The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., January 22, 1910, Page 39, Image 3

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

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$500 More a Year Farming: How to Get It !
By a System of Cropping That Will Furnish Work for Men
And 1 earns Every Day In the Year.
By Taft llutler.
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HE COST of growing any farm
crop is moat Important factor
in determining the profits re
sulting from its production, in this
cost two very large and important
Items nre tho cost of the man labor
and the expense of keeping the work
stock. Heretofore, our system of
cropping and methods of doing farm
work have not been such as to give
proper consideration to the import
ance of reducing tho cost of these
items of expense. For from four to
six months In the year, particularly
during July nnd August nud from
December 15th to February 15lli,
both men and teams are usually idle,
and some of the work stock frequent
ly for the larger part of the year.
While this Is not universal, It Is too
general for economical farm pro
duction.
The disadvantages of a system of
cropping which does not give
constant profitable employment
throughout tho year to both men
and teams are mauy and far-reach
ing as affecting tho labor and other
economic conditions of the farm.
Minu s* Is Demoralising.
Any laborer of a type to do Intel
ligent or satisfactory farm work. Is
not willing to work only eight or
nine months In the year, unless paid
a full year's wage* for the shorter
period of service. In fact, good la
bor demands constant employment,
and any system of farming which en
forces a period of Idleness on labor
must bear the burden of supporting
the laborers during the period of
Idleness as well ns when they aro
working. Furthermore, a cropping
system which does not furnish con- s
slant work for farm laborers is de
moralising In Its Influences on the
laborers and begets inferior service.
It matter* not that a largo part of
our farming Is done by negroes and
othor tenants and that these are
largely at liberty to work or play as
they may see III. the cropping system
which offers opportunities for long
peritxlB of Idleness Is extravagant
ami demoralising on all farm lalx»r.
Where coltoti is the chief crop tho
portlou of tho year during which the
team* are idle Is oven greator than
that stated for tho laborers. This
Item of expense Is not given sufficient
consideration. Counting tho limited
period of usefulness of a work ani
mal. Its cost, tho Interest on tho In
vestment and the expense of feed and
care, it costs not far from $100 to
keep a farm horse or mule a year.
To permit this animal to pass half
the time In Idleness when he Is more
efficient and healthy If kept at regu
lar work. Is an expense no farmer
can afford. No non-breeding animal
should be kept In Idleness on the
farm.
In planning a cropplug system,
this question of supplying regular
work for men and teams Is, of
course, not the only one to be con
sidered, but it is one which should
receive more consideration than has
been our custom In the past. The
lflrKer tho place glveu In any crop
ping system to a crop that requires
“ large amount of hand or human
labor, tho more difficult It becomes
supply constant work for the
teams.
Conditions differ widely on differ
ent farms and in different localities.
The character of the soil, the market
-'I
demands or facilities, the amount
aud kind of labor, the supply of
work stock and farm machinery and
numerous other varying conditions
must largely influence aud determine
the selection aud arrangement of
crops and the areas to be planted to
each. Hut to improve our present
defective cropping system, wherever
a period of idleness or overwork for
men or teams now exists such a re
duction and shifting of some of the
crops now grown, with the addition
of certain of the most desirable new
crops to 1111 in the vacant periods,
must be arranged with a view to
giving more continuous employment.
For instance, w hen the picking of
the cotton crop requires so much of
all the available baud labor as to pre
vent the use of the teams in prepar
ing the land aud sowing winter-grow
ing cover aud forage crops, the acre
age in cotton should bo reduced and
the laud used for an increase in the
acreage planted to these winter
growing crops.
Again, when tho cultivation of
corn and cotton so occupy the avail
able forces in May and June as to
seriously interfere with the harvest
ing or planting of needed forage
crops, changes or reductions should
be made to distribute the work
more equitably.
During the latter part of July and
August when the cultivation of the
corn and cotton has been finished
crops should bo arranged that will
occupy the men and teams either In
planting, cultivating or harvesting.
Prepare land in Winter for Next
Season's Crops.
The preparation of the laud dur
ing the fall and winter for the next
season s crops of corn and cotton will
largely reduce the labor of spring
preparation and cultivation, and
while furnishing work duriug the
late fall and winter for men and
teams will also relieve the pressure
of spring work to an extent which
may permit of the piauting of other
crops to be cultivated or gathered
duriug the idle period which al
ways follows the laying-by of the
cotton crops.
