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h Vol. 16. J ft 1 I THE INDUSTRIAL AHD EDUCATIONAL IHTERESIB OF OUE PEOPLE PARAHOUIT? TO ALL GUIS O0EIDZ!IAjI03 07 STATE FOHCY. Raleigh, II. C, February .4, 1902. llo. 51 t - Agricufcure. Hbly corn and sohe other mat- TEES. Correspondence of The Kroereive Farmer. North Carolinians are a great peo--10, They are not easily snowed un der by common trifles. They are not ftpt to turn until .they look their mistakes squarely in the faoe. "Rik all to gain or lose,' is a bad rtine for our sensible farmers. Money crops help the well to do, but the gall farmer who has a orowd of Idren to feed, clothe and educate, tas no money to lose at any game of cianoe. The past year shows many gliortixges in crops of various kinds. Bat do not look at shortages too long, 12 rise and come again. The earli est crop known to me for man and beast if Adams Extra Early corn, ith land very rich and well plowed, tken throw up four furrows with tsaing plow ; open in ridge lightly fid tal tongue ; cover shallow with toe about eight inches apart. About 8 for coming np, have rioh well rotted manure and strew on the corn in furrow from one end to the other, ten corn is well up give the oorn a nrfaoe hoeing and then plow out rows close and throw up well to oorn. After about seven days another sur I f&ce hoeing and you may have hard corn by the middle of July, j t Soft corn for table and stook and loiier for hordes. Divide oorn with 1 jots horses. I have grown this oorn forinore than ten years. The ears ire abort and plump and sell here readily at ten or fifteen cents per dozen. This, you must recollect, is Guilford county, N. C. You in the "Jilt may do better. What will suit '-a tIaca -will not be the thine: for irery State and condition. One year "sold my whole crop at twenty-five ats rer dozen. But more people fl in the growing of this corn than :ceei. Plant from the 6th of Irch up to May. My next choice Mammoth Sweet, a very large ear Girien or English peas may be plated by the fourteenth of Febru "hryjhave often planted in Novem- ntejtat with not much earlier fruit j fcjud the yield not so good. Vege- aa lands cannos ce piowea too alia when dry. Also insects are tpttobeless damaging, h all my planting, I have the Opt elevated some. My plan for nailing is between eaoh row. Hili- I ili terracing by having eaoh row Rccastruciea taat every ruw uuu- fcoiits water and not go too far in fcfi iamt direction. Change the fcno as to have no wash when the rrfice water is well controlled and f . . i ticrough culture fifteen inones do danger. R. R. Moore. - Gilford Co., N. G. CLEAEIXQ A PINE THICKET. pondence of The Proscressive Farmer. I have an old field of thirty acres Pn thick with small pines. I to prepare the land for wheat, en ig the best time to out down pine?? Should the brush be fcxed to rot or is it best to burn as fc3 as dry? How long a time will require for the stumps to rot? 7 will average about five inohes kii&meter. H. O. A. Wilkes Co., N. C. Buppoae our correspondent tes to sow the wheat next fall, know of no special advantage ona eeason has over another in -a-ter of cutting the pines, ex- that they should not be cut a '-the sap is up," if other pine is near by which 4fl.atheada" bag!," might attack. The rot- Sbruth would add seme humus to but beins so muon in tne it is usually tetter to burn it. scan nn -t skv how lonff it will take j j stu'iips to rot; we know only ' lield pine, compared with '0t:.;r tree?, rots very rapidly. Graphic: Corn is now 50 par barrel and meal k . The farmer who last Uis hopes in cotton and 1 cut his feed crop, feels -i'-'i'H large supply of auto eking machines and getting pioxiinity to all of them. UETV f THE FAEHIITG "V70ELD. Oar w&r agton Correipondeut Telli What ProgTf ii Being Had in the Yariom Sectio of the Country. Correap dence of The Progressive Farmer. A port received at the Depart menf i Agriculture notes the oon struo.ioa of a device whioh will no doubt be very usefui to gardeners. The maohine is designed to destroy weeds in drives and walks by means of direct heat of burning fuel brought to bear on the surf aoe of the walk, charring and killing all weeds, grasses and fallen seeds. It consists mainly of an inolosed fire box for holding burning ooke and a drum containing a fan for creating a draf t . When drawn over the ground and allowed to stand still for a few seconds, it is eaid to be very efficient and to do away with the expensive work of hoeing drives, paths, or the use of arsenical poisons, hot water, salt and like destroyers. GROWING EGYPTIAN COTTON. The Agricultural Department re ports success of the experiments made in Arizona with growing the long statle Egyptian cotton under irrigation. Attempts were made to grow this variety in the Southern States, but the climate was not dry enough to warrant any further trials. If Egyptian ootton can be grown in Arizona and New Mexico through irrigation, it would mean a saving of at $8,000,000 a year to this country, as we annually import that amount. 