10
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER.
Thursday, December 24, iqqs
If m
"You Can Tell by a Man's Farm Whether He Reads It or Not."
Published Weekly by the Agricultural Publishing Co.
Under the Editorial and Business Management of
CLARENCE H. POE.
DR. TAIT BUTLER. Associate Editor and Manager.
Prof. W. F. MASSE Y,
E. E. MILLER,
JOHN S. PEARSON. -C.
F. KOONCE, - -
- Associate Editor.
- - Managing Editor.
Secretary-Treasurer.
- Field Representative.
ROBERT S. FOUNTAIN, Western Representative.
315 Dearborn Street. Chicago, 111.
Entered at the Postofflce Raleigh, N. C.as second class mail
: .. K matter.
What Christmas Really Means.
m
UR CHRISTMAS festival issupposed to cel
ebrate the birth of Jesus, though it is
very unlikely that He was born within two
or three months of December 25th. The time
seems to have been a season of Pagan festivity in
old Italy, artd when the new religion was officially
adopted the politic dignitaries found it easy to
change a Roman holiday into a Christian one,
changing the name rather than either the form or
the spirit of the celebration.
As Christianity spread to our ancestors, the
wild Teutonic peoples of the North, the day ab
sorbed again into itself the shadowy myths and
traditions that clung around the-, mid-winter fes
tivities of the Scandinavian peoples. It is from
these races and from the old worship of Odin and
Thor that we have derived our Yule logs, and our
Christmas trees, and our stories of the benevolent
Kris-Kringle with his loaded sleigh and galloping
reindeer. .
" So it is that Christmas is not only Christian but
Pagan, and is derived not only from the hills
where the shepherds watched their flocks by night,
but also from the dim, mysterious forests of the
Northland, where the beginning of the sun's new
ascendancy was a time for great rejoicing.
To us to-day, however, all these old traditions
have been blended into the one central idea of the
day. We are glad, not because the sun is again
growing brighter and the days longer, but because
the light that gleamed from' the manger at Bethle
hem has brightened the whole wide world. We
make it a time of rejoicing for the children be
cause the Man of Galilee was once a little child.
We give gifts in some far-off typification of the
blessings His life brought to us all. The tradi
tions of the day have become as thoroughly Chris
tianized as its name.
It is rather doubtful, though, if the spirit of the
celebration has lost its old-time Pagan character
istics or become much more harmonious with the
doctrine of helpful brotherhood and unselfish love.
All too many still seem to regard Christmas as a
sort of Bacchanalian feast, a time for all sorts of
unrestrained self-indulgences. Could there be a
greater mockery than that the birthday of the
self-sacrificing Nazarene should be celebrated by a
riot of noise and extravagance, 'gluttonry and in
temperance? Surely no two ideas could be more
. alien. , . ' -' . '
Yet all this folly, and all the hollow mockery of
commercialized giving, sadly and glaringly inap
propriate as they may be, are only the attempts
of those who have forgotten the better way to get
in tune with the chimes of joy rung out by the
Christmas bells. Whatever we older folks may
make of it, Christmas is to thousands of little chil
dren the year's day of supreme gladness, the one
central point to which the long-lasting days lead
at length for glad conclusion.
Happy are they who can accept Christmas with
the simple faith and the ' unquestioning gladness
of childhood, who know that there is somewhere
in the mysterious realms of the unseen a great
loving Friend watching over them and ready to
give them all the good things that in their hearts
they most desire.
A One-Horse Farmer Who Was a Hero
of Industry.
Why the Uplands of the South are
Not Fertile.
E DO NOT recall that The Progressive Far
mer in all its history has ever printed a
more inspiring story than that told by Mr.
Dumville on "page 4.
One man, a comparatively poor man, a stranger
in the community, without any special advantages
of position or influence, by practical, intelligent,
e very-day work not only makes a good living and
acquires a competence for himself, but' remakes
the whole industrial life of his neighborhood.
"I fully believe three times as much is sold off
these farms as was twenty-five years ago," Mr.
Dumville tells us. "At that time the price of a
cow was from $15 to $25, while the stock has now
been so improved that an average cow brings $40
to $55." To say that a man brought about these
things is a far finer thing than to say that he ac
quired a great fortune infinitely finer if one
must -also say that the fortune was' acquired by
questionable means or by the destruction of the
country's natural resources.
In a private letter Mr. Dumville tells of the
pride and comfort this man took in his farm and
his stock. He was a man who did his work well
(worked with his own hands and kept no ser
vants) and had a right to rejoice in it a real
hero of industry, worth a thousand like many of
the so-called "captains of industry" whose only
work is to exploit for their own benefit the
achievements of others, or those natural resources
which belong in right more to humanity than to
individuals.
This man, in his humble way, madea good liv
ing for himself and his wife; better still, he. lived
an active, happy, helpful life, and, without any
display or any claim to greatness, did his work so
well that he left his community forever better for
his having lived in it.
