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V 1.1 "SX f j;. THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL DTTERISiB OF OUR PEOPLE PARAHOUIiT TO ALL 0TIIE2 C0EID2RAnor3 0? STATE FOHCT. Raleigh, IT. C, January 7, 1902. Vol. 16. I7o. 47 21 Z v. V,4 TV VI J J hA f win if r Agricu re. THE SEED THE POT HON OF THE CEOP. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. At the present time there is a great amount of discussion among farmers generally relating to the question of the merit and vitality of the supply of seed corn requisite for the 1902 corn crop. Naturalists agree that throughout the entire vegetable kingdom the quality and vitality of the seeds largely bounds the possibilities of grain production. In other words the seed is the origi nal superstructure of crop produc tion. A stalk of corn is merely the germ of a grain of corn unfolded by nature's processes. As good seed corn (good both in breeding and vitality) is without question, by far the most important plank in the preparatory foundation for a good corn crop, it naturally follows that good seed is the most important question to be considered when making preparations for each crop. After many years of praotioal field experience as a cereal breeder, the writer has beoome convinced that the average annual loss occasioned by poor seed corn throughout the corn States, is responsible to a much greater degree than most farmers imagine, for our disgracefully low average yield, less than 30 bushels per acre. LOSS BY UK EVEN STANDS OF CORN. The wide awake traveler while passing numerous fields of corn throughout the great corn belt of the central North, is very forcibly impressed with the greatly decreased yield of oorn which farmers annually sustain by securing stands in part too thick and in part too thin, due to an imperfeot understanding rela tive to the vigor and vitality of their seed corn. According to the writer's observation and experience, the most fruitful cause of the annual supply of poor seed corn in some portions, or in many portions of the oountry, throughout the great corn belt, is the inherent organic weakness oi the germ of the kernel, due to a great degree to barrenness degeneracy. The kernels of a deganerate vari ety of corn (other cereals as well) naturally have weak germs and are in condition to beoome easily affected by extremes of weather and soil, both before and after planting. Other very active caues of low germinat ing power in seed Corn, is a mistaken idea of many farmers, that large eared, large growing sorts of corn are the largest grain yielders. While in fact, the Illinois Agricultural Ex periment Station, after exhaustive variety tests oovering many years, has proved that the largest average yield of merchantable shelled corn per acre is produced by medium sized, early maturing oorn. And the writer will add that this is also his experience in the corn field. DANGER OF POOR SEED THIS YEAR. All fields of corn which daring the severely hot weather of the past summer, had their tassels and silks badly sunburned, denote that a. large per cent, of the individual stalks in such fields, owiner to the continuea absence of well directed breeding pressure during past y ars, have a greatly lessened degree of constitu tional vigor. By reason of saoh con ditions they are unfitted to produce satisfactory yields, riven duritg t?.e most favorable year-. If your crop of corn during the voir 1901 had a largs per cent, of barren stalks in it then, as fully 40 per cent, of nil the pollen which shared in polienizm even the best ears, was barren pollen, it naturally follows that through the sheer force of heredity, there will also be an unusually large per cent, of barren stalks in all 1902 fields planted with suoh seed. If your 1901 corn crop was badly afflicted with barrenness, it denotes that the variety of corn you have been growing is far along in the path of degeneracy. In suoh case it will be greatly to your advantage in dol lars and cents, as ooncerned in the yield of your 1902 corn crop, to change your seed oorn, by seouring seed whioh has been grown under differ ent climatic and soil conditions, and whioh has been grown from highly bred seed, whioh is very free from the curse of barrenness and its train of attributes. HOW TO MAINTAIN THE VITALITY OF YOUR SEED OORN. By securing a medium sized vari ety of oorn that will be reasonably sure of maturing a good grade of merchantable oorn (and seed of the greatest vigor and vitality) during average years followed up by the practice of seleoting each subsequent year's supply of seed from a field in whioh you have carefully out out all barren and diseased stalks before they formed their pollen, and by storing each year's supply of seed in a dry, airy place, you will not only be reasonably sure of a first-class supply of seed, but yon will seoure a considerably larger yield, of a much better grade of oorn. This alone should inorease your ave rage yield more than 15 bushels per acre. Then by being sure that you are planting seed from a highly-bred variety whioh has been bred very free from the curse of barrenness and its attendant degeneracy dry rot, smut, indolenoe, disease, and genaral organio langor, you will without doubt increase your yield another 15 bushels per acre. J. C. Suffern. Piatt Co., m. HARRY FARMER'S TALES. LVII. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. The high price of eggs has put people to thinking up some plan to make the hens lay more during the months of November and Deoember. When eggs are worth, at the country store from 18 to 20 cents per dozen, and very scarce at that, it should stimulate us to greater efforts. Mary Jane has had a plenty for home use and sells some every few days ; sold enough to supply us with ChriPt mas goods. You must not think this just luok, but simply the result of PROPERLY FEEDING THE HENS. It is just the harvest of what we sow. It takes a certain amount of different materials to produoe an egg. You cannot produoe eggs from corn and nothing else. An egg con tains but little fat, the thing that oorn produces most of. Now if you feed hens exclusively on corn and not allow them any other food, even if they are laying well, they will stop in a short time. The combs of many hens have a bright oolor and look the very picture of health, but they do not lay. A olose examina tion will show that they are very fat. Someone is asking himself , "What must I do?" Here is what one farmer did : He gave his hens some Epsom salts and stopped giving them so much corn, so that they had to hustle around the farm after something to eat They had to hunt bugs, worms and grass seeds. This required a great deal of soratching, furnishing the proper exeroise,v and gave tbema balanced ration. HOW HARRY'S CHICEENS ARE FED. Mary Jane took the small bones from pg' feet and, instead of throw ing them aay for somebody's old suck egg dog to eat, gave them t her hen. The best poultry raisers say that bone is the ideal food t produce ess. vvhen the pigs ure slaughtered all the 8 rap3 and blood are given to the hens. During the very cold weather oats (sheaf oats) are given in th morning, whic ) the hens scratch in nil day. S -.me times cow peas are fed tb same way. It is nice to see the hens take a pod and thresh the peas out. In the late afternoon, just a little before sun set, a feed of whole corn is given. You see all these things are found on every farm. It is not necessary to send away to get the high-priced feeds advertised, when you have the same ingredients or can raise them at home. Egg farming is very profitable, but to feed a large number of hens whioh only lay 7-cent eggs is not. Harry Farmer. Columbus Co , N. C. Teaoher 'Johnny, you may de fine the first person." Johnny "Adam." VEGETABLE MATTES IN THE FAEH. Dr. J. B. Hunnioutt, several of whose letters on the importance of better soil tillage have appeared in The Progressive Farmer,- writes in the Southern Cultivator as follows : Now, while the long nights are upon us, is a good time to plan for our future farming operations. Our success in the long run depends upon the planning we do. Of course our reading and discussions with other farmers will help us in making our plans wisely. Successful- farming is not the result of aooident or haphaz ard. LiOng and careful thought is neoessary to settle upon the wisest ways and best methods. Very, very many things oome into t the plans of the man who gets well paid for his sweat and toil. Science and experiment have done and are doing much to assist us in this great work. But nature's ways are often so very simple that we are slow to learn them because they are simple. We are looking for some thing very difficult. Failing to find that we entirely overlook the plain and simple plans by which nature's great works are done. HUMUS. This substance is essential to suc cessful farming. If this is deficient the orop is disappointing. If it is plentiful a good orop grows oven though the soil seemed otherwise sterile. Exaotly what it is would be hard to explain. It is, perhaps, easier to tell whence it comes and what it does. i Vegetable matter decaying in the soil will produoe something that darkens the oolor and improves the texture of the soil. At the same time it greatly increases the power of the soil to hold moisture and to absorb heat from the sunshine. Thus the soil will be warm earlier in spring. This is often the turning point in a crop. The earth, being more porous, will drink in the rain water and prevent washing, and at the same time the surplus water will sink rapidly be low and leave the upper soil in a fine condition for work, for early plant ing and for aeration. So, in this way the humus greatly helps the work of dissolving the mineral elements of plant food ready for use. This is perhaps its most important function. This work seems to be almost entirely sus pended in fields where there is no humus. Bat it is very active where there is plenty of humus. This seems to be the ultimate prin ciple whioh starts the dormant seed into active life. If this is true then we cannot be too careful to do every thing in our power to increase the quantity of humus in our farms. USINO VEGETABLE MATTER. The question then is, What can we do? We oan look after the vege table matter that is in our reaoh. We can grow more of it and be more careful to put it into the soil. We can cease to burn the grass and stubble and leaves and brush and straw and everything else that will burn. We can distribute these various kinds of waste to better purpose and turn them into the thirsty soil with more care. A few oak leaves buried in a f ur ro v will often more than double the crop of sweet potatoes. The s.ime is true, if we put a little wheat or oat straw in the furrow -with the Irish potatoes. Malchiag is helpful to very many crops because the rot ing of the bot torn of the vegetable iratter used greatly increases the humus in the soil. If we utterly destroy the' fertility af a pieoa of land, so that it refuses to make a crop, and then let the land alone, nature at once seeks some form of vegetation, whioh will grow and fall and rot. This soon restores the fertility to the exhausted soil. FEEDING CATTLE AND SAVING MANURE. We can greatly increase the profit and promptness of the process by feeding many kinds of vegetation to cattle. The cattle will grow, make beef, milk and butter, and then give