THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER.
Thursday, April 22, 1909.
10
IP
POGRESSIVE
FARMER.
"You Can Tell by a Man's Farm Whether He Beads It or Not.'
Published Weekly by the Agricultural Publishing Co.
Under the Editorial and Business Management of
CLARENCE H. POE.
DR. TAIT BUTLER. ASSOCIATE EDITOB AND MANAGER.
PBOr. W. P. MASSE Y,
E. E. MILLER,
JOHN S I PEARSON. -C.
F. KOONCE, - -
Associate Editob.
- - Managing Editob.
Secbetabt-Tbeasubeb.
- FlEliD REPBESENTATTVE.
ROBERT S. FOUNTAIN, - Westebn Repbesentativb.
315 Dearborn Street, Chicago. 111.
Entered at Raleigh Postofflce as second class mail matter.
Your First Duty as a Farmer.
E CANNOT too often repeat and we cannot
too strongly emphasize the fact that no
farming is good farming which does not
maintain and increase the fertility of the soil.
Big crops are no indication of good farming when
they are produced at excessive cost a man may
make a big crop and leave both himself and his
land poorer for the operation. A man doing this
may be anything but a good farmer. But the man
who increases the fertility of his land year after
year so that he can produce profitable crops with
each recurring season he is a farmer worthy of
the title.
The soil is the source from which all our
lit J. 1 J ' TT- 1 4- IViln 1in.ll
weaiin iiausi ue urawii. ne w uu wasies iu ucin
age of all men and thus leaves the world poorer
for those who shall come after him, commits a
crime against provident nature and against human
kind. He who redeems the waste places, who
makes the desert to blossom and the barren fields
to bring forth, is one of humanity's benefactors.
The question is: Which are you going to be
a farmer, who helps to make his country more
fair and fruitful, or a mere robber who draws
with selfish improvidence upon the bounty of the
earth and makes no return?
It is for you to decide in this, the beginning of
another farm year; and we cannot believe that
you will wilfully decide to be a soil robber.
' ...
To say nothing of the moral aspect of the ques-
and, farmer friends, there is a moral aspect
this business of soil depletion is financially un
profitable. We of the South can see only too
plainly ithe results of such a system, "worn-out,"
abandoned fields, poor stock, poor houses, few
conveniences, cheap lands, a poor people, in
short, so shown by census reports and so regarded
by people of other sections.
Isn't it time for us to about face and change
these things ? Secretary , Wilson says that with
seven years of good farming the average Southern
land would be worth $100 an acre. Is not that,
with all that it would mean, a prize worth striving
for?
It so seems to us. But how are we to do it?
There are many little details to which careful at
tention should be given; but there are a few fun
damental rules which must be observed.
(1) i.We must not permit our lands to wash.
Whatever will prevent this, deep plowing, ter
races, cover crops, is a thing not to be neglected.
(2) We must not expect to take from our lands
all the ; time without returning something. We
have the fertilizer habit, and so we are not as
likely to attempt this as are farmers of some oth
er sections; but
( 4 ) We must keep up the supply of humus as
well as of plant food, and this we have shamefully
neglected to do. This means cover crops again,
and green crops to turn under, and the feeding
of live stock.'
4) We must rotate our crops. The growing
tion
year after year of one crop will inevitably deplete
the soil.
(5) Wo must have in this rotation a liberal
number of leguminous crops. With the legumes
we can increase the fertility of our lands and make
Southern agriculture the prosperous calling it
should be. Without them we shall go on the old
road toward unproductive lands and an impover
ished people.
Let us ask you once again, "What are you
going to do about it?" Will you not for the sake
of the South, for your own sake, for your wife's
and your children's sakes, begin this year to ro
tate your crops, to sow cowpeas and clover, to
feed as much as possible of your crops to stock
at home, to take care of your land by plowing It
deeply and filling it with humus?
All these things you can do; in a small
perhaps, at first, but once started, with more ease
and more effectiveness each year. And the doing
of them will mean a new era in the history of
the South and in your own life.
way,
This Week and Next
m
HIS issue might almost be called another
corn special, with the inspiring reports of
Mr. Hudson and Mr. Millsaps and Dr.
Knapp's pointed directions for making better corn
crops. We have been paying entirely too much
for our corn. Think of it, corn at 70 cents to
$1.00 a bushel and farmers saying they can make
it for ten cents ! j
We must not make jthe great mistake, however,
of trying to feed our stock on corn alone. To do
so means unnecessary! exhaustion of our soils and
a distinct loss in our feeding operations. With
cowpeas, soy beans and peanuts we can have all
the nitrogenous feeds necessary to balance up our
corn and make the cheapest and most satisfactory
rations for all kinds! of stock. Read what Mr.
Moye says on page 12. I
We also wish to call special attention to
our "$500 More a Year" article. Good pastures
are one of the crying needs of the South, and in
many cases it would be so easy to have them.