0ving to the similarity between the valleys of Southern Arizona, New Mexico and Old Mexico to the valley Of the Nile soil and climate and the neoessity for irrigation there is every reason to believe that we should be able to produce all of our "Egyptian" cotton at home. THE FIGHT AGAINST OLEO FRAUDS. The Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives has agreed upon a bill in regard to the manufacture and sale of oleomar garine, which it is stated, embraces all the best provisions of the Grout Bill of last year together with a few additions whioh seem to strengthen the measure. The bill agreed upon by the com mittee places a tax of ten cents a pound upon all imitations colored to resemble butter and a tax of only one fourth a cent a pound upon un oolored imitations. This is the prin ciple championed by General Grout while he was engaged in this fight. It puts a premium upon the honest marketing of butter imitations. The Committee has also inserted an amendment defining a manufac turer of oleomargarine in whioh it is explained that "any person that sells, vends or furnishes oleomargarine for the use and consumption of ethers, except to his own family and guests thereof, without compensa tion, who shall add to, or mix with such oleomargarine any ingredient or coloration that causes it to look like batter shall also be held to be a manufacturer of oleomargarine." The oleo advocates in presenting their side of the case, have dwelt upon the wholesomeness and purity of their products, while the pure butter people nave tried to make plain the fact that the fight is not upon oleomargarine as such, but against the frauds whioh are com mitted by the producers and handlers of that commodity. If the law is strictly enforced there will.be no objeot for the retailer to sell the imitation produot as pure butter, charging butter prices for it, for the tax will bring the retail prioe to approximately the average of butter prices. The sole purpose then of coloring tho imitation to resemble butter wilt be to cater to the trade, preferring the imitation to the real, but whioh dislikes the white appearance of the former in its proper state and is willing to pay an extra price for the indulgence of this taste. THE CATTLE QUARANTINE. The Bureau of Animal Industry has just issued an order making sev oral alterations and changes in the Texas fever quarantine line. In California, San Benite county is taken out of quarantine. In Okla homa parts of several counties are taken out while in Tennessee quite a change is made in the distriot for merly under quarantine. Special quarantine J s placed upon oertain counties in Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina and Virginia. Guy E. Mitchell. Washington, D. C. The Department of Agriculture reports that at least 8,000,000 oopies of farmers' bulletins will have to be prinied this year to meet the de mand. SAVING WHAT YOU MAKE. The waste on Southern farms is much greater than most of us appre ciate. It begins in the manure heap, and extends in every department of farm management. ' We let our manure waste and leach and then make expensive pur chases of chemical plant food. We let our barns and fences and tools and houses rot for want of whitewash and paint and shelter and oare. Our cattle and live stock of all kinds are stunted by exposure and food. This is a great waste. We ffaste our hay crops by failing to out and cure and market with proper care and intelligence. Our ootton seed are not fully econo mized and our oorn stalks are Viot appreciated. Our ootton is poorly ginned, badly baled and then exposed to all sorts of weather and foolish treatment. Dr. J. B. Hunnioutt. 7 ASM NOTES FBOM CRAVEN. Jorreapondeuce of The Progressive Farmer. Notwithstanding the general fail ure of most crops in our oounty to come near the general standard, yet the farmers generally are pushing on the work for 1902 with zeal and oheerfulness. The eastern part of our oounty is put largely in truck. . Some have cabbage and peas followed by ootton, and potatoes followed by oorn or bay. There is not muoh anticipated change in acreage of the leading crops, ex cept perhaps a larger area in to bacco in the western end of the county. As the tobaooo farmers beat the cotton farmers very muoh last year in prices, others seem induced to try the weed this year, so there may be ten per cent, increase in the acreage. Cabbage plants have been killed in the fields worse than usual in many fields and there are not enough plants in the oounty to replant. Fall oats have "-been killed muoh worse than usual, and those not killed have hardly made enough growth to see them above ground, owing, we suppose, to continued oold in November and most of Deoember. We have had some nioe weather for work in January, and farmers are using every hour available, some even plowing when the ground is frozen an inoh or two. Early pet.s are being planted for the Northern market and land and compost preparing lor Irish pota toes, the pxanting of 'whioh usually begins in our oounty about the mid die of February. Some turnips are planted for mar ket and these, if they fail to sell well, come in very fine for stook where corn and "hay are short. And corn is short both ways this winter, short in quantity and quality ; more rotten and inferior corn than we ever knew before in proportion.. The outlook for strawberries is not si good as usual at this season as plants have hardly yet begun to show green, though farmers are top dressing and mulching with pine straw. 3D. L. Craven Co., N. C. The reports received at the Bureau of Forestry show that many farmers, particularly those in Western States, have been planting trees for com bined windbreaks and wood lots. Too many farmers in our own seo tion have old patches of worn out land which oould bo advantageously turned into a wood lot, and at no particular expense of either money or labor. This would tend too, to improve the land. Live Stock. THE LIVE STOCK INDUSTRY VS. THE SOUTH. Feeding the Dairy Herd. