The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., January 29, 1910, Page 62, Image 10

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

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
Under the Editorial and Business Management of
DR. TAIT BUTLER,
8TAKKVIL.LK, MISS.
CLARENCE H. POE. ... Associate Editor and Manager.
Prof. W. F. MASSEY, .... Associate Editor.
E. E. MILLER, ...... Managing Editor.
FISHER SPECIAL AGENCY, - - Eastern Representatives,
150 Nassau Street, New York City.
ALBERT H. HOPKINS, .... Western Representative.
1108-1110 Boyce Building, Chicago. 111.
S. M. GOLDBERG, St. Louis and Kansas City Representative.
422 Reliance Building, Kansas City. Mo.
OFFICES:
RALEIGH. N. O. STARKVILLE, MISS.
To either of which Communications regarding
Advertising or Subscriptions may be Addressed.
Entered as second class matter Oct. 16, 1907, at the postoffice Ral
eigh, N. C.. under the Act of Congress of March 8, 1879.
We Guarantee Our Advertisers.
W’E will positively make good the loss sustained by any subscriber
** as a result of fraudulent misrepresentation made in our col
umns on the part of any advertiser who proves to be a deliberate
swindler. This does not mean that we will try to adjust trifling
disputes between reliable business houses and their patrons, but in
any case of actually fraudulent dealing, we will make good to the
subscriber as we have juat indicated. The condition of this guaran
tee is that the claim for loss shall be reported to us within one
month after the advertisement appears in our paper, and that the
subscriber must say when writing each advertiser: '1 am writing
you aa an advertiser in The Progressive Parmer and Gazette, which
guarantees the reliability of all advertising that it carries."
Average Weekly Circulation IWOtf, 70,10*.
Editorial Notes.
GAIN WE SAY. do not pledge your vote to
the earliest candidate for the Legislature.
Congress, or county offices. Wait until
you see who are to come out and then give your
support to the man who has the most practical
and helpful policy for building up the community
and the State. Only in this way can the farmer
ever make his influence count as other trades and
* professions make theirs count. The business man
does not pledge his vote to the first man who asks
Hfrhim for it, but first demands what policies the
candidates will support, and the candidate really
has contempt for any man who is so "easy” as not
to fdllow this policy.
Three or four years ago one of our readers set
out a few magnolias in front of one of his tenant
houses. The rich, dark green foliage now gives
a glory to the little dwelling and makes the whole
landscape more beautiful. Magnolias may be had
very cheaply from the nurseries.
,*
A great many advertisers get out catalogs not
only useful for the information they give about
the products advertised, but containing much val
uable general information on general farm sub
jects. We notice two or three of our farm imple
ment advertisers are offering books well worth
50 cents apiece that may be had for a postal.
Our friends, Mr. H. H. Newton, of Bennetts
ville, S. C-, and Mrs. H. M. Prince, of Oakland,
Miss., have written to us calling attention to the
fact that if pellagra is caused by corn bread, it
can come only from bread made of unsound meal.
Since much of the meal shipped to the South from
the Northwest is made from corn that lias heated,
often molded, the wisdom of raising corn for
bread at home and of seeing that only sound,
clean corn is ground is apparent. Good, fresh,
sweet corn meal will hurt no one, of this we may
be assured; and as our friends suggest, the surest,
and the cheapest, way to get this meal is to grow
the corn and know that only the right sort is
ground. We think both Mr. Newton and Mrs.
Prince have the right idea, and thank them for
calling out attention to this phase of corn growing
in the South.
Once again the unthoughtful Southern farmer
begins the folly of burning up trash, grass, leaves,
half-decaying vegetable matter—the humus which
is the soil's greatest need. Once again Nature, with
her infinite patience, has spent twelve months try
ing to develop this humus and help restore the
soil’s fertility. The blind folly of thwarting her
efforts, so general throughout the South, is noth
ing less than tragic.
We are very much gratified to learn that instead
of a great "university” which the Farmers’ Union
had been reported as planning to establish, the
money will be expended rather for genuine "farm
life schools,” less pretentious but vastly more use
ful, which will help the boys in shirt sleeves get
practical education on easy terms. This is the
sort of work the Farmers’ Union needs to do in
stead of building "universities” which could only
be sham "universities" at best.
mM
Tennessee bids fair to pass all the other South
ern States in educational progress. In addition
to the three million dollars raised by the counties
themselves for public education, a new law seta
apart 25 per cent of the gross revenue of the
State for educational purposes, and the towns get
ting the location of the three new normal schools,
Memphis, Murfreesboro, and Johnson City, to
gether pledged more than a million dollars apiece
in order to secure their location.
