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10 THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER. Thursday, April 15, 1909. If ROGRESSIVE F ARMER. "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. Pbof. W. P. MASSE Y, E. E. MILLER, JOHN S. PEARSON. -C. F. KOONCE, - - Associate Editor - Managing Editob. Skcbetabt-Tbbastjbbb. Field Representative. ROBERT S. FOUNTAIN, - WESTERN REPRESENTATIVE. 315 Dearborn Street. Chicago, 111. Entered at Raleigh Postofflce as second class mail matter. What the Lead Pencil and the Postal Card Will Do for You. ON.'T forget that postal card idea. The next time you go to the postofflce, get a quar ter's worth, and when they give out get another quarter's worth, and keep a supply always on hand. Then take a lead pencil and write for whatever you want whenever you want it whether it is a Farmer's Bulletin,, an advertiser's catalog or price list, or just some bit of information you need. Use the postal card, too, to jog up your Con gressman, your member of the Legislature, your County Commissioner, Superintendent of Schools, your Commissioner of Agriculture, or your Edi tor, about any matter in which you are interested. Farmers can double their influence in the political and business world by liberal use of the postal card and thelead pencil. If you need help about any farm problem, a postal card will get it for you. If you wish to know .more about anything advertised or men tioned in The Progressive Farmer, a postal card will get you the information. In a hundred other ways the lead pencil and i- . . . - the quarter's worth of postal cards will help you amazingly. Get the habit and keep it up. Larger Farm Work Stock Needed. EAVY mules and horses are necessary to the proper and economical cultivation of a large share of Southern soils. It Is not unusual, however, to hear men say they prefer the 900-pound mule to the 1,200-pound animal; and as to horses weighing over 1,200 pounds, many farmers state they just would, not have them. To retain the old, light, one-horse Implements and increase the weight of the mule is useless, if not at all times a positive disadvantage. If one of these friends of the 800- or 900-pound mule goes to the dealer to purchase a mule he soon learns that it takes more money to buy the larger animals, and if the dealer were to offer two mules of equal quality, but one weighing 900 pounds and the other 1,200 pounds, at the same price, there is no doubt as to which would be taken. The heavy mules are worth more because they can do more farm work of the kind that is profitable. Of course, the small mule is quicker, sbut speed is not what is wanted. - Implements to do satisfactory and economical work must usually be large and heavy, and for these the larger mule alone is satisfactory. The task of getting an implement that will do twice as much work each time across the field i.3 more im portant and much easier than to find a mule that will go fast enough to do economical work with these small implements formerly used- If we are to use the small expensive implements of the past we should, of course, stick to the small -mule, but if we are going to do farm work in the most economical manner we must have the larger im plements and larger mulss to pull them. We know a farm managed by a graduate of a Southern agricultural college on which a splendid Percheron mare that weighed about 1,400 pounds was abused and finally ruined, because she was "too slow;" and yet, the one-row cultivator and jother small and expensive implements were in general use on that farm. If horses weighing 1, 200 to 1,400 pounds were not capable of doing farm work more economically, they are necessary for the breeding of high-priced mules. The 1,200 to 1,300-pound mules which sell for from $500 to $600 a pair are not produced by 900-pound mares, nor by 1,000-pound mares. The writer once asked a breeder of draft horses if he preferred mares of the weight he was using 1,600 to 1,700 pounds for farm work, and he replied that he did not; that for farm work he preferred mares weighing about 1,400 pounds, but said he, "mares of that weight will not produce 1,800- and 2,000-pound geldings which sell for the best prices." I can do my work very well with the larger mares and their colts at four years old are each worth from $25 to $75 more." What Is Your Corn Going to Cost You? Ti EXT WEEK we hope "to publish some fig ures from Mr. C. R. Hudson, the State Agent of the Farmers' Co-operative Dem onstration Work, and some from Mr. E. S. Mill saps, the agent for Iredell County, as to the com parative cost of making corn under the methods taught by Dr. Knapp and under those commonly followed. v Whatever may be thought of these figures, they "demonstrate" beyond all question that the aver age yield of corn can be greatly Increased and the cost per bushel greatly decreased by the use of better methods. 