us the refuse from their own bodies, so mixed with the refuse of the food, that the manure is worth as xnuoh as if we had put the whole upon the land. No matter how it is used so it is all s&ved and used. As we have so often said before, the profit in using commercial fer tilizers is very muoh greater on land well supplied with rotting vegetable matter. The humus makes the plants hungry for potash and phos phorio and ammonia. If these are then supplied we not only get a good growth but a fine yield in fruit. Good winter work oan be done In hauling in all available leaves, straw and suoh like, and using it in bedding and then, after catching the liquid manure from the animals, carefully distributing it upon the fresh -plowed and harrowed fields. Suoh work will pay in the next season's crops and in the permanent upbuilding of ths farm. Peas, clover, beans and suoh crops help to create humus, and this in creases the fertility of the farm. DIVERSIFIED FARMING. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Although the leaders in modern scientific agrioulture tell us that specialization must beoome more and more the feature of farming in the future, it must be impressed upon the average farmer that he has to take this advice in a modified form. Some seotions of the oountry are learning that specialization in farm ing or horticulture is dangerous, for when disaster oomes to that region everything is ruined. The South raised nearly all cotton at one time, and lost heavily every year that the crop was too large or it failed to pro duoe a fair yield. Now farmers raise other things beside cotton in the South, and they are doing better in their diversified farming than ever before. By not pinning all their f atb. , to one crop they are " pretty sure of something for the year's out lay of time and labor. Likewise the farmers of Florida, while still rais ing oranges, do not exclude other crops, but year by year they are in creasing the variety of their fruits and truck vegetables. In other words, the man who puts all his eggs in one basket may sooner or later lose all in one aooident. Specialism in farming is needed ap to the point of knowing all there is to be known concerning one, two or three crops. That is the specialism we want on all farms to-day, whether they are in the North, South, East or West. The farmer who oan raise the finest possible orop of wheat or oorn, breed exoellent sheep, cows, or pigs and add a small fruit or vege table garden to the place knows well that he has provided against ordi nary accidents of weather, drought and inseots. It is not too muoh to ask any farmer to study three crops like these so that he oan excel in all. He may make cne his special hobby and oarry it to a degree of suocess that will overshadow all others, but he needs a sheet anchor to windward that may come in to save him in time of a storm. Drifting from one crop to another is one of the worst praotioes so prevalent in most parts of the oountry. We heard of some body else striking it exceptionally rich in some crop we have not culti vated, and forthwith we abandon crops whioh we know something about and try the new with which we have had no experience. Natur ally we fail to attain expected re sults, and the next year another re por6 of somebody else's success with another crop stimulates us to imi tate him. Thus we may abandon one crop after another, and reach out for vain things. We oannot suc oeed in this way because the knowl edge which we purchase with expe rience is lost each year, and hence we make no advancement. We must pin our faith to a few crops, and make them our specialties, studying them in the light of modern knowl edge and personal experience which will enable us to improve a little eaoh year. A. B. Barrett. Minnesota. m e - 1 Clover shades the soil and thus re tains its moisture. It roots deep and thus breaks up the scil for the reception of fertilizing elements from the atmosphere. HEW 8 OP THE FAEHING VOSLD. Our Washington Correspondent Tails What Progress is Being Made in the Various Seotions of the Country. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. I met Mr. Wilson, Secretary of Agrioulture, yesterday and asked him what he thought of the Inter national Live Stock Exposition. "Grand ! grand !" he exolaimed. "I never saw its equal. It was not the size of the show that appealed to me but the immense number of. pure bred animals, every one of whioh possessed exceptional merit. My only regret was that I did not have more time to study them. Cattle, sheep, swine, every department was filled and everywhere the same per fection of the breeders and feeders' art was evident." In reply to my inquiry as to what was the ohief lesson to be learned from the show, the Secretary said that from his standpoint "the pre eminent praotioal ability of the Station men" was most notable and gratifying. "It has been ous tomary in the past," he continued, "for the farmers and breeders to re gard the soientifio men in charge of the agricultural experiment stations as more or less visionary and im praotioal, up in the olouds, so to speak, but the Station men brought their fat a took into the ring and beat the practical feeders and breed ers at their own game and demon strated beyond any question of a doubt that their methods were as oorreot from a practical as from a soientifio standpoint." The fears felt for THE FUTURE OF THE POTATO, owing to the fact that it has for so long been cultivated exclusively from "eyes" and not from seed, have been increased by news received from France describing a new potato disease that is ravaging the fields there. It is well known that all plants propagated by the above means gradually lose