Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / June 28, 1906, edition 1 / Page 1
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6 A a lj w I iJi w. As. - if n da 1 Consolidated, 1904, with The Cotton Plant, Greenville, S. C. 8ntt8?foiZS&L-A- RALEIQH, N. C, JUNE 28, 1906. Weekly-$1 a Year. 1 . ; - T-mtv - :"",m:Ti Courtesy of International Harvester Co. HARVEST DAYS IN OLD VIRGINIA. What farm-bred man or woman ever thinks of June without thinking of wheat harvest or of July without thinking of threshing time? Arid every acre of stubble land gold with ripening grain in June should be green with a luxuriant growth of cowpeas in July. " Iand resting," as Mr. French points out this week, is folly ; not the idle life, but the strenous life, is what your soil demands. LAND RESTING" IS FOLLY. Crop Diversication and Stock Raising the Only Way to Win Agricultural Wealth. No. 29 of the Sunny Home Stock Talks. Messrs. Editors: The theory of land resting seems to be favored by a great majority of Southern farmers. We believe the theory entirely un sound, as the term rest is generally used by our farmers that is, turn ing a field out to grpw up in brush and weeds for several years or even one year. I think the general condi tions of our country when compared with other sections where the prac tice is not in vogue, bear me out in my contention. What this system is costing the Southeast can hardly be computed, but we can get at it in measure by a comparison of an av erage section of bur country with an equal area of a section where this system of land , resting is not prac ticed, and having about an equal farming population per square mile. A Comparison of Two Counties. So let us take, for example, the writer's home county (Rockingham, N. C.) and compare its wealth agri-' culturally with that of the county in Ohio (Huron) where he was born, as their area is almost exactly the same, the North Carolina county hav ing the advantage of having been settled a good many years before the Ohio county. The farmers of Rockingham County, N. C, pay tax on about $1, 600,000 worth of property, while Huron County, Ohio, farm property is taxed at around $13,000,000. About four-fifths of Rockingham County land is resting each year, whereas nine-tenths of the Ohio coun ty is producing some crop each year. (These figures are exclusive of the area in either county devoted to the production of valuable timber.) And I believe the number of people en gaged in agricultural pursuits to be nearly the same in both counties. And I believe further, that in natural productiveness of the soil there is not a great difference between the two counties, and that if the same system of farming should prevail in one county as in the other little dif ference,' if any, in the productiveness would be noticeable. And yet the fact stands that the Ohio county has more than seven times the taxable value of the North Carolina county. Now, I believe that the one great reason for this difference in wealth is that in one of these sections a system of crop rotation and live stock production is the rule, while in the other the single crop system and "land resting" prevails, " with live stock holding an insignificant place in the farm economy. Other factors enter into the question, of course, such as the use of better machines for doing the work, the soil being in a better state of culture enabling the individual farmer to produce more in the one section than in the other. Grow Clover or Peas Instead of Rest ing Land. But what makes this better state of cultivation? Is it not the rotation of crops? these crops being fed to live stock on the farms and the ma nure from them being returned to the soil, the rougher portions of the farm, instead of growing up in brush and briars being seeded down for permanent pastures, and thus every part of the farm contributes some thing each year to the general in come. Have you ever considered how rest ing improves farming lands? Is it not simply that a cover crop of weeds or briars is produced, which falling down makes a mulch, protecting the surface of the soil from the direct rays of the sun and tending to con serve the rainfall, allowing it to pen etrate the soil instead of of running off with a rush, carrying the parti cles of the soil with it? And is there any reason why a crop of cow peas or clover would not answer the same purpose and at the same time provide a hay crop worth at alow estimate, six or seven dollars per acre above cost of production for stock food? I am glad to know that a great many of our our farmers are coming to look at the question from this point of view and acting In accord ance with their convictions. My earnest desire is that tens of thou ands more will see the matter in this light and that there will soon be an end to the production of broom straw and blackberry bushes in The Pro gressive Farmer's territory. A. L. FRENCH. R. F. D. 2, Byrdville, Va. "The Supreme Court has not yet decided which is the weaker manhe who is not able to see his own weak nessf or he who has no faith in himself."
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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June 28, 1906, edition 1
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