1 Many farmers seem to have gone into the dem onstration work with a great deal of caution, try ing it on little patches of land and looking upon it as something radically new and yet unproved. Now, as we understand it, Dr. Knapp and his force lay the most stress upon (1) good seed, (2) good preparation of the soil, (3) good culti vation afterward. We have been neglecting our seed or selecting it with a wrong ideal in mind for a long time; but a deep, well-broken, humus filled seed bed and level, shallow cultivation are certainly nothing new or strange. They have been recognized as essentials of successful corn culture in those sections where the best corn crops are grown for a long time, and were the estab lished means to the most profitable yield of corn long before the demonstration work had been dreamed of. There is nothing radical, nothing new, nothing doubtful about these methods Dr. Knapp and his co-workers are "demonstrating." They are the methods followed by the best corn growers everywhere. There is no money in growing twenty or twenty five bushels of corn to the acre by the use of sev eral hundred pounds of commercial fertilizer. With decent treatment of our lands we should average more than that in five years without any fertilizers at all. As it is, we make (in North Carolina) 12.8 bushels per acre. -We shall never get rich raising such corn crops as that. As a step, toward building up your corn land, begin now to get ready to sow peas in the corn when you lay-by and crimson clover on the land next fall. As a means to making the most but of this crop, prepare to cultivate it whenever it'needs cultivation whenever the soil begins to "crust" or get hard, and to cultivate with tools that will fine the first two or three inches of the soil with out tearing up the roots of the corn. Prepare to "demonstrate" on your farm this year that-you can grow more than 12.8 bushels to the acre and that you can grow it at a reason able cost. " '-.-T. '""' ' Seven Health Rules: How to Live One Third Longer. i - t Lti Americans waking up to the importance o better health conditions, and State and National Governments are taking deepar in terest in Jtpe subject than ever before. Regardless of what jState or Nation may do, however, every individual' by following a few simple rules of hy giene for himself-may greatly increase the length and the j happiness of his own life. Seven such rules we give herewith, and if they should be fol lowed thisLs'eason by the 86,000 farm families who will read these lines, the health and efficiency of as young and old, men and women, would be imme urably increased, doctors' bill reduced, and the general ft one of life made notably brighter ami', happier---to say nothing of fewer graves in th-? burying-grpunds and cemeteries at the end of the year. Ifere are the seven rules: (1) Have a properly planned and proper! y cooked diet. Make a study of this, question an 1 have your; wife make a study of it. We eat tin much meat and too much hot, pasty food. v do not eat; enough fruit, vegetables, eggs, butter, and i mill: There is no excuse for any farmer not having enough of. these nourishing, health-giving foods, ahdjwith them, one can set a table fit for a king.. j' - ; ' .'. . - '. " (2) Chew your food three times as long as you have been doing. The Fletcher principle, "Chew your focjdij till' .it becomes liquid and practically swallows itself," Is the only correct guide. Mr. Fletcher'j guarantees that his method will increase the average man's working efficiency 25 per cent in six mbnths.v (3) Don't ovoreat. Proper chewing, however, will practically prevent this also. Chew your food thoroughly and your sense of taste will be satis fied before you eat too much. It is when you bolt your food down that you overeat. (4) Breathe only fresh air. Let it into your sleeping) room, no matter how cold the weather. The dread' of "night air" is absurd. If fresh, air were only to be had for a price, thousands' of poor people would be begging money to buy, it, while as itis, they shut it out on every provoca tion. Suffy parlors and sittingTrooms and sleep ing rooms with all the windows down breed head aches ard develop consumption. i(5) Drink twice as, much water as you have been "drinking. The average person drinks only half enough. Drink two glasses when you get up mornings, and as much as you can at other times -preferably, not at meals, however, or for an hour beorer or after. ' (6) Stop? dosing and drugging yourself; never take a patent medicine. If you are not well, by all means avoid putting your health and your life in the hands of men you know nothing about, and who know nothing about your ailment. Nine times out of ten a drug taken into your system when not needed ctsfas a virtual poison, and unless the physician knows the exact nature of your ailment, the chariceslare it is not needed. (7) Let all intoxicants alone. No man who be gins drinking is sure that he can keep from drink ing immoderately; while the latest medical re searches have proved that even the most moderate drinking injuries one's nervous and mental pow ers, lessens one's ability to resist disease,-and also aids in developing any latent disease or wenkness. SurgeonGeneral Wyman in his recent address on Southern health conditions sounded a special n oie of warning concerning the injurious effects :if alcoholic drinks in warm climates. Of course there are other things not to be neg lected frequent bathing in a room as warm ns. the body (a bath-room just big enough to turn around in, and quickly heated by an oil stove will do the work), eight hours' sleep, and a good sup ply of drinking water uncontaminated by filth or disease -butthese seven rules are the things in -t needed by the average man. They will add yu -to your fife and life to your years. Try them, i . " ;l "i : - A Thought for the Week. m lip basis of our government being the opin ion of the people, the very first ohjfvt should -be to keen .that risrht: and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspaper, without government, I should not hesitate a mo ment to' prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man, should receive those papers and h" capable I of reading them. -Thomas Jefferson (bora April il3, 1743.) ;
The Progressive Farmer (Raleigh, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 15, 1909, edition 1
10
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