Newspapers / The progressive farmer. / Feb. 25, 1902, edition 1 / Page 1
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n THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIOKAL INTERESTS OP OU2 PEOPLE PARAHOUHT TO ALL 0mS2 (XB8ID2EAS20EB 0? STATE POLICY. Vol. 17. Raleigh, N. 0., February 25, 1902. ITo. 3 Agriculture. HARRY FASHES 8 TALIS. LXII. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. We were travelling on the train a few days ago and noticed what was being done on the farms along the railroad. We noticed on a large farm a pieoe of land whioh hud no crop on it last year. The owner ia a good business man and looks after his money very carefully, but this spring he will bay fertilizer at a high prioe, and haul ditoh bank and woods mould to try to make a crop on that land. If he had planted cow peas he could have added nitrogen and humus in that soil besides getting hog feed enough to pay all the expense of the crop of peas. Thi fame farmer complains that he cannot raise as many pounds of cotton to the acre as he did a few years ao with the same amount of fertilizer. 11 land is what' we would call the ideal soil to hold ma nure, it b ing nearly level with a clay subsoil. This same land has produced as high as 1,600 pounds of seed cotton to the acre with the ap plication of 200 pounds of Peruvian guano per acre. The fertilizer used just stimulated.the crop and caused it to use up all the humus in the toil. Heavy applications of nitro gen have the same effect onland when applied in a concentrated form like nitrate of soda, sulphate of am monia, fih scrap, slaughter house refuse, tankage, dried blood, cotton seed meal and Peruvian guano that whiskey has on a man : it stimulates for a short time only to leave the yiotim weaker than before using. mm Where fowl house or stable ma nure is ued year after year none of these bad tfffcts are seen. Now in order to keep up the fertility of the soil you must get something in the soil as nearly like stable manure as you can and there is nothing that will do this with as little cost as cow peas. This is not the only man that complains of this condition, for you will find them scattered all over the country. On another farm we saw two larg e horses, each one hitched to a single plow, with two men plowing. They were tot plowing more than five or The cotton and corn stalks had to be knocked down which took the labor of several ethers. Now this man is often short of help and tries to look after bis business with the eye of an eagle and st:p every leak, yet he does not know that a cutaway harrow would to &11 this work and do it better, thus saving more than one-half the cost. Trim or prune the grape vines be fore the sap starts up. Im rot be in a hurry to plow the enn n tied corn land unless it is dry. T.'j early plowing may make infects n,' re troublesome. Crops in this -'ion grow better on late plowed Harry Farmer. Columbus Co., N. C. i-irn ers agree that the fall oats ' . e nbout all been killed in the r -.ml by the severity of this win ter .- wea her. The fall sown oats ar tho prinoipal dependence, so far this crop is concerned, the spring 4 rarely ever amounting to much. C mins on the heels of the failure of the corn crop last year, this loss oftheotkts crop will prove serious. A 1 wheat i looking none too well. harlotte Observer. ' nr farmers, are hard at work get ready to make a orop. There ' 1 be 5 per cent, more tobaooo nted this year than last, and we ' " 1 1 make a better crop; if we i t, I think we had better stop try ' t-) n alcei tobacco at all. Theoot- m rrop win be cut short 75 percent t there will be more home supplies nted than usual, such as corn, nuts and potatoes. D. MoCain. Carteret Co., N. C. WASHER COUNTY FASH NOTES. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. Since the present oold snap, the farming people have not done muoh farm work except get wood and make fires. Very few have been able to burn plant land. If all reports are true, there wil be a short orop of cotton planted this year in this oommunlty. Every body, it seems, is turning hii at A a a a m m teniion to tobaooo; nence we may look for low prices for the weed next fall. The ourtailing of the cotton acre age is caused partly by the unoer tainty of labor, whioh is getting scarcer every year. The young men, both white and oolored, as soon as they grow up are looking elsewhere for support and work, and in most cases they are finding it. There are at this day and time very little in duoements to hold the young men or even boys, on the farm. In some instances whole families are leaving and flocking to the oities to work their girls and boys in faotories Now this ought not to be, and t remedy ought to be had. And as soon as the farm work opens or starts, the children, or a large number of them, will be taken away from sohool to work on the farm and can be seen in the oorn fields, or ootton and tobacco patches. Ruralist. Warren Co., N. C. TABU NOTES FROM PASQUOTANK. Jorreepondenoe of The Progressive Farmer. The present winter has been the coldest on reoord in this part of the State. This county generally plants a large acreage in truck, but owing to high price of peas, very few have been planted. We have a canning factory at Elizabeth City and many farmers plant peas for the factory, which pays 50 cents per bushel. There will be an increase in the Irish potato acreage. Some of our farmers have bought a lerson at a very high prioe. They depended on ootton for their money crop ; the price and orop both were short, and we find them buying corn at 70 cents and meat at 10 cents. Cabbage plants have been killed worse than usual. The ground has been frozen so as to retard plowing ever since February came in, but if warm weather will come soon, and stay oy us, tne farmers will scon oome to the front. Pasquotank Co., N. J. T. B. C. AN INQUIRY ANSWERED BY HARRY FARMER. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. 1. How does Harry Farmer use sul phate of potash, etc.? Does he sow it in drill after being mixed? Have rows 3 feet apart and plant my sweet potatoes 11 to 18 inohes in the row. 2. Is there any difference in the ohemioals, etc., for Irish potatoes? J. B. Brunswick Co , N. C. (Answered by Harry Farmer.) 1. Lay off rows with a plow or drag ; j ist mark the land so you can drill the manure, then sow the potash and phosphate on the manure separately. Do not mix the potash and phosphate, as they would undergo a chemical change which would injure them for fertilizers. 2. See Talk No. 61 for Irish pota toes. The same potash would do but you need more phosphate and am monia for this crop. Sweet potatoes growing during the hottest part of the summer when nitrogen is most active do not require, as muoh quick aottng nitrogenous manure as the Irish potato crop, but needs more humus or vegetable matter in the soil. Hence the large application or manure recommended for sweet po tatoes. Representative Burlison, of Texas, stated to the House Committee on Agriculture last week thai 240,000 bales of Texas cotton valued at $10,- 000,000 were destroyed last year by the Mexican weevil. The oommittee inserted a $20,000 item in the agri cultural appropriation bill to be im mediately available to eradioate the pest. CANNINu FACTORIES WOULD PAY FARM ERS. They Should be Established all Over the South No Section Better Adapted to Them B ut Up by Home Capital. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. The South's great benefit is to be derived from manufacturing. Your supremaoy as an agricultural region is recognized, but the lino of the greatest operations will be in the establishment of factories and mills to convert your produce into finished articles for the market. I know nothing that would pay more than canning factories. They require COMPARATIVELY SMALL CAPITAL, stimulate the farming olass to grow a greater variety of produots by affording them a oheap market at their own doors, give employment to numbers of persons, male and female, who would otherwise have none, and send out a valuable food product whioh will return money to circulate in domestic channels. An other advantage is that the industry can be built by home capital. A canning factory is, in every re speot, a home industry. The South raises nearly every variety of fruit and vegetables, and the industry would thrive there. Especially would it be an advantage to small towns. THE BEST PAYING PRODUCTS to put in cans are peaches, toma toes, peas, beans, corn, sweet pota toes, berries, oysters, fish and shrimp. The market demand for these goods increases eaoh year, as the people learn the value of these food prodaots. The Southern States should not be forced to purchase oanned goods from the North or West, when the natural resources of your own coun try effer such inducements to the establishment of the industry. Some two years ago I had occasion to sample a can of very fine Mtin corn, packed in one of the leading cities of the North. I remarked to the dealer that I oonld duplicate it in the S mth. He ridiculed the idea, and said that "it couldn't be done outside of the New England Skates. " I told him all right, I would prove my assertion true later on. Some three or four months afterward I presented the gentleman with a can of corn packed in the South by my self, and asked him to sample and express his opinion of the same. He did so and at once said, "Take that can, go into the market and tell the dealers to get down their best brands, and vours will cut out with them. You have got the corn to do it with. If that is tne kind ot corn you are packing in the South, you won't have to hunt for buyers long ; they will be hunting for you." So small is the stock of canned goods on hand, that the holder can well afford, if necessary, to wait until spring to dispose of it. THE DEMAND FOR CONSUMPTION increases disDroDortionatelv to the a. h v supply, and if oanners would refleot, there is rarely any real cause for anxiety. This country is large, facilities for distribution are increas ing, and the trade for canned goods is growing, in every nousenoia they constitute a portion of the daily food, and they are cheap, ready for use, and in every respeot desir able. Without them there are por tions of our oountry that would have to subsist on salt meat and bread To the mine, the camp, and the . m tn mariner, tney are now maispens able. The worst feature of the business is the ignorance of the buyers as to the assortment of output. They swallow any and all reports and few are governed by sound judgment. Take the oountry at large this year, and we venture to assert that the pack does not exoeedthree-fifths of an average one, in the faoe of lit tie or nothing being left over from last season. Most of our own prod uots were sold before they were oanned, or whilst being so. And the supply left here is a mere baga telle. ' The South can furnish fish, oysters, shrimp, fruits and vegetables of finer flavor than the Etst or West. Undoubtedly you can furnish these goods whose superiors do not grow any where on Unole Sam's dominions. There have been FAILURES OF CANNING