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5) o ffg To) J 5 vJ3 dTA is (2) C3 nJ n r fcinirT J fcjii " i , iriuj Ilr 1 AJ s I V x 4 v c I Vs 1 Mt0-mJ LrJ LrJ LmS3 L,J "V I THE INDUSTRIAL AND EDUCATIONAL INTERESTS OP OUR PEOPLE PARAMOUNT TO ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS OF STATE POLICY. j volume XVIII. RALEIGH, N. C, TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1903. Number 5. AGRICULTURE HARRY FARMER'S TALKS. CX Kditor of The Progressive Farmer: Mary Jane was preparing some firjis a few days ago to set under a hen. She was careful to get nice new eggs and marked each one with ink and on some she placed the date, March (ith. Her reason for mark ing thmi, was to till if any hens huM lay in the same nest, and by latino some of the eggs she could tell when to expect the "biddies." The spring season is always the h;ijli -t time of the year for us. The 1. iwing cows, the bleating calves, the chicking hens, the chirping biddies, tin- cht riiig songs of the birds and ili urn n fields, with here and there a hi am if nl white butterfly flitting in the mi How sunshine, always make us 1 vc i.ur, country home more and ifii. The man who lives on a farm tutrl cfcs not enjoy these jewels of uiu ire. iiaa Dexter leave and go where tli'Tr is something more charming l'"r him. I h- seasons have been very wet !i n . and it has greatly delayed farm w ik. We failed to get our oats v.wii uon as we wanted to on ac ''i::.? ..j' the rains, so we were get ''iiu a little behind, and in order to ' 1 the wvk quickly we hitched four iin1.. v 1 1 1 the cutaway harrow and id :n t.. the corn stalks, dead crab . ; a vinos, etc. It was neees--::'.v " 1 iji half way in order to get ;!'' u ""l-k 1mh(. satisfactorily, but we i ,! !''! that the side which run on ;'' i'i' ir land would not go deep ''""Midi, . we filled a heavy coffee s;!r- wiih sand and placed on that i,,'. ' hieh .lid all the work that was 1). rrv.;!.Vi ciiijsway harrow does more and ! I:' ' v.-.rk than the disk. It is light ' r !" l-nll. ( )u one piece of land that '"I ''"ii "iiurked" with a common ' H"W 'Hoy Dixie) we used the n,IV ;'v i" put in the oats, and have 1,1 v, r l'a-1 a job dune better. II a question how deep oats ' I';1'1 U- 'vored. We have tried "Wl! them on the surface and har T'"u them with a V harrow, then M ' ("vred them four or five J'p- and have had them to do well 1 wavs with average seasons. But u lh '-t satisfactory plan is to cover "ry sl,allow n the early fall and to cover more deeply as they are sown later in the season. A neighbor had a very fine crop one year with the seed just lightly harrowed in, and almost a total failure the next year treated the same way. The first was a moist spring while the latter was dry. Professor Massey condemns the spring sowing of oats in the red clay lands on account of the numer ous failures caused by the spring drouths so common in the South. We notice that the sale of North ern grown seed Irish potatoes is much smaller this spring than usual. Our people made good fall crops and are planting them freely. It will not be many years before the South will be furnishing the North with seed Irish potatoes. Another thing that we are glad to see is a decrease in Congressional seed sent out from Washington. It is a good idea to send out seeds of rare, meritorious plants to be tried in different sec tions of the country, but to send out a lot of Flct . Dutch cabbage that may maKc an interior crop-1- nonsense. Then ask that the results be reported. Did any body ever re port ? HARRY FARMER. Columbus Co., N. C. Making Good Butter Without a Sepa rator. Editor of The Progressive Farmer : I see a great many articles in the papers, on butter making; and how to make good butter. Nearly all agree that no one can make good but ter without the use of a separator. There are hundreds of farmers in North Carolina who keep from one to three cows. Many of them are not prepared to do a dairy business. Yet they have more butter than they need for their own use. It is to this class I wish to speak a word. Here is my plan. Dig a well, four feet in diameter and twelve feet deep. Build a house over it 10 x 10, six feet pitch. Build a frame that you can let down in the well. Fix a windlass ; four inches in diame ter is large enough. The smaller the windlass, the easier you can draw up the weight. Get some tin cans. Fifty-pound lard cans are very good. They will hold about seven gallons. As soon as the milk is drawn from the cow, put it in these cans and let it down in the well. If it does not turn at the proper time, draw it up and set it out. Of course this process applies to the summer season. And by this method you can make as good butter as can be made by any process known to the genius