Newspapers / The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, … / March 26, 1908, edition 1 / Page 1
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COTTON GPECIAL. (Title Registered in U. S. Patent Office.) A Farm and Home Weekly for the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. Vol. XXIII. No. 7. RALEIGH, N. C, MARCH 26, 1908. Weekly: $1 a Year. Cotton : A Golden Heritage and How we are Wasting It i To have a practical monopoly of the world's cotton supply the one great crop for which Nature has pro vided no ; adequate substitute; the orop which is not only more valu able than any other American - ex port crop but more valuable than all others combined; the crop which fey reason of its pre-eminence in value and importance has made the wiAe wnrld nr.knowledee that "Cot ton is King!" this monopoly alone 1 should make and keep the South rich. And it would do so, if prop erly handled. It is a princely her itage, but we have wasted it in riot ous mismanagement, and the object of this "Cotton Special" is to point out some ways whereby wasteful er rors may be avoided and the cotton farmer's profits increased. I. First of all, there is , the fearful waste through planting scrub seed. In our boyhood we did not know a single cotton farmer at that time who bought improved seed or even selected his own seed. For planting a fearful mixture was bought from the nearest gin: seed from, dwarfed, diseased, starved and degenerate stiilks. mixed with whatever good seed may have chanced to get with them; and the farmer was as likely a not planting the product of some Jiero's six-boll, bumblebee stalks, grown in some grass-ridden patch. Fancy'-what our corn crop would be if ,, had chosen seed corn indis criminatelyfrom half-barren nub tuns as often as from good ears! Fortunately, now all this is changed. The large number of our ads of im proved cottonseed for planting proves this. And there is no ques tion but that the farmers of the average cotton State, without one extra ounce of fertilizer or one extra bek of hoeing or plowing, might in crease their clear profits $2,000,000 'its year simply by using the best reedg of seed cotton instead of average planting seed. Two million" dollars more for every State by improved seed, then. -Moral: It'H get better seed. ( And this is Reform No. 1.) II. N'ex't is the matter of soil man agement. The folly of the "one crop system" has been so of ten explained, that its mere mention is its own con demnation. And what a "system" it was! The land seldom adequately broken, a dribble of 8-2-2 strewn in 'last; year's middles, a new ridge ... if? i xA,- -iv - .- -V -'- V -. .--I-J V" -r--.r- .- ? Once again in the "Cotton Special" as in all other issues the same old war cry: We need more mules and machinery. We can never make cotloyt cheaply until we reduce hand labor by using :, harrows iveeders, and cultivators beginning bejore the plants come up and continuing till the final cultivation; The farmer shown herewith has " stopped running his brain with i-horse power" arid he sets an example all cotton farmers should follow. ' made, and the cotton expected to flourish in the hard and lifeless soil. So the land famished for want of plant food in spite of the fact that when seed are fed to cattle and the manure returned to the land, cotton is only one-fourth as exhaustive of fertility as corn or - wheat. And even at this good hour farmers are spending millions of dollars for ni trogen for 1908 cotton, when there is $15,000,000 worth in the air just above every acre of land. And cow peas and clovers would take it from the air for you free of charge, be sides furnishing humus and vegeta ble matter and making splendid hay crops at the same time. You own fifteen million dollars' worth of nitrogen, with every acre of land. Moral: Quit buying am moniated fertilizers for cotton. (This is Reform No. 2.) m. Then, too, we have thrown away millions by not growing cattle. With two of the finest cattle feeds in all the world cowpeas and, cottonseed we have imported beef and but ter from the: North and West. Cow peas we have neglected and cotton seed we have buried in the land un fed. A man would be taken up for insanity if he should fertilize his cotton with corn meal or wheat bran without first feeding to cattle; yet the farmer calmly throws away $25 a ton feeding value every time he uses a ton of cottonseed meal as a fertilizer. He had as wrell get twenty-five crisp dollar bills, tear them up and throw them away. Twenty-five dollars cash feeding value lost whenever a ton of cotton seed meal is used as a fertilizer without first feeding to stock. The millions wasted here would make a small State rich. Moral: Raise enopgh cattle to get this feeding value. (And this is Reform No. 3.) Millions IV. more have been wasted by out-of-gate, labor-wasting im plements. Well do we recall how it was common a few years ago for one man to open the row, another strew the seed, and another cover work that one-half the labor may do easily with a planter. In cultivation, too, there has been similar waste: see from the picture herewith to what advantage two horses may be used. Hoeing, too, has been twice the burden it ought to be, and we know of some farmers who have made good crops entirely without hand hoeing. But more of this on page 2. . j With proper implements the cost of cultivating cotton may unque&j tionably be reduced to one-half the cost under old labor-wasting meth ods. Moral: Invest in the planters;, weeders, harrows, plows, and culti vators. (And here is Reform No. 4.) Having made the crop there is need of greater care in baling, hand ling, and marketing need to bale in better form and distribute sales through a longer period of time; but we need not cover here the ground already pre-empted ; by the Farmers' Union and the Cotton Associatioji. We ought, too, to encourage tlie wider use of cottonseed products j-a subject to which more ' attention is given on page 8. But the whole subject of how to get greater profits from cotton may be summed up in a few succinct sentences, and with the policy of "line upon line, pre cept upon precept," we attempt this herewith: 1. Use seed of improved varieties, and select carefully year after year from the most productive stalks. 2. Better preparation and cultiva tion of the land. Remember, "there is a new plantation just under tlie old, wornout plantation you have been scratching over." You own more than three or four inches of top crust; and if so, why not get th benefit of it? ' 1 3. Every farmer inust have th three Cs "Cattle, Cowpeas, Cottoni seed. There is no other way to keep the land fertile and no farm-, ing ever pays that ruins the land J Besides, we must come to see that! it is hardr less foolish to bury as i tuic a Hie leeu as cuuunseea in the land than it is to bury wheat bran or corn meal. 4. We must reduce the cost of hand-chopping. Our present system was handed down to us from slavery days when labor was cheap and plentiful. We have stayed in the old rut, but there are ways to get out. See page 2. 5. "Cotton is King but remem ber a king is weak and his king dom imperilled every hour that he must get supplies from beyond ; his own borders. And cotton will prove a king indeed only when the corn crib and smokehouse are on the farmer's own place and not in Chi cago or St. Louis.
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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March 26, 1908, edition 1
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