their vigor and in time after a century or two be come so emasculated that they lose the power of produoing seed and be oome subject to diseases that would not have affected them during the days of their pristine vigor. The disease now ruining the plants in Franoe is said to be identical with that whioh onoe attaoked tomatoes and egg plants in this oountry, but whioh was then resisted by the po tato, which now, in Franoe at least, seems to have beoome subjeot to it. The only remedy so far found is to revert to seeding a difficult task, in view of the fact that not one po tato plant in a hundred now matures its seed. SEED FOR DISTRIBUTION. The Department of Agriculture is getting ready to distribute some of the several carloads of foreign seeds received last season from the Medi terranean countries and the Trans Caspian region. In the "oradle of the world" the Department explor ers found many curious plants, grown by the natives from time im memorial. At any rate the Depart part ment and the experiment sta tions are testing a large number of new species as well as supposed im proved varieties of some of our staple crops. ROTATION OF CROPS Cnp rotation has long been recog nized as a first principle of farming; but the reasons for suoh benefits and the best systems to be followed have been studied only in recent years. The Department of Agriculture and many of the experiment statiors have been carrying on some inter esting work along this line. The ob ject to be attained in a system of rotation are the maintenance of fer tility with the continued production of crops and the increase in product iveness of naturally poor or of worn out soils. The reasons for rotating crops are stated to be as follows : All plants do not draw to an equal extent extent upon the manurial in gredients of the soil. They send their roots to different depths and have a different solvent action upon the constituents they reach. By rotating crops insect enemies are more apt to be dispersed. Fungous diseases may also be ma terially reduced. Weeds are more readily eliminated, the soil is maintained in good tilth, the humus compounds of the soil in creased, and the work of the farm more easily distributed. Any scheme of rotation should have the growing of at least onj leguminous crop in its plan. By thU means large gains of nitrogen may be made from the air. Potash and phosphoric acid, unless already in the soil, must be supplied by com mercial fertilizers. In the case of very poor soil it is not advisable to remove the orops unless the manure is returned until a fair state of fer tility has been reacheo. Stock rais ing, dairying, and poultry raising are profitable lines of agrioulture to carry on in a scheme for improving the fertility of poor soils. A rota tion for dairy farms recommended by the New Jersey Station consists of (1) Field corn, seeded to crimson clover in July or August. 2. Crimson clover followed by fodder corn, land seeded to winter rye. 3. Rye fodder, followed by oata and peas, seeded to red clover and timothy, and 4. Hay. A three-year rotation for the South reoommended by the Louisiana Station is (1) corn; (2) oats, followed by cow peas ; (3) oofc. ton. A soheme of rotation suited to any individual case cannot be laid down. It will depend upon the soil, climate, market and to some extent on the season. A. B. Marriott. Washington, D. C. WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED. Asked by the News and Observer for a Thanksgiving sentiment, Mr. O. W. Blacknall, of Vance county, . sent this Not wjthin living memory has nature been eo unkind to her chil dren in North Carolina as in this the first year of the 20th century. , Yet we may be thankful that she has taught us, by a cruel drubbing, it is true, but in the only way in which man, the only dunce in her school' is ever taught anything four in valuable lessons : 1. That reckless deforestation is suioide. 2 The imperative need of an effi--oient system of terracing to prevent soil erosion by means of whioh vastly more fertility is annually lost in tho State than the value of all the com- meroiaiiertiiizers oougnt ;ana wnicn would within ten years double the value of all the hilly or even rolling arable land in North Caaolina. 3. The futility of overcropping and underoultivating. 4. The unwisdom of single crop ping of putting all the eggs in one basket. . PROFIT IU PECANS. The only drawbaok is the rather long time required to bring a grovo into bearing. The trees are healthy and long lived, and produce abund ant crops when of sufficient age. II has been found possible to success fully top-work trees, even of consid erable size, by summer budding, whioh is the best and cheapest way to establish groves of named varie ties. The continued planting of pecans is heartily reoommended. The ordinary distance for planting, 40 to 10 feet each way, is so great that while the trees are young they will interfere but little with the use of the land for other purp ;ses -Director W. C. Stubbs, Louisiana Experiment Station. I know a number of farmer.? who haul their manure out and put it in , small piles on the plowed ground, ' where they leave it until they are ready to harrow, when it is scat tered I think this is a mistake, for the ground under the heaps gets more fertility than it needs, at least if there is rain, while the ret of the ground does not get its jut share. I get good results from manure by scattering on clover sod just after the clover is cut for hay, where I leave it till spring, then plow for oorn or do ta toes. D B. Bntler. Kr km an, Pa. v A A
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Jan. 7, 1902, edition 1
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