him to sweat, even in hot weather, while his mite, a large Western mule, would be worked down. Suoh a mule now would bring $125 at two years. The mules raised here were nearly all one oolor, red or dark bay. Oo casionally one was sen of a mouse color with zebra stripes around the legs. FEED FOR THE YOUNG MULES. Tf we were going to raise mules, we would like to have a fairly large farm and have one and a half acres acres for each colt of Bermuda grass for a pasture. We would have the mares served in the fall so that we oould work them through the crop season. If the oolts came the last of September or early in Ootober, they oould be weaned early in the spring and the mares be hindered but Jittle from work. It would be best to have some rye for the colts to graze on early in the spring before other grass was ready. There Is no feed that will be better for young stock to give them bone and muscle than oats and cow pea hay. To raise large mules, it will be neoessary to have bosh the sire and dam of good ize. Mules should be BROKEN OR TRAINED TO WORK. at one year old, not to do any hard work, but taught to drive and lead. The old-fashioned way or not train ing them to work until two or three years old was not calculated to make them do their best. Of course, it would not do to put thento work before they had developed sufficiently to work. Exeroise in moderation would develop the musole and make them strong. We believe that raising mules would be one of the most profitable" branohes of farming open to us in North Carolina or anywhere in the South. Harry Farmer. Columbus Co., N. C. NEWS OF THE FARMING WORLD. Our Washington. Correspondent Tells What Progress is Being Made in the Various Seciions of the Country. UorreHpoTidence uf The riwressive Farmer. Secretary Wilson will ask Congress for an appropriation for the Depart ment of Agriculture, for the next; fiscal year, of $1,789,540, an increase of practiojilly $1,000,000 over the pre ceding year. When I asked the Sec retary the necessity for so great an increase, he rplid '-The natural de velopment of the Department's work For instance, the Bureau of Forestry will require $260,180, nearly double last year's appropriation, for work whioh is the natural outgrowth of that already begun ; the new Bureau of Soil will require, to properly con tinue its work, $173,000, an increase of $82,000; the investigations of plant pathology havereaohed a point where an extra $58,0C0 will be neec1 ed to carry on that work. In my judg ment there are great possibilities for the silk industry in this oountry and I have inoluded in my estimates $'0, 000 for the purpose of inaugurating an investigation and experiments." WHAT THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICUL TURE H.iS DONE When asked to briefly enumerate some of the benefits whioh the work of the Department had afforded to farmers, the Secretary cited, among things, the introduction of the nava orange, rust-proof oats, Fultz wheat and numerous plants and grasses the salvation of the California orange industry from the ravage of the scale insect which had threatened its extermination; the introduction of the blastophaga, fin insect whioh makes possible the growing of the Smyrna fig ; the general destruction of insect pests, which the Secretary believes results in a saving of many milli n dollars annually ; the disoov ery of remedies for fungous diseases of vines and plants ; the eradication of pleoro pneumonia, a disease which had cost Great Britain a loss of over $10,000,000 : the inspections of meats intended for export, whioh has made possible an export trade of many million dollars in extent; the inspec tion of cattle vessels employed in the export trade, whioh has resulted in a decrease of the cost of insurance from $8 to $1 per head, a total sav ingtj exporters of over $2,225,000; the discovery and distribution of blaok-leg vaccine, whioh, it is esti mated, has saved the cattle growers between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000 per year ; the introduction of Smyrna tobaooo in the Connecticut Valley, whioh will result in an increased profit to the growers of that section alone, ot $500,000 a year ; the warn ings of the Weather Bureau, whioh have saved lives, goods in transpor tation and growing crops to a value impossib e to estimate ; the work of the Department Statistician in fur wishing honest estimates of the crops ; and last, but not leafct, the establish ment of the beet sugar industry on an extensive and substantial founda tion. The Secretary spoke at con siderable length but space necessi tates the foresoing summary. The Saoretary believes that greater actual profit aooruesto the oountry from the monies disbursed by the Depart ment of Agriculture than from those expendel by any other department of the government. TO CONQUER THE ROOT WORM ENEMY OF COW PEAS. Prof. H. J. Weber, of the Bureau of Plant Industry, tells me that he has developed a variety of cow peas whioh, he is oonvinoed, is proof against the attack of the root worm, so destructive of this crop, partiou larly in the South. He says that the root-knot worm works on a variety of plants, inoluding potatoes, toma toes and peaches, and many of the peach growers have been afraid to avail themselves of the advantages to be derived from the nitrogen gathering pea for fear of the intro duction of the root-knot worm into the peach trees. The new variety, which is a selection from the Little Iron pea, will afford no harbor or sustenanoe to the pest and may, therefore be used in all localities without daager. He believes that this discovery will result in incal culable benefit to the Southern farmer. . GROWING EGYPTIAN COTTON. Prof. Weber also reports gratify ing sucess with his experiments plots of Egyptian cotton. He is con dact'ng experiments in Mississippi Florida, Georgia and Texas and whilft he is not yet prepared to speak definitely, he believes that it wil be found practical and possible to grow crops of from one half to three quarters of a bale of this cotton, per aore, and tSat a market ranging from six to ten cents per pound for ordinary cotton will pay from fifteen to twenty-two cents for the Egyptian variety. A. B. Marriott. Washington, D. C. WHAT KIND OF FDTKATION DOES THE FARMER NEED? Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. -The farmer needs a practical edu oation in the arts and sciences that pertain to his industry. By prao tioal education is meant the training of his hand to perform actual tasks with celf rity and skill, as in a course in dairying, mechanic arts or stock judging. Here the student is set to individual tasks whioh he must per form with his own hands often enousrh to become fairly skilled in the construction of farm convenien ces or in the art of butter and cheese making. Aloag with this praotioa education an effort should be made to inculoate habits of study, reading and research. The effort of agricultural ednca tion should be direoted to ground ing ihe farmer's boy in the first prin oiples of his business. These .have been too lung overlooked ; the miLd has been loaded with too muoh theory and not enough of practical, oommon sense ideas. In the vain search after something unique, the simple basic principles, the cocnmon truth1 of everyday life, the lessons that nature teaohes have been too often forgotten. The farmer must be brought back to first principles and taught to work in harmony and in sympathy with nature. The farmer needs to learn that soience is simply faors systematically arranged ; that soience is a friend and not a foe ; that the so called scientist is not of necessity a man without practical knowledge. He does not appreciate that the simple truths which he knows and applies as a result of long years of expert ence in contact witn nature are scientific truths. If he had a better idea of what soience really is and the relation of its simple truths to his business, he would have less fear of it. Finaily, the farmer needs a busi ness eduoation. He needs to be taught thht there are better ways ol doing things ; that there are oheaper ways of making butter and cheese; that there are oheaper ways of feed ing cattle ; that there are better ways of tilling the soil, and thus eoono mizing labor and reducing the oost of crop production. All of these things are possible, and once the farmer appreciates that the agrioul tural oollege can do these things' for him, the abyss now existing between them will quickly disappear. The farmer needs a business agri cultural eduoation and not a com mercial eduoation. Why the farmer should send his boy to a school oi shorthand and book keeping when he intends him to farm is hard to understand. Why should not the la fryer go to a theological school to learn his business ; the dootor to a law sohool to learn his profession? rhese things would be regarded as absurd in the so-called professional avcciitions, though the farmer per sists in educating his boy along lines whioh are of the least service in his life work. He prefers to let him 4 delve away, gathering from hard knooks in the bitter school of experi ence the things whioh the agricul tural college can put -within his reach at but little cost in the short est period of time and in the way in whioh he can utilize them to the greatest advantage. Andrew M Soule. University of Tennssee, Knoxville. SOME We clip the following artiole from the Chatham Reoord, and believa it will interest our readers, showing, as it does, "how others see us." Says Editor London: About a month ago The Record stated that Mr, Harry G. Duhling, of Wyoming Territory, was here on a visit to his parents and that he liked our county so well that he had bought the farm of Mr. R M. Barns, near here. On his return to Wyom ing he published a very interesting account of his trip in his county paper, The Tribune, whioh we here with copy, so that our oountymen may know how others see us and how our section impresses a stranger from far away Wyoming : "Daring my trip I visited my parents in North Carolina and was very much pleased with the country, the climate and the people. A great part of the land is covered with tim ber and probably not one-third of the land is cleared and farmed. It seemed to me as if they had more land than farmers and what they needed more than anything else was good working farmers, and yet when I came to examine crops and prices of products, farming mut pay better tbere than any place I know of. Taking the fact that I saw as heavy crops of corn on land that could be bought for $10 per aore as I saw any where else on my trip cn much higher priced land, and corn there was sell ing for 80 cents per bushel when I was there and has averaged over 50 cents a bushel during the last four years, it looked to me as if corn would pay. , All the crops of corn I saw were not so good, however, but from whai I noticed I concluded it was more the fault of the farm-r than the farm. I visited one farm which was a few years ago consid ered one of the poorest in the ooun try, and when a Northern farmer bought it a few years ago the natives predicted he would starve, yet he showed me a field from which he harvested 25 bushels of wheat per aore this year and soon as the wheat was cut he planted the field in corn and the oorn was a fair crop. I con oluded if he was raising two suoh orops on the same land in one season he was not starving very fast. I was told of