The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., March 19, 1910, Image 1

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

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Volume XV. l\o. II. SATURDAY. MARCH 19.1910.Weekly: $1 a Year
Some Little Things That Pay Big Profits,
XT EXT week will be our Cotton and Tobacco Special
largely devoted to telling how to grow more of these
money crops and how to make them more cheaply.
Most Southern farmers think that they know how to grow
cotton; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that a very large part
of the cotton crop is produced at a cost which allows a prof
it only