Many lands where now the cropper fights Ber
muda all summer long could be fenced, leveled
off a little and left to grow up in Bermuda, and
would then yield more money every year than, they
now do, and with practically no labor at all. All
that would be necessary, would be to keep the
briers and weeds cut down, a mowing twice a
year, perhaps, and to harrow the field once a
year to scatter the droppings of the animals. Read
what Professor Massey says this week about the
pastures, too, it is applicable to farmers every
where. I
And as this is the season when patent medi
cines sell most readily, don't fail to read Dr. But
ler's illuminating article on page 8. Preserve your
health by following the rules laid down in our last
issue and let patent medicines alone.
Next week our "$500 More a Year" article will
tell how to realize a profit from the waste prod
ucts of the farm by feeding them to stock. There
will be other suggestions as to the care of the
1
pastures. Dr. Butler will write on the essentials
of stock raising, and we expect to have a batch
of "Plowhandlo Talks" fresh from the soil, and
some more trenchant and pointed comments from
Professor Massey on the features of recent issues.
We know an old worn-out, gullied, mistreated,
hopeless-looking hillside that a wide-awake
Progressive Farmer Reader got hoid of a few
months ago, It has;been a pleasure to watch the
change In that barren! hungry field. The gullies
have been filled up or plowed down, the land
ditched, plowed and harrowed, and now at plant
ing time the soil is almost as fine as an ash bank
and barnyard manure is giving it .life and rich
ness once again. It j is inspiring work almost
like feeding a starving old man or bringing an in
valid back to health and strength and beauty.
Here are the Tasks on Which We
! Must Get to Work.
EfHAD SOMETHING to say in last week's
Progressive Farmer concerning the great
opportunities for better farming not only
as a mens of making more money for ourselves,
but as a means of restoring Southern prestige.
It cannot be too often emphasized that in order
to bring about this greater South, we must get down
to bed rock.- We must begin with the ground it
self. We must set ourselves first of all to bring
about a better system of farming. The land itself
must be better cared for. The galled and gullied
hillside must-become a matter of disgrace for the
owner of the land. Scrawny corn and bumble
bee cotton must become matters of shame for the
man who grows them. A man must come to take
greater jjride in; growing a big corn crop than in
selling sjde meat, tobacco and ginghams at some
cross-roads store. The man who takes a worn
out farm! and builds, it up again to life and rich
ness and! comeliness he must have honor of men
no less than the doctor who brings the bloom of
health bick to the cheeks of his wasted patient.
And thej man who becomes the leader of better
farming n his township or his county, he must be
praised pore than the man who does the mere
routine work of a sheriff or of any ordinary politi
cal officer.
, Each than on h.is own farm muet set out to ex
cel all his own;; past efforts and to surpass the
present efforts of his neighbors. He must manage
his land j better, j He must plant better seed. He
must cultivate more wisely. He must use better
tools. lie must grow more stock. He must rotate
and diversify his crops. He must fertilize more
wisely. ) He must put all the common principles
of better farming into practice. More than this,
the ligh must be carried to his uncaring neighbor.
The very example of his own good farming will
usually fee sufficient to arouse the sluggish and in-'
different farmer; but the man who would be a
leader must not shut his eyes to the advantages of
co-operation. We must try to get farmers' insti
tutes in every farming neighborhood in the South;
and notionly institutes for farmers but for 'farm-'
ers' wives as well. In every neighborhood we
: v . if '
must seek to interest the boys in corn contests
O.U.VX ii KJ.U.fk UU1 ll IU1 qUlVIVCUIUg IUCU lAi. Icl CO U
in better farming. Wherever it is possible we
must seek to have demonstration work begun, and
a demonstration agent selected to instruct the
i . n . . .
people in better methods of farming. Every
farmer must learn to call upon the State and Na
tional Departments of Agriculture for any. infor
mation he wishes: millions of dollars are spent to
make these departments efficient, and the farmer
must tafcje advantage of their services. A live,
wide-awake farm paper, of course, must go to
each farmer's home every week. Not only the
farmer boys, but old farmers as well, must take
the shortjcourses in agriculture and dairying at our
State Agricultural Colleges. Farmers organiza
tions ands farmers' clubs of all kinds must be en
couraged j
agricultural awakening.
Going
that are
and made to play a part in the great
further, we must strive for the riches
higher, than money. We must seek to
build up a more beautiful farm life, a finer social
atmosphere. And here, of course, the fundamental
thing is jthe rural school. It must be . made to
equal the town; graded school. If it costs more
money, if it means more taxes, that tax must be
cheerfully paid;; it is the life of the people. The
money will repay itself to the country many times
over, not in dollars and cents alone although it
will repay itself many times in actual cash but
vastly more in! increasing intelligence and hap
piness among the people; in keeping a better class,
of people! on the farm; In attracting farmers of
wealth ajjid intelligence to your community, and
in bringiiig you to feel pride rather than shame