Thursday, April 22, 1909.
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER.
PROF. MASSEY'S
Editorial Page.
Prof. Massey will personally answer
Inquiries on Agricultural subjects
sent by our readers.
ft
m
Keep Improving Your Pasture.
ANY farmers think that a piece of land
in pasture needs no fertilization, but there
is no place where it pays better. Up in
the northern sectton of this State, not far from
Baltimore, many years ago there were rough hill
lands in a very poor state, 'and too rough for
cultivation. They were kept in grass and cattle
bought in Baltimore in spring, thin cattle, and
turned on the grass. Every spring the land was
dressed with three hundred pounds of raw bone
meal. This has been kept up for many years, and
now there is no land in the. country that feeds
more cattle per acre. The grazers are independ
entand cultivate no land, merely buying cattle
and putting them on the grass, and the butchers
take them as needed when ready: and they lead
the life of country gentlemen, needing little labor
except merely for salting the cattle and looking
after them and the fencing, and now and then
mowing off the rank spots and scattering the
droppings. There is no part of the farm which
pays better than the pasture if it is kept im
proving.
the upland and the bottoms, a rotation different
on each and adapted to the crops crown. With
clover sown among the corn on the bottoms, he
could cut a crop of hay the following spring and
still have time enough to plant the corn, especial
ly if crimson clover was sown. And then he
would be in a fair way to keep up the productive
ness of . the bottoms and to raise manure for the
hills, and soon get about as good com, better
wheat or oats, and better cotton on the upland.
A good rotation ! does not mean that the same
rotation shall run over one's whole farm when the
eoil varies from rich bottoms to thin uplands, but
two rotations devised for each, that will make the
rich bottom lands help feed the hills. This is no
fancy sketch, for I have done this very thing on
a hill farm and have made my rich bottoms feed
the hills while the bottoms themselves increased
in production. With a farm of perfectly uniform
soil the problem of a rotation is more easy of so
lution, but no matter what the character of the
land and the crops grown, the thoughtful farmer
can devise a method through the use of which
every part of the farm can be. brought into an im
proving rotation, j
Notes and Comments.
- fiiyi '
Are You Going to Farm Better
This Year?
M
HILE in North Carolina last summer I took
the opportunity to again visit the farm at
tached to the great winter resort at Pine-
hurst.. I wish that every farmer in the South
could i visit this farm and see what live stock
is doins for the sand hills of that section. They
could have seen there more than one hundred
acres is one field of corn, ten feet tall and just
tasselling, which looked capable of making 1 75
bushels of corn per acre, but all of which went in
to the silos for the cows.
They could have seen another field of 175 acres
covered with the finest growth of cowpeas I ever
saw so early in the season, for all over that great
area they stood over knee high and podding the
first of July. This crop was cured and another
sown on the same land to be mown in the early
fall. Five tons of fine hay per acre were made
there last year. 1 -
Mr. Tufts uses acid phosphate and potash lib
erally on his peas and makes his great corn crops
with the manure the peas and ensilage enable him
to make. His success in getting the great crops
on the barren sands of the Moore County hills
well illustrates what I have often said, that the
growing of forage crops and the feeding of cattle
are the foundation of all rational advancement
in agriculture. If this practice gives such wonder
ful results on the deep sands, what would a sim
ilar practice accomplish on the better lands of the
South?
When a man feeds three beeves or three dairy
cows for every bale of cotton he grows, what an
increase in the bales will be made, and how much
less it will cost him to make the cotton, buying
no fertilizer but acid phosphate and potash, and
that mainly for the peas. But this means farming
as opposed to the old planting idea, and a good
rotation of crops.
"Now is the time for you to get ready to do
some such farming this year. Plant enough corn
to do you, and plant a liberal acreage in cow-
neas or sov beans. Lay out a plan of rotation
right now and begin carrying it out. Try not
onlv tn mnVo cttpr p.rnns this vear. but also to
W w uMikV m vvwv x r
improve your land so that you make even better
ones next year. It may be rather hard for you to
begin real farming, but the longer you keep it up
the easier it will be, and the better it wm pay yu
... &
t U;,k fiiorp however, who had the
samdfold tale to tell. He said that he grew his
common his bottom land and never on his uPland;
.T'.-..,A.wi v,Q flint meant. His bottom land
is planted every year in corn and his upland every
year in cotton, and he looked on the corn as sup-
v.. mi vo erood reasons for not
piiear: merely, x uci c a -y,
putting the bottoms in cotton so near the north
ern edle of the Cotton Belt, but there is no rean
HOPE that all who can will give the Wil
liamson Method of growing corn a perfect
ly fair test1 alongside corn that is never
" ....
stunted. Then it would also be interesting to
have a third Dlot without the fertilization Mr.
Williamson advises. You can then find just how
much corn the fertilizer has made, and can figure
what that increase has cost you. I think it will
be seen that the additional corn is bought at a
pretty good price.
