Thuraday, March 21, 1907.
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER.
11
"Everyone win one" that was the motto with
which we began our Whirlwind Campaign for new
subscribers.
We did not ask for big clubs: we simply asked
that "each and every old subscriber try to send us
one new subscriber. '
Have YOU sent yours? '
If not, please observe that there are just ten
days more to do your part in this general rally
of The Progressive Farmer Family- this Free
dom s Girt to the paper on its coming of age.
The Progressive Farmer must have its Thirty
among the farm papers of the country, it must
have them.
And so in these next ten days we hope every
subscriber will make an effort to send us at least
one new name. We doubt whether we shall have
a fifteen-cent offer this year, or any other pffer
that will make it easier to get subscribers than it
is now.
"Everyone win one." If our readers will rally
to us just for the ten days remaining between now
and March 31st, all our hopes will be realized.
Will YOU send us just one new subscriber in
these ten days?
AN INJUSTICE TO COUNTRY TEACHERS.
Why should the public school teachers In the
country districts wait for two, or three, or four
months before receiving pay for their work? That
is a question with which the Georgia teachers are
now busying themselves. They do not see why they
should not be paid promptly, and they are saying
so in their meeting and asking for better treat
ment. Teachers are entitled to just as prompt
pay for their services as other people. Now that
the Georgia teachers have taken up the matter
in their associations, they are likely to accom
plish something. In the larger schools of the
State and in the city graded schools it is custom
ary to pay salaries monthly, while the teacher in
the country districts has been waiting until the
end of the term to see the school voucher turned
into cash. Organization and co-operation mean
as much for teachers as for others who help to
do the world's work. In one North Carolina
any country store, have recently been tested in
seven different Experiment Stations, and our
farmers who are paying such enormous prices for
the mixtures, should be interested in the results as
reported by The Progressive Farmer.
In Minnesota steers without stock food gave
better results than those using the stock foods.
In Kansas two lot of sheep were fed, and those
without stock foods made 117 pounds greater
gain. In Massachusetts a slight gain in butter
was made but at an increased cost of 48 cents a
pound ! Of nineteen experiments in New Jersey,
sixteen showed no gains, and in the three cases
where gains were made from stock foods, their
cost was so great as to make their use unprofit
able. In Iowa $1.40 a steer was lost by using
these high-priced mixtures.
And so it goes. The Progressive Farmer gives
instance after instance but we mention these ex
amples merely to warn our farmer readers against
wasting further the many hard-earned dollars that
go out from our county each year for these much
advertised frauds -for frauds they are, although
so conspicuously advertised in many farm papers;
and The Progressive Farmer reports that it loses
$1,000 a year in advertising partonage by expos
ing them to its farmer readers.
Here Is one little leak which our farmers may
stop and keep some good money at home. Let
stock foods alone. Exchange. ,
P I Harrowingo. P
A THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK.
Men suffer all their life long under the foolish
superstition that they can.be cheated. But it is
as impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone
but himself, as it is for a thing to be and not to
be at the same time. There is a third silent
party to all our bargains. The nature and soul
of things takes on itself the guarantee of the .ful
fillment of j every contract, so that honest service
cannot come to loss. Ralph Waldo Emerson.
BEWARE OF THE "RECIPE" MAN.
He Will Sell You a Worthless Fertilizer Formula
for $5 if You Let Him.
If any of your readers are offered an opportun
ity to get in on the ground floor of the fertilizer
business to learn how to make fertilizers for $1
county monthly institutes are held, and one of a ton all by purchasing a five-dollar recipe for
the incentives to attendance is the arrangement
made by the sagacious county superintendent by
which all the teachers in the country districts are
paid their monthly salaries at these institutes.
This arrangement is one worthy of consideration
in other counties of the South.
THESE FIFTEEN CENT SUBSCRIBERS.
Did you send us last year or year before the
names of any 15-cent subscribers who failed to
renew and whose papers were therefore stopped?
If so, now is the time to enroll them as per
manent readers of The Progressive Farmer. They
wil be reckoned as new subscribers, and commis
sions allowed accordingly.
Look up every 15-cent man and if he has fallen
from grace, now is the time to bring him into The
Progressive Farmer fold. He will count as your
in our "everyone win one" campaign.
one
THE STOCK FOOD FRAUD.
making fertilizers, we wish to offer the advice:
Don't.
When you purchase a recipe for making fer
tilizers, you are parting with your money for
nothing. We have seen several of these recipes,
and have, yet to see one that was not worthless.
The mixtures prepared according to the directions
given are not worth the time and labor applied.
Ingredients are called for which can only be pur
chased at a drug-store at high prices, and, likely
as not, are of not more value to the plants than a
piece of coal would be.
But even if you did happen to buy good direc
tions for mixing a fertilizer what then? You
have paid your money for something that could
be secured for nothing. The Experiment Station
will at any time send without charge, directions
for mixing any kind of fertilizer desired.
But, as said before, we have never yet seen a
fertilizer recipe sold for $5, or any other price,
that was not worthless.
Do not buy fertilizer recipes.
G. S. FRAPS,
Chemist, Texas Experiment Station.
Warning Our Farmers Against a Common Swindle.