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. A little discussion of the principles of feeding farm animals will doubt less not be out of plade at this time. The feeding of animals in the most satisfactory way calls for skill and training of a not common kind. In the beginning, I think the reader will agree with me that the maj arity of us are feeding in a manner pretty muoh slip-shod and by guess. We want the herd to pay us a good profit, but deoline to give it any at tention or oare Feeding the dairy herd by simply guess work is neither business like nor profitable. A man would soon make an utter failure on a locomo tive if he knew nothing about oon trolling the engine or regulating the steam. In other words, he is trained to a oertain extent in the funda mental principles of locomotive prao tice. The successful feeder must likewise be trained in .the funda mental principles of feeding. If he is very accomplished in the art, then he can feed beef and sheep and swine to top the best markets in the country, or he can feed the very highly organized maohine the cow so that she may produce three pounds of butter in a day. What are THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF FEEDING? If the reader will follow us, we will try to be brief and plain in this dis cussion. In a previous artiole we paid the plant fed from the air and the soil ; and that the animal fed from the plant ; arid that the soil and air in their turn got their constituents from both plant and animal when they died. We are interested here, simplj -in the relation of the plant to the animal. The animal feeds from the plant, we fay. What does it get? Those ingredients necessary for the growth of the animal. When the plant was growing it was simply building tissue, and this tissue the scientist classifies as ash, water, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. That is all there is to these names : they simply stand for an ingredient or constituent of the plant. These have been made from the elements of the air and soil like nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, etc. The animal cannot grow by being fed nitrogen, phosphoric aoid and pot ash, but must be fed plant tissue or animal tissue whioh has been built by plant tissue. So without further discussion, the food of the animal consists of the plant ; or ash, water, proiein, carbohydrates and fat whioh make up the plant. WHAT THESE CONSTITUENTS OF THE PLANT DO. I. Ash. The ash of a feeding stuff is the-part left after being burned. In an hundred parts of pasture grass there are 2.5 pounds of ash. Indian oorn has only 1.5 pounds of ash in a hundred, while red clover hay has 6.2 pounds. The reader readily recognized that the ash in plants is necessary lor the ash in animals for making bones, nails, horns, etc. Because the plants ordinarily con tain, when fed in the variation they usually are, sufficient quantity of ash material, the feeder is not con cerned in furnishing ash material as food. II. Water. The- water in plants varies from 75.3 per oent. in pasture grass to as low as 5 per cent, in some of the concentrated feeding stuffs. Inasmuch as the feeder does not depend upon the water content of feed stuffs for water supply for the animal, we can dismiss this matter without further thought. - III. Protein. The protein of a food stuff has nitrogen as its basis. It is the part of a plant that when fed to animals goes to produce lean meat in the animal, and blood, and nerves, and organs, milk, and that class of tissue in the animal. These parts of the animal are produced only from the protein of the food. IV. Fat. Both plants and animals contain this substance. When an animal feeds, the fat of the plant ia stored in the system as fat or is burned to produoe heat or furnish energy. V. Carbohydrates. Found in plants, inoluding starch, gums, sugar, fiber, eto. This group is the largest part of our foods and goes to produce fat in milk, heat in the body, fat in the body and muscular energy. This grouping divides the food stuffs into five divisions. ThQ feeder should fix the names in his mind and acquaint himself with the work each does in animal building and animal production. In our next artiole we will discuss the relation these groups have to eaoh other and what each means in making up rations and feeding the farm animals. Charles Wm. Burkett. N. C. A. and M. College. SHEEP IN THE SOUTH A SUMMARY. XXIV. s Slows ess and Prejudice Preparation Wit ter Pasture Spring Suyisg Cheap Sheep or High Grades Agricultural Colleges Sheep as a Fertilizing Agenoy- The Rela tion of Sheep Raising to Southern Aricul ture. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Many times have I wished that I had not promised another and final ohapter in this series on sheep, not that I did not wish to write it, but because I became so busy arranging for the purchase and oare of a nam ber of flocks in Iredell oounty. In this work I have come face to faoe with about all the difficulties in the way of introducing sheep hus bandry in the South. The first thing to do is to form a resolution in the mind of the farmer or planter to set the sheep. In this seotion I find many who have reasoned and inves tigated and oome to a deoision to get them ; but they are so slow. Why since I came here I have had muoh correspondence from the North and already one gentleman, Mr. Sher man, from Northern Ohio, came to me to look over the country and I had no trouble in selling him a farm of 120 acres on whioh he purposes to move this spring, with 100 sheep. He is a veterinary surgeon, has kept sheep and understands his business. I may state here that nine-tenths of the things that prevent favorable decisions as to buying sheep may be summed up in one word : prejudice. In trying to remove these prejudices I am often led to think of the ob stinate witness who saw