'Mr. C. S. Wiliams seems bothered over the
manure question. No one can usually raise ma
nure enough to cover his farm, but I know men
who are profitably raising manure enough to
cover their corn field every year, and in three
vears covering: the farm, and the cattle are fed
at a profit, too, taking the actual cost or tne
feed into the calculation. And if the farmer gets
from the beeves he raises or the cows he feeds
only the market value of the feed, he is doing
well, for he has made the difference between
cost and market price as though he had sold the
feed, and has the manure in addition. II the pro
duction of forage and the feeding of stock was
such as it should be in the South, the wnole tnir
teen million bales of last year's cotton crop could
be grown on one-fourth the land it took to make
them. 5
DR. WATSON S. RANKIN.
Dr. Watson S. Rankin Is the newly elected State
Health Officer of North Carolina. This picture was
taken four or five years ago, and he Is not altogether
so:. youthful-looking now. He brings to his new du
ties unusual ability matched with unusual enthusi
asm, and we bespeak for him the hearty co operation
of all our Progressive Farmer readers.
i f
And the sooner the Southern farmer quits fig
urine- areas as two-horse, three-hourse, or four-
horse, the better. One never hears of farms rated
in that way outside the cotton country, but a
furmpr with a certain number of acres win nave
and use profitably! all the horses he needs, and
wiiii have colts to sell as well as otner tnmgs. i
was on a tobacco ! farm last summer where the
owner had twenty-one standard bred colts, plenty
nf hav for them, and was not afraid that clover
or peas would hurt his tobacco. Mr. Williams is
right about the peas and clover. We cannot proi
it,wv foAfi stock without them. We need all that
the clover and peas will do for us, but we want
to get the fedeing value before making manure oi
them.
I know of one farm of 258 acres where there Is
an average of nineteen horses and colts all tne
?mo nat.tiA fpri well, and manure enough made to
y v,o mm field every year. Go where you
will, and wherever you find the farmers most
prosperous and the farms in the best condition,
there you will find they are feeding all the stock
thev can make forage for.
But the attitude of the Southern farmer Is like
that of a North Carolina man In one of the best
cotton-growing sections. I was urging the neces
cHv nf zrowine: more forage and feeding cattle.
He replied: "That may be all right, but I do not
want to be; pestered with them." And that is
just what is the matter in the soutn.
Mr. Williams is rieht about pruning the Scup-
pernong, and I would say that any grape is
better nruned in soring than in fall. The new
growth will take up the sap water and none of
anv amount will run out, though the bleeding sel
dom does much damage anyway, as it is mainly
soil water, and not true sap. Still I do not HKe
to see it. Layers certainly make good vines, but
by grafting a cutting on to a piece of a wild
Muscadine root about three inches long, they will
grow very easily, and make strong vines in one
season. The wild Muscadines are very commonly
stamihate and barren, but if one of these barren
plants is grown near a Scuppernong it will greatly
, promote the fruiting of the Scuppernong, for the
Scuppernong needs outside pollen for the best re
sults.! In sections where there are many wild
vines the; bees will bring the pollen to the Scup
pernong, ! but where the wild ones are scarce it
is best to plant one near by.
' j I
I am hoping to see the day when white people
never live in cabins, but every farm will have a
dwelling made to look home-like. I once visited
a farmer in North Carolina who owned two farms
and hkd a nice dwelling, but he had not a cow on
the placed and in the dining-room all had to crawl
into Ipngj benches at the table, and the family did
not touch the butter. That was for the 'guest.
And that j man was able to have things home-like,
and to. have his wife at the head of the table in
stead fof standing around and waiting on the rest
till they had eaten. He was able to have water
all over the house instead of having the women'
running a hundred yards down hill to a spring
for all the water. He was well able to have
cows to make butter instead of buying a print on
rare occasions for invited guests. Western butter
on a farmer's7 table? Yes, and in a section where
fine grass grows on the bottoms if let grow. Every
nerve strained to make tobacco with commercial
fertilizers on the farm and no conveniences for.
the wiomen in the housein fact, no real home
life.' ' v:J::.; ' ' ;.
We' want to change all that, too. Stern pov
erty klone should excuse these conditions, and
we want to show the struggling poor man the way
out to better things. But the way is not through
plowing all the land up to the house for cotton
everylyear, and going in debt for everything used
on the farm and in the family.
If Ihelfarm horse is to make a long drive the
amount of feed should be reduced to one-half
the usual amount. If more Is to be required of
the muscles, less can be done by the stomach,
and It is always better to have the feed remain
In the bag than to have the horse eat it
if hel ls not able to digest It. Moreover, s the
feed given your horse this morning will not be
digested and taken up by the body in time to
help him 'do this forenoon's work.
It
Let no! farmer complain of the price of cowpeas
or use that as an excuse for failure to plant every
acre of corn and stubble land in this greatest of
all Southern legumes. Really, when you come to
thinkf of it, is it not a little strange to hear a
farmer complaining of the high price of a farm
product?. Ij Moreover, cowpeas are worth for sow
ing all any man will have to pay for them.
why a good rotation should not De ayy - r