ThJ POOR MAN'S ROAD TO BETTER LAND Page 5.
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ril 11
A: Farm and Home Weekly for the Carolinas, Virginia,
Georgia aind Tennessee
FOUNDED, 1886 AT RALEIGH, NC.
Vol xxvn. No. r
SATURDAY JANUARY 13, 1912;
Weekly : Sl aYearJ
If You Are
Going to Farm at All Be a Good Farmer.
VERiEifty years ago in one of the best of all books about farm
ing, Donald Grant Mitchell said :
5 ueUaatho aegTects any crop, will find, sooner or later.
that whatever is worth planting, is worth planting welh what-
. " I
5 .
. ever is. worth cultivating, is worth cultivating well: and that noth-
ing is worth harvesting that is not worth harvesting with care."
After aH these years it is doubtful if there is any one lesson most
of us need more to learn than this. We need to learn that if one is to
be a farmer at all it is his duty '
they should be done; to take a
proper pride in his work; to
care for his land, his livestock,
his crops, his machinery; so that
iall:of them in: turn, may do
their work well and thus be
sources of profit and satisfac
tion. We need to hold our call
ing and its duties in more re
spect; to feel , more truly what
it should mean when one of us
:&yg?gt4wi afarrnerioHhat
, W5 viu say ii vv nu uccivu uu
emphasis, in the full confidence
that it is a good thing to be a
farmer and that we are farmers
:;of:.the right 'i'MffizM
am a farmer," says the
man, and sees in his mind's eye,
not well-tended fields, enriched
and cared for and made more
and more productive, but
SdKfWffi " ANYONE COULD BE PROUD OF THIS COW.
scarred here and therewith erullies. or marred with red frails, and
barren of even a covering of weeds, or flooded with stacmant water
and so made sour and sick. -
The man says he is a farmer, but what do his fields say? Ages
ago Solomon, the wise king, wrote :
: , . "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of thef
man void of understanding; and. lo, it was all grown over with
thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone
-Q h wait thereof was broken down.'
horses. They add nothing to his love of the farm; they, gve no added
sense of dignity and worth to his life's work. So with the thin;
despondent-looking cow, the scrubby pig, the neglected poultry. All
these things, bearing witness as tney do to the farmer's lack of
respect for his calling and of joy in his work, must inevitably tend to
make him less and less of a real farmer a farmer in mind and at heart
as well as with his hands.
"Whatever is worth planting, is worth planting well; whatever is
worth cultivating, is worth cul-
s - " ?--f I
X
f
t r
'
. Today the field of the slothful and the land of the man who
lacks understanding tell the same story of neglect and mistreatment
None of us, of course, can have all his fields as he would wish
them, for all of us no doubt wish a domain like that of prodigal Lear
" U "With shadowing forests, and with champains rich'd,
) - V With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads.'
Still each of us should feel that no man is worthy the title of '3
whose fields are not tending toward such a state as this. They may be far
from it yet, they may even be overgrown with thorns and nettles just as
Jhe sluggard's were, but they must be getting better and not poorer. '
! "lama farmer,, and his is my farm."- Unless the man can say
this.' with that; healthful, satisfaction and that just pride which come
from a hopeful prospect and the inner knowledge of past progress, he
is npt the right kind of farmer. But if he can lookout over his land
and see the grass growing where the soil was once bare, or the pros
pects of good crops where once only poor ones grew, or the marks of -orderliness
and beauty where once was waste and dilapidation if he 1
see these things, helzas' indeed a right to be glad and to rejoice in the:
-work of his lands. ;'; x. tfv, - ; yr;V.--:
- ! sama farmer;' says the man, but wlfat do his horses say z or his .
" cattle, or.his swine? Are his horses poor and gaunt and rough-coated ;
underrfed 'unroqmed, evidently regarded only as beasts of burden;
out of whidfheisto get all he can and into, which he is to put as little 1
as possihle ? U 59, it w litUe satisfy
nvating wen. 11 ail 01 us
could only realize the truth of
these words at this year's be
ginning, and then let this reali
zation control our work until
the year's end, next year would
find us more prosperous, more
confident, more aspiring than
we had ever been before. No
man calling himself a farmer
should be content to r look on
. fields in which he cantake no
; pride,, to '-. handle livestock of
which he is half ashamed, to
see on his farm and about his
home indications of .careless
ness and shif tlessness, to feel
that he is making the country
less beautiful and farming a less
desirable calling. "
Individually, each of us can
this year make a start in the
rig;ht direction. If we begin to
build up our land, to beautify
our homes, to tend our croos
better, to get better horses and cows and pigs and chickens, to take bet
ter care of buildings and machinery, to read and study more about our
work in short, to do the very best farming our circumstances permit,
and to prepare ourselves for still better work, we will most surely find
in our farming more of both pleasure and profit and will be helping
to bring: to realization the dream we have all had of a wonderful rural
Southland, rich with the bounty of luxurious crops, with fattening
flocks and grazing herds,vith ample . barns and crowded silos,
with fruitful orchards 'and &P;uit gardens, all clustering round and
i A
their work good and receive fronAnch reward of prosperity and
contentment; iS. '
'v7 piia.
CONTENTS OF THiSUE.
FIVE REASONS FOR ERADICATING THE CATTLE TICK Any
One of Them Would Be Sufficient 18
FIXING' THE PRICE OF COTTON Secretary Davis of the Farm
ers' Union Urges Co-operation. SO
HIDDEN TREASURES Two Stories and a Moral for, Farmer
Girls ...... ......... v 13
IMMIGRATION. WE NEED Why We Should Encourage the Right
Sort of Immigrants to Come South 10
MODERN "FARM EQUIPMENT Recent Information on This Sub
ject STOP SOUi WASHING One of the Tasks We Mnst Not Neglect. .
SOILS UNSTJITED JO COTTON Why Plant Lands Which Will Not
Make a Paying Crop?. ..... .....; ..... v .. .'. .
THE POOR MAN'S ROAD TO BETTER LAND How to Make the
.'-Y Soil Better While Getting a Living From It.
TOE ; SOUTHERN PINE BEETLE Detailed Information as to
? Ftehtiiff It.. . . ..... . . . . . . . . . . ;..
'i vWlZO'IS .niE, THEORIST? Jumping at Conclusions as Compared
11
10
0
26
Tests.
a
1