another farm which ten years ago would not yield over five bushels of corn per acre, but under its present management is averaging seventy-two bushels on over 100 acres. "I found the conditions with other crops also very favorable. Wheat is a paying crop, cattle pay well and on aooount of the long pasture season cm be kept with little expense. But ter sells for 20 cents the year round. I talked with two farmers who pay some attention to sheep raising. One of them said his sheep did not cost him over 15 cents per head a year to keep and the wool averages him $2 . - . . . ... per nead. ine otner one tola me that by careful feeding his early spring lamps weign &u pounds ana that this year averaged him $5 per head. Poultry also pays well. But what interested me was fruit. I saw a number of pear trees at differ ent places that looked thrifty and bearing the finest fruit, while pears were selling at $1 per bushel. I am satisfied from what I saw of apples that they can be successfully raised and yet I saw poor apples sell for 80 oents a bushel. The mistake is the people expect to raise their fruit from fence corner seedlings without care and attention. It was too late in the season to see peaches, but from what I was told, it is but little trouble to raise them. One farmer said he reoeived $1.40 a bushel for his crop. t "Every person I asked about Irish potatoes said it was no trouble to raise them and in the store where I nquired they sold t or $1 a bushel. It seems to me that every one expended their energy and expectations in raising a patch of cotton to the too much neglect of everything else and when cotton is 5 cents a pound they growl, and when it brings 10 cents hey feel rich and happy. "The climate is delightful and a A WYOMING MAN'S VIEWS ON PHASES OF NORTH CABO LINA FLEMING. farmer has a whole year to do his work. Droughts and destruotivO storms are unknown. I do not be lieve from my observations a health ier seotion oanbe found and I noticed more bealthy and active old people than anywhere else. The people are intelligent, kind and foci able. Farms can be bought at from $5 to $10 per acre. I saw several farms c fft-red at prices that I considered te build irgs worth the price asked, for the farm, and otters where the timber if marketed would pay for the farm. Some of the land is poor, but i easily improved. If the land of Pennsyl vania was treated the wav some of the farmers of North Carolina treat theirs it would not produce any thing. "I enjoyed my visit very muoh and like the country.' ANOTHER VIEW OF TERRACING LAIfD Correspondence of The lrogre88ive Farmer. I noticed in your paper of the 3rd a letter from Mr. O W. Blaoknall, of Vjtcce county, telling how to ter raoe land. Now, let me say in jus tice to that writer that I am not ac quainted with the lands of his couDty and that his plan may h all right for his seotion, but The Progressive Farmer is read all over the State, and I know that his plan r f laying off terraces on a level vwill not do here. Oar sandy hills are the worst land in the State to wash, and many farms were ruined before we began terracing. Now we have some fine places without a break in them. Wo have found out by experience that we must give our terraces at least three inohes fall in fltty feet and give the water an outlet at the end. I have seen the level plan tried on one field and the result was the water broke the upper terrac and rushed down the hill to find the next one full, . and one after another was swept before the current till the field wa 4 ruined. Terraoing is the first and most im portant thing for a man to do if he wants to improve his land. There can be no permanent improvement with our lands Jiere until it is done and done right. Go look near Gaa tonia at Craig & Wilson's fine lands and see what it has done for them, and ask them if they think it is safe to have a big head of water dammed up ready to tear loose at any minute and sweep everything before it. A. F. Coolman. Gaston Co., N. C. NAMING THE EABM. I bplieve it would bo no mistake for every farmer in the country to have his name neatly painted over his barn door or on a board placed near his driveway. This should be in large, plain letters, so that when we are driving through the country we will know who lives there with out inquiring. I know of some whp are having their barns marked thus. Another good good idea is to have the places named. For 'instance, "The Elms," where a lot of noble elm trees adorn the grounds ; "Cedar Hedge," or "The Cedars," from trees in the yard; "Hilltop" if the house stands on a hill, or "Pleasant Vale" if in a valley, eto. Let us hear from others on this subject. In our rambles we often pass by friends and ac quaintances because we do not know where they live,whenif their names were in plain sight over the door, we might be tempted to stop for a drink of buttermilk or a look around tire place that would serve as a founda tion for an item for the paper M. A. Preston. Charlotte. Mich. One of the most prevalent error among the average farmers is the neglect of making and preserving manure, and also its improper appli cations to the ground. Collect ail the refuse material you can, use your ohip dirt from the wood pile; in absorbing liquids. Apply it to the fiat lands at any time during winter, It can then be thrown on broadcast and plowed in as soon as the ground opens. The nesessity of returning as muoh vegetable nutriment to the grDund as has been taken off by the crop cannot be too strongly im pressed upon the attention of farm ers. J. L. Miller, Murphyaboro, IIL V 'Aw
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 17, 1901, edition 1
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