of man. I have used the wTell for two summers, and it works all right, no difference how hot the weather. PLEAS. H. MASSEY. Durham Co., N. C. The Real Remedy for Spring-Poor Farmers. Editor of The Progressive Farmer: Your correspondent who signs himself Harry Farmer, but who writes well enough not to be ashamed to put his real name to his letters, proposes a problem about a farmer without money in the spring, and how he is to get it, whether to go in debt for what he wants or borrow money at a high rate of. interest to have cash for what he needs to buy. And our friend says that the condi tion lie pictures extends over the en tire cotton belt, and adds that for our farmers to become prosperous there must be a change of the sys tem, and then goes on to say what the change should be. But the proposed change looks to me like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I agree with Harry Farmer that a change is necessary. He says that the impecunious condition of farm ers in the spring extends all over the cotton belt. Why? If it is a condi tion peculiar to the cotton belt, then be radically wrong. And this is, I feel certain, just what is the matter. So long as the farmer is depending on one single crop for cash and gets the returns from that but once a year, he is apt to accumulate defi ciencies that leave him continually at the mercy of the merchant or the money lender, and no matter which of these he goes to, they are bound to protect themselves for the risk they take and the farmer pays the fiddler. Yes, there is great need of a change, but the change should not be a change from a store account to a paper shaver. The change must be far more radical than this. Why is the farmer whom Harry Farmer pictures without cash in the spring ? Is it not simply because he has noth ing to sell but cotton in the fall, or the pitiful resource of the chicken yard in wrinter? The whole trouble at the bottom of this impecunious condition is the system or rather the lack of system in the farming. Any man wdio farms simply for one crop, and depends on that crop entirely for money is as certain to get into debt as the sun is to rise. Any sys tem of farming which leaves out the keeping and feeding of live stock in the best manner is necessarily bad farming, no matter what the money crop is. Why is the difficulty peculiar to the cotton belt if not because in the cot ton belt more than anywhere else the growing of forage cropsand the feeding of stock have been more gen erally ignored than anywhere else? Suppose that a cotton farmer had raised an abundance of forage in the shape of corn and peas and had some cattle to eat it during the winter. Would not a bunch of fat cattle bring him cash in the spring at a bet ter profit than borrowing money at 10 per cent merely to raise more cot ton, and expect that cotton to pay the debt, give him a living, feed the mules and pay for the mules too? It is the system of cotton cropping that makes the farmer spring-poor like the stock that stand out all win ter at the strawT stack-or in the old field. The remedy is a change of sys tem of farming and not a change of system of borrowing. If a farmer takes care to have something to sell all the year through to enable him to pay expenses in cash he will own the cotton crop when it is made, but in any system of raising money or goods on the strength of the cotton crop, he will always be in the same W. F. MASSEY, Editor of Practical Farmer. Mr.' Fred. A. Ogg, waiting in the World's Work on "The Propor tion of City and Country Popula tion," finds reasons for believing that our cities have reached their greatest proportionate growth, and that henceforth the country will rel atively gain rather than lose. If we are to have anything like the popu lation predicted by such writers as Professor Hart, of Harvard, wTio thinks the Mississippi Valley alone is capable of supporting 350,000,000 people in comfort, the cult of farm ers., must increase to supply food stuffs. The change in agricultural methods, the growth of intensive farming, will be the rule of the fu ture; small farms, economically ad ministered, will supplant the worn out estates, and all this will mean an increase of rural population. Mr. S. E. Godwin, living in the north-eastern part of Cumberland County, cultivates an eight-horse farm, from which he has sold 111 bales of cotton, bringing in some thing over $5,000 in cash. Mr. God win is a farmer, too, with whom the corn crib and the meat house are large parts of the home place, and he has his "hog and hominy" with out stint. Exchange.
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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March 10, 1903, edition 1
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