And this man, be it remembered, was only a
one-horse farmer. Let us all take off our hats to
him and nothing else could happen of so much
value to our Southland as that a hundred thou
sand other farmers who read this article (one
horse farmers, two-horse farmers, three-horse far
mers, or what not) should get the inspiration of
his magnificent example, and resolve to become
themselves like leaders in the great agricultural
revolution upon which Southern prosperity de
pends. And you, Mr. Reader why not YOU?
Our Special Offer.
E WISH to call your attention to our spe
cial offer on page 20; and, strange though
it may seem, we are doing this as much
for your sake as for ours. We have never made
a better offer than this, and we think we can
make as good offers as anybody. Weknow that
it will do you good to take Te Progressive Far
mer. You know it, too, no use to argue about
that. We are sure as can be that those trial sub
scriptions will be good for your friends, and we
believe you will agree with us about that. Your
wife will certainljf be pleased with a journal of
dress-making and
Your wife has as
fashions, and she should be.
good a right to be dressed at
tractively and modishly as has anybody's wife-
nothing is too good for Progressive Farmer folks.
Of course, you need a "Southerner in Europe"
if you have already read the letters you will want
them, in permanent form; if you have not read
them, you should. There doesn't seem to be
much else to say, does there? It's a fine offer,
and good only till January 1st.
Send on your dollar and a half or better, your
two dollars and get the binder also; because
The Progressive Farmer next year is going to be
worthy of preservation, if we are any judges of
things that are worthy.
T7i T IS a well recognized fact that the up-
OL lands all nvpsr th SmitVi o .
j """ 010 uul ao iertiie
nor so productive as are the uplands of the
North and West.
Why is this? Is it because of our system of
farming, as so commonly charged; or is it due to
natural conditions climatic and geologic9
Tn tTi spncte flint vi'rfin cnilo f v. v n
" - o"- yji. cue Aurin anu
West are rich and productive, we have few rich
and productive virgin, soils in the South and never
did have, except those which receive the soil wash
ings of other areas and are so located that thev
cannot lose this increment of soil fertility, jn
other words, there are no rich virgin upland
soils in the South. If this is a fact and it is
then the question, "Why are the uplands of th
South not fertile?" becomes one of deep interest:
for we must know why they are naturally poor in
order to learn the most direct and certain way to,
make them rich, and also what we must do to
keep them rich when we have once made them so.
Southern upland virgin soils are not rich be
cause (1) of our long, hot, moist summers which
cause rapid' and complete oxidation rotting of
all dead organic substances which fall upon them.
Notwithstanding the favorable conditions for the
growth of vegetation, our virgin upland soils are
comparatively bare because of the rapidity with
which all vegetation which falls upon them decays,
and (2) because of our heavy rainfall at nearly
all seasons of the year, which washes and leaches
away the organic plant food that would otherwise
accumulate. ?
In the arid regions of the West all soils are
rich water alone is needed to produce large
crops. Nothing ,has been washed or leached from
those soils. -In the North a different formation,
less heat and rainfall during the shorter summers,
and the protection of frost and snow, during drier
winters save the organic materials and make far
richer virgin soils. Moreover, not only do those
regions of the North and West, where rich virgin
soils abound, have less rain, but it also falls more
gently; they do not have the "gulley-washers"
characteristic of the Sout.
This accounts for the lack of organic plant food
nitrogen in our Southern soils, but how about
the mineral plant foods? In many instances
geologic causes, the character of the rocks whence
the soils were formed, no doubt account for the
lack of mineral plant foods in our soils, but the
very same causes which are responsible for the
lack of organic plant food in our soils are also re
sponsible for the lack of available mineral foods.
The retention on and in our soils of decaying
vegetable matter would render available the min
eral foods, hence the absence of this decaying or
ganic matter humus is largely responsible for
the apparent lack of mineral plant foods in our
virgin soils. i
&
And now what is the practical lesson to be
Hroiirri f -r- nil 1 O TA : : i xt i i i
on ims; ii is impiy inat ooumern
farmers should recognize the foregoing facts and
make greater" efforts than farmers elsewhere
not less efforts, as in the past to Supply organic
matter to their soils. Not only should they sup
ply increased and increasing quantities of vegeta
ble matter to their soils, but they must also adopt
measures to keep the plant food thus supplied
from washing and leaching away. In other words,
instead of growing hoed or clean culture crops,
cotton, corn, tobacco, etc., almost exclusively, and
leaving the lands bare during the winter in the"
condition most favorable for washing and leach
ing, mey must adopt a humus-supplying rotation
of crops and employ winter cover cYods to hold
the plant food that becomes available during the
winter.
More fertility, very much more fertility, is re
moved from Southern soils by washing and leach
ing than by cropping. Or to put it in other lan
guage, we lose vastly more fertility by unneces
sary than by necessary exhaustion.
Let's, stop it.