a post that was painted blaok on one side. He said it was a blaok post and stub bornly refused to walk around it and see that it was also red, blue and white. The poor fellow lived and diecl saying it was only a blaok post ! Some think a great preparation is necessary before getting the sheep. When they are to be bought late in the fall, it is necessary to have win tering prepared and shelter and likely some extra fencing. At the time of writing this chapter the winter buying is about past and few will be purohased between now and mid-summer, whioh is really as good a time as any to buy, all things con sidered ; yet the kind of sheep to be bought often ohanges this condition To be ready for sheep next winter one oan prepare fully this oqming summer by arranging to have plenty of hay or fodder and oorn or ootton seed for the number of sheep one in tends to start with. If the par pose is to have and fatten "spring lambs" the food prepare! should be suitable and for any wintering inr the South it is surely advisable to provide win ter pasture by sowing liberally of rye, etc., in August or first of Sep tember and to so w it thicklv. n or the winter lamb market- the dry ewes or t yearling ewes must be bought early in the spring to mate them with the ram in June and July, so as to have the lambs drop in No vember and Deoember ; but if they are to be wintered and fed off to market as yearlings in April, March or May, they may best be lambed in April and May. In either case pro vide so as to keep them growing and fat all the time until they get to market. ' Furthermore it is always a loss to let any sheep rundown poor and have them to build up again. It may be well for those who have no experience with sheep to buy cheap low-priced ewes and build up a high grade flock ; but in the- ma jority of cases where sheep papers and books are available and expert enoed advice near by, it will pay best to buy the high grade ewes and con tinue the building up work. The higher the grade bought, even to thoroughbreds, the better for v the purchaser .unless he has to pav exor bitant prices. It does not require muoh more feed for a sheep that will shear ten pounds than for one that will shear five pounds, and still not muoh more for one shearing fifteen pounds than for one shearing ten pounds. The labor attending the, heavy shearers is not muoh increased over attending the lighter shearers. Common sense, reason and practice will prove these things clearly. In these chapter I have so often referred to the condition of Southern agriculture that it seems unnecessary to do so again. It is enough here to refer to the fact that it is not paying as it should pay. The agriculture of the lower Southern States is not paying like that of Kentucky, Indi ana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. Neither are the lands of the former increasing in fertility as the lands of the latter are. Twenty-five to fifty years more of the old farming meth ods would have brought to the former poverty and sterility while the latter shall still more bloom in richness and fruit in productiveness. V There would have oome a humilia tion to the people of the South and a yawning gulf of differenoa between the people of the two sections that a hundred years would not see ob literated. But this extent of difference is not to oome for the race of the two sec tions is the same ; they are equal in ability and in purpose one. Excelsior quickens the intelligence of both and the two rising genera tion of. the South are seeing the situation and intuitively rising to the , exigency and grasping the conditions with a determination to conaner and succeed. They will master the new progress ive agrioulture;that shall supplant the old; and no country like the South- Land will respond to the new treat ment more bountifully. The agricultural colleges of the 8outh are a progressive part of this new work. Of these I am pleased to note that our own North Carolina Agricultural and Mechanical College is ably, practically and persistently pointing but and leading the way up ward," although not yet receiving one-fourth the support either from the Legislature or the people that it merits and must eventually have. In this great work of progressive agriculture the domestic animals must constitute at least one-third of the agencies brought into service,; for they consume the produots of the earth and return the fertilizing ele- ments again to the soil. For this purpose, all things con sidered, no animal excels the sheep. Her fleece will comfortably py her way, with some additional profit every year, while her increase in numbers from the age of two years and oh will more than equal that of any other stock It is in her capacity as a fertilizing agenoy, after all, that the main supe riority of sheep over other animals becomes apparent and useful. Hav ing specifically explained this in a previous ohapter, I will not reiterate here," but will say that there are as yet but few and small sections of the United States where this usefulness of the sheep is fully demonstrated and utilized. The Northwest and Southwest makea very large profit out of the wool and mutton of sheep, while the use of its fertilizing products is prac tically lost. Even in the most im- - proved sections of the Northeast where sheep have long been kept, their fertilizing agency seems to be but half understood and generally appropriated. Just here I point out as a fact that CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 r 1
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 4, 1902, edition 1
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