11 is not possible to outline a
cropping system that will fit a suf
ficiently large number of farms to
justify the attempt, but Just what
the system should be is not the im
portant question. It would not be
exactly alike for nny two farms,
probably. The main point aimed at is
to call attention to the Importance of
the question with a view of inducing
each reader to give more thought
and attention to the subject. Of
course, it Is not possible to plan a
cropping system that will completely
and equitably distribute the work
for both men and teams throughout
the entire year, nor is this necessa
rily desirable, but the aim should be
to furnish as near continuous work
as possible for both men and work
stock to the end that both will be
better off atid the net profits of the
farm Increased.
The growing of feeds for live stock
may be so fitted into our present
cropping systems as to largely solve
the problem of furnishing constant
labor for men and teams throughout
the year, and it is in this way that
the growing of more live stock will
bo made profitable rather than by
permitting it to displace any of the
crops now regularly grown.
PLOW THE GARDEN EARLY.
Did You Ever Not© the Difference
Between the Family With a Gar
den and the One Without?
Messrs. Editors: If I were asked
the most valuable point gained from
experience in my many years’ work
with the garden, my prompt res
ponse would be: “Have it plowed in
winter.”
When I have read of the large
yields of corn in the recent issues ol
The Progressive Farmer and Gazette,
I would run on down the column to
see if the land was not broken in
winter, and I can tell you, I have
scarcely ever been disappointed.
Y'ears ago I read in some farm
hand book: “If the garden is plow
ed and bedded in winter, it will
make it much earlier.” By proof, I
found it a wonderful truth. The soil
is pulverized by the freezing, the
ridge dries out sooner than a level,
the warm soil is on top, the seed bed
is firm, and what better condition
can we ask?
When I have done this, I have
gathered cymlings, and to spare,
the last of May. Of course, they are
not the whole dinner, but prepared
with butter and cream, they make
a most delightful side dish, and un
less they come in early, we do not
care for them.
I opened my safe not long since,
and got a breath of the “June time,”
and what do you suppose it was?
Why, a dish of pickled beets—they
were put up during the summer,
while the sugar was still present—in
winter they are stringy and insipid.
A small thing you say, our lives are
made up of small things.
Another vegetable used as a relish
Is the parsnips. They are good, and
easy to raise, never have to be dug
or protected, and come in at the
scarce time, last of February.
Compare the family who has these
things with one that cares only for
meats and sweets, and see the dif
ference.
In our garden we have a long row
so that the plow may go each side,
and in it asparagus, grapes, sage and
perennial herbs, and even a little rose
nursery. Some of the choicest va
rieties have been left here, and since
the good man works them around,
they out-bloom those on the lawn,
and when I go in to get vegetables
for dinner, their beauty and sweet
ness lift my thoughts to heaven,
and I am sure the burdens of the
$ 1 2 for lespedeza.
MRS. PAMELA C. READE.
Underground Drainage With Goal
Slag.
Messrs. Editors: The writer saw a
farmer cutting narrow ditches about
4 to 6 feet deep, just large enough
for the hired man to have standing
and working room, and filling them
up with coal clinkers from near-by
cotton mills, which gave him the ma
terial for the moving. It filled a most
excellent purpose as a blind ditch,
and was filled with clinkers up to
about 16 inches of the top, when dirt
was filled in. The percolation was
perfect and a series of those ditches
emptied into a large open central
ditch and drained medium wet land
perfectly.
H. EUGENE FANT.
Money in Hay.
Messrs. Editors: I have baled 1,000
bales of hay this year. I keep an
expense account with everything I
raise and find I get more clear money
out of hay. I have a loader made
by John Deere Plow Co. I got 21
4-horse loads off of 7 acres. I sell
my hay for $15 a ton, $8 for grass,
$12 for lespedezia.
D. A. STRATTON*
Como, Miss.
Get My Price
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Supply Men, Catalog-House
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Wm. Galloway freight right to your station. You only pay for actual
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mous quantity.
nci my i uocncr rroposmon tor i»xo witn
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months if it's not a paying investment. How's
that for a proposition? If I did not have the
best spreader. I would not dare make such an
offer. 40,000 farmers have stamped their O. K.
Win. Galloway Company, ol America.
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Drop me a postal and say—“Galloway, send
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T. K. Stlre, Oswego, Kalis., writes me—“Often pull It
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going to buy adoaeu more, they would all be Uallowejrs,
Thousands more letters like these here.
819 Galloway Station. Waterloo, Iowa
GALLOWAY KKHF®
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