HOUSES in the South. These have not been brought on by natural circumstances. They have been brought on by a laok of eoonomy and painstaking oare and co operation. IT PATS THE FARMER. There are indispensable elements of success in any business. The farmer is slow to plant for these faotories, even when the oanner tells him he can realize more for the produot in one season than the land it is grown on would sell for. Let the canner go ahead and demonstrate to the farmer by actual test that the growing of tbe?e produots is not any harder than to oultivate an acre of six cent ootton, and that the same land that makes him in good seasons one half bale of ootton to the acre, will grow him on an average of two hundred bushels of tomatoes at 25 cants per bushel ; or 75 bushels of oeas at 60 oents per bushel, or 100 bushels of beans at 50 cents per bushel, and so on, and not impover ish his land to the extent that ootton does. One farmer related to me in Indi ana some years ago when he reoeived a check for eighty odd dollars for tomatoes grown on less than an aore of land, thut it was so easy it was just like pioking it up in the road." Once get the farmers to know the good of the thing, and the balance is easy. There is another feature of the business that deserves special men tion, and that is the EMPLOYMENT IT FURNISHES, at good wages, to every class of peo ple. Mile and female find it pleas ant and profitable work. An outfit for canning ousting two hundred dollars would give employment to at least forty people direotly, and as many more indireotly. It is pecu liarly adapted to the smaller towns and cities. Yes, canning will pay in the South. You have those things whioh with good management and perseverence will make canning faotories pay in the South, as they are paying in a grand way in so many other States. R. A. Stewart. Baltimore, Md. DO NOT BURN GRASS. It is a very common practice among farmers to burn the grass, corn stalks and other vegetab'e mat ter on the farm They do this simply to get rid of it. Some few perhaps really think the ashes worth more to the soil than rotting vegetetation. But many burn because they think the trash interferes with cultivating the crop. If the growth is very sound and plowing poorly done, there is some risk of this, but if the grass and such like is well buried and mixed thoroughly with the soil by harrowing, this will not be true. We object to burning because of the great loss and damage to the soil. Oar S mthern soils need more humus. This can be obtained only from rot ting vegetation. Fertilizers do not help to make it. They rather tend to decrease it. Rotiing grass or other trash will contribute directly to the supply of plant food in the soil. Nothing so readily helps a plant to grow as that which has already been a plant once. In addition to the plant food sup plied the prooess of rotting starts fermentation in the soil and helps to make soluble ard available the ele ments of plant life in the soil whioh were insoluble and therefore worth nothing to the growing crop This is done in several ways. The me chanioal oondition of the soil is im proved. It is made loose and warm. Hence it can hold muoh more moist ure ; thus it helps aoration to prepare food for ttie growing orop and sup plies water to dissolve and carry the food. Burning is a great waste. We would not need to buy so muoh guano if we put all the vegetable matter baok into the soil that we could. Do not burn anything that will rot. Anything that will burn will rot, so do no not burn anything. Southern Cultivator. RELATION OF SPARROWS TO AGRICUL TURE. Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer. The sparrows form one of the most numerous and one of the most widely distributed groups of small birds in the United States. They seem to prefer to nest on or near cultivated ground, and wherever there are farms or gardens there we find the sparrow. THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 8 INVESTIGATION. Sparrows are well known but, strange to say, until lately very little attention had been given to their re lation to aerioultnre. Is is evident that a genus of birds so numerous and so constantly associated with farms and gardens as the sparrows are, should be an important faotorin rural eoonomy and that a thorough investigation of their food habits would be of great value. Such an investigation was recently made by the United States Department of Agriculture and it fully proves their value to farmers and shows that they are well worthy of our proteo tion. The food of the smaller order of field birds consists of fruit, grain, and inseots, and a bird's value to the farm depends on the amount of eaoh kind of food eaten and whether that kind is in itself beneficial or injur ions to agriculture. THE ENGLISH VS. THE NATIVE SPARROW. The English sparrow, whioh is treated apart from the native species, and which is a pest wherever found, adds more or less fruit destruction to its numerous other sins, but cul tivated fruit forms no important part of the diet of the native spar row, whioh is harmless to orohard and vinevard. NATIVE SPARROWS DO NOT INJURE CROPS. In the destruction of grain the English sparrow again comes to the front, and so much does it consume that on this aocount alone it might be declared a pest. Perhaps it is natural tnat tne native sparrow should fall under the ban of sus picion. The native bird, however, has no taste for cultivated grain and if he ever does take any it is but to sample it. To prove this oonclu sively, a number of sparrows were