In a personal letter to the Editor. Dr. ChaB. W
Stiles says: "The fact has come to my attention
that at least three firms are advertising pro
prietary (popularly known as ’patent’ or secret )
medicines for the cure of hookworm disease. Will
you kindly inform your readers that the chief
drug used in treating hookworm disease is thymol,
and that while this can be taken with safety if
properly administered, It may cause death if not
taken under the proper conditions. Warn your
readers, therefore, that it is best that the treat
ment for hookworm disease be given under in
direction of a physician. Warn your readers also
that the extravagant claims found in these adver
tised cures for bookworm disease are not to be
believed." It should not be necessary to say more
on this point. The trouble Is. that the people
who will buy these nostrums do not read The
Progressive Farmer and Gazette.
The Possibilities of Local Co-Operation.
O WE BELIEVE in co-operation among
farmers? Well rather. We believe in it, too,
as a practical business proposition. Here
are some practical ways in which you can co
operate with your neighbors: In the purchase of
improved implements which will answer neigh
borhood needs—a pea thresher, for example, a
corn harvester, a shredder, a silo-tilling out
fit, a power spraying outfit, etc.; in the purchase
of pure bred sires—stallions, Jacks, hulls; in the
marketing of truck or produce—put up a good
grade, in uniform packages with your mark on
them, sell to consumer direct or through one re
liable dealer, and get better prices; in the pur
chase of staple family supplies in large quantities;
in drainage propositions, and roads and schools.
Yes, there are a thousand ways in which co
operation will help the farmers. And we be
lieve the co-operation that is most likely to bring
immediate profits and to prepare for general co
operative efTort, is that among the men who live
in one community and can keep in close touch
t with each other.
1910 a Live Stock Year.
— O MAKE 1910 a live stock year that Is
one of the ambitions of The Progressive
Farmer and Gazette. There is no use to
go wild over cotton in view of the fact that a
normal vieJd per .acre in 19<*9 would have sent
prices to 10 cents a pound, and a bigger acreage
tills year may send them even below that figure,
while at the same time all kinds of live stock and
meat products are selling higher than ever before
and the demand for them is steadily increasing
In its review of the important events of 1910, for
example, Collier's Weekly mentions as one of the
important facts:
"At the beginning of December, Christmas
steers sold in the open Chicago market at
$9.f>0—the highest price on record in the
memory of business men. I.ard sold at the
highest prices since the early seventies."
Similarly in the beautiful Christmas issue o'
the Hreeder’s Gazette there is a highly interesting
article by William Allen White, the famous Kan
sas author, who begins his article with these
words:
"A Lyon County farmer went to the Kansas
City market recently with a load of good
grade ateera—Hereford* mo*tlv. and brought
home over $100 for each ateer They were
9-cent ateer*. HI* mighbor* have been get
ting $8.50 for hog* These prices 9-cent
ateera and 8|~cent hog- are not uncommon
price* In theae dayr. Yet they are rather bet
ter than aver-ge price* They are the occa
sional wave* of a stcrdy advance that Indi
cate* where the flood will go unto** It Is
checked. If American condition* continue to
develop a* they are now developing. In ten
year* 9-cent steer* and 8|-eent hog* will be
aa common aa 4- and 5-cent hog* were ten
year* ago. And no prophet *o*ma to be able
to look Into the grindstone of the future and
see any change coming."
Another striking llluRlratlon of the money in
stock raising Is the following statement of the
advance In prices in meat products a* given In
the February World's Work:
July. M»Hrh. !w«i l»f,
l«* li*C. \'»t>
Beef, per pound.055 .08 .09
Milk, per quart.03 .04 .105
Ham. per pound.10 .14 .145
Butter, per pound.15 .335 .34
Wool, per pound.16 .32 .3 5
Kgg*. per doten.125 .29 36
These are only a few Illustrations of the rapid
Increase in profits In all lines of stock raising,
dairying, and poultry raising, and when one la
engaged In work of this kind he is not only mak
ing the big profits suggested by those figure*, but
he la building up hla land and not wearing It out
mere is no more brilliant opportunity ahead of
the South than that which we have fur cattle
raising an soon an the cattle tick is exterminated.
And Just here It BeeniB that we cannot do bettor
than to re-prlnt an Interview we had In October
with Mr. JaH. K. Downing, of the United State*
Department of Agriculture.
"We think we have a great Block country
up In Iowa," Mr. Downing Bald to ub, “but
It doesn t take an Iowa man any time to Bee
that you here In the South have double our
advantages for stock raising. In Iowa we are
already having to food corn, and when a
Western man sees how he can have a green
pasture crop all the year round here In the
South, It muke* him want to g« t right out
und start to stock ruining. You have a big
advantage, not only In your longer seasons,
but also in your freedom from tuberculosis]
which |h the bane of stock ruining from New
Jersey to the liocky Mountains. Oh, you
have a great chance for live stock!
"And there is money in It -big money In
H. Over in Spartanburg, S. <\. last week I ate
butter from Fox Kiver.Wis., selling at O* cents
a pound, while the native butter was selling
at :jo cents; Western steak at 2 5 cents a
pound, nutlvo steak being 15 cents, und, of
course, the higher prices for both Bteak and