The Raleigh Progressive Farmer prints a nota
ble article exposing the stock food fraud, which
it pronounces the most stupendous swindle now
being practiced upon American farmers. Millions
and millions of dollars are spent every year sev
eral thousand dollars a year perhaps in this very
mnnfvfnr saudilv advertised "stock foods,"
"condition powders," etc., for farm animals, while roads it is too wet to do any sort of cultivation of
v (nwitintic! and tests made by tne xpen- the SOn.
iuc luitaub'"1"""
HUMUS THE LAND'S SALVATION.
In the cotton fields presented in last week's ip
sue are many fertile spots that might be freshened
up with profit, and possibly, there may have been
a clod or two which should be mashed, but the
field is too large for this Harrow.
On page 2 there is a sub-head inserted in Prof.
Kilgore's article, l. "You must get humus or buy
ammonia,' that Harrow aoes nt like, and he is
going to presume to re-write it as follows: "You
must get humus" even if you do buy ammonia,
but the more humus you get the less ammonia yon
will need to buy. For humus does more than fur
nish nitrogen. Yes even much more than retain
moisture and furnish nitrogen. There seems to
be an idea all too common that the principal func
tion of 'humus Is to! supply nitrogen or ammonia,
and, therefore, many seem to prefer to buy the
nitrogen. wnen jsoutnern iarmers come to a
full realization of the value of humus, apart from
and in addition to ! the supplying of plant food,
then shall we have rotation of crops, stock feed--ing
and the solution of the problem of soil im
provement. :f
LONG STAPLE COTTONS GOOD ONLY ON RICH
LANDS.
Messrs. Newman and Stribling give encourage
ment and good advice to the one who contem
plates growing long; staple cotton, but it must be
remembered that it requires richer lands, to grow,
the longer staple, and most of our lands are not
rich. The longer the staple the less pounds, as a
general rule, and our yield of less than onerhalf
bale per acre is small enough already. On rich
lands where there is a long growing season, the
cultivation; of long I staple varieties is probably
most profitable, but on our average up-lands the
attempt to grow jithese varieties is usually anyr
thing but; satisfactory. However, we should and
probably j will; 'increase the length of staple by
breeding and selection, as our lands are Improved
is fertility, and such is most desirable.
WHAT YOUR WIDE-AWAKE NEIGHBOR HAS
I DONE, YOU CAN DO.
The most important point made prominent in
the "Cotton Special" is the necessity for and the
method of cheapening cultivation. The small,
time-consuming : implements belong to the past
age of abundant, cheap labor; while hand-work
must soon be discontinued or reduced to a mini
mum. It will as "certainly be discontinued as cot
ton is cultivated profitably. Proper preparation of
the soil,! seed selection and seed testing must solve
the problem of planting only those seeds which it
is desired shall continue to grow, or the imple
ments mjust come ij and be generally used which
will do away with chopping out by hand those
plants which are not desired. It is indeed inter
esting to note the growth of the practices which
are eliminating hand and other slow methods of
cultivating cottonf Some still contend that while
others may use the weeder or harrow in early
cultivation, these' jmethods are not practicable in
their cases. Others again will use a harrow with
some of the teeth removed and go once across the
field to each row; awhile still others begin before
the cotton is up and take several rows at a time
with a weeder or light harrow. Better prepara
tion of the land and rapid early cultivation by ma
chinery are the key-notes to the solution of the
problem of cheaper cotton culture, but what' a
pity it is that so much time must be consumed
in working out this solution by the average farm
er. If these methods, speaking generally, are
practicable for one they are for all, yet many will
stick to the old ideas and methods for many years
to come. I The pldw is not needed in the corn or
Don't Forget to Drag the Roads.
We hope our readers will not forget the sug
gestions that we have made for the last year or
two with reference to dragging the roads, not
when they are dry, but when they are wet-
when they are so wet that it will be useless to I cotton fidld except i in the proper preparation of
attempt to plow corn or make hay. When it is I the seed-bed.
dry enough to plow corn it Is too dry to work on
the roads. When it is wet enough to work on the
ment Stations have demonstrated that these prep
arations are nothing more than common meal,
bran, etc., with a little cheap sulphur, salt, Epsom
salts, pepper, saltpeter, etc added to change the
CROP ROTATION IS A NECESSITY.
The discussion of cotton culture presented in
last week's paper j shows plainly one thing: that
On the average farm there is one mile of road,
half of which should be worked by the farmer and I the farmer even the progressive farmer is still
half by his neighbor. It will not taKe tne farmer suffering -from the: effects of the one-crop system,
more than an hour at the outside to hitch onto his Too little attention is given to crop rotation. A
a A,. t nnrT em ud one side of the road and two-year rotation of cotton and corn, with at best
taste, and the mixture (hardly more valuable than n fh 'other, repeating the operation if neces- peas in the corn and rye in the cotton, may be
ordinary ship stuff) put up in flaming packages, &ary If he will do this after every rain, by the made satisfactory in some cases, but with the aver-
advertised in bie illustrated ads in farm papers, time' the ground freezes up next winter he will age -farmer it is ari absurdity, because with such
auverusea m u . es rangillg from have better roads than he ever dreamed of, and it means; soil depletion and failure to produce a
and sold to gullible farmers at rates rangi s Jfl his neighbors ever believed would be sufficiency of the other crops which should be
$250 to $2,500 a ton. m M Farmer. ' grown. HARROW.
,tn,v fnnds which can be iouna m aimu puuic.-. -