collected on a wheat farm both be fore and after the grain was cut Of nineteen stomachs of native spar rows killed only two showed that the birds had eaten any grain, and these two had taken but a grain apiece. On the other hand five stomachs of English sparrows killed at the same time were examined and each showed that the owner had recently gorged itself on grain. DEATH TO WEED SEED. There is one kind of grain, how ever, that the native sparrow d.es have a decided fondness for, and that kind is weed seeds. As a weed destroyer the sparrow stands pre eminent. Whenever fall approaches and the weed seeds ripen, the spar rows gather in great flock and de acend on the weeds ; weed seeds form tbeir prinoipal food for the rest of the winter. So abundant is the sup ply of the seeds, and such is the birds' fondness for them that the amount consumed by eaoh bird is almost incredible. Seldom, if it can get them, does a field sparrow con tent itself with let 8 than a hundred seeds at a meal ; while in the stomach of a snowfiake that had been break fasting in a garden in March were found 1,500 amaranth seeds. It has been estimated that in Iowa the tree sparrows alone destroy over 1,750, C00 pounds of weed seeds during their winter sojourn. The English sparrow also oonsumes a fairly large amount of weed seeds and in parks and on lawns does considerable ser vice in kseping down the lawn weeds ; but this good ie more than overbal anced by its filthy and destructive habits. AS TO INSECT PESTS It can hardly be expected that such weed destroyers as sparrows are should consume as many inseot pests as birds that are wholly in sectivorous. As a matter of fact, inseot pests form only about 25 per cent, of the food of the adult native sparrow and they cannot be depended upon to keep down an invasion of ineeots. Though adult spar rows, do not consume muoh animal f oodtheir nestlings are entirely insectivorous ; and as they raise eaoh season -from two to three broods down whose throats they cram countless numbers of oater pi liars and grasshoppers, they do in this way their greatest service as inseot destroyers to farmers. CONCLUSION : THE NATIVE SPARROW 13 HELPFUL AND DESERVES PROTEC TION. Following up the previously men tioned division of food into elements that would be of themselves bene ficial or injurious to agriculture, we find first, that the native sparrow o i : nsumes very little fruit, grain or other food that is beneficial ; on the other hand, the amount consumed that would be injurious in its effects is very large and consists mainly of weed seeds, which form more than four fifths of their food during the greater part of the year. We may safely conclude, therefore, that this little bird is entirely beneficial in its effeots and deserves protection. Chas W. Martin. A. and M. College, West Raleigh, N. C. As to home-mixing, the following paragraph frcm Farmers' Voice is interesting : 44 The question is often asked, 'Is it more economical to mix one's own fertilizers or buy them 'ready mixed?' Like most questions, a direct and un qualified answer to this one might be misleading, but it is safe that un der proper conditions home mixing of fertilizers will prove decidedly more economioal than the uf e of the ready-mixed article. And the first oondition is co-operation among farmers in the purchase of the in gredients. In cases where this was done in New Jersey, representing in the aggregate purchase of over 1,000 tons, showed that these mixtures coat on an average 128 62 per ion, while the fertilizing ingredients which they contained at the New Jersey Experiment Station valua tions, were worth $31 68, and in the average factory-mixed fertilizer would have cost $43 12 a saving of $14,500 on the entire quantity.0 TOMATOES MORE PROFITABLE THAN 2 COITON. The Apex Canning Company has made arrangements to run on full time this season and will pay more for tomatcei than ever before. This concern is a home enterprise and should reoeive the support of all the farmers in this and adjoining sec tions. At twenty five cents per bushel for tomatoes the farmer can olear more on one aore in tomatoes than he can on the sime land with the same amount of labor and ma nure in ootton at ten oents per pound, and the money comes in at a time when the farmer most needs it. It is now time that the feeds for early tomatoes should be sown. Apex News. TEACH AGRICULTURE 8CH00LS. IN PUBLIC Certainly there is need of more intelligent and practical farmers to reclaim and rebuild tbe old homes that have decayed and to feed and improve the lands that have become impoverished and unproductivo in the hands of renters who have no incentive to improve land. To im prove far us men must own them, live upon them and be directly inter ested in tfceir work. Class legisla tion, discrimination against the farm ers for the pat twenty years, has so thoroughly fixed the disastrous ten ant system in many sections that it will take many year, even under favorable conditions, to eliminate it., The State can do more for agricul ture, do more to create an interest in the farm the home of virtue and vigorous manhood and intellect by requiring a course of study of agri culture to be taught in the public schools. And while the boys are prosecuting this study, the girls might be taught with wonderful re sults something practical in every day domestio work, that it takes something more than fanoy hats and dresses to make an accomplished, lady.. Marshville, N. C, Home, v
Feb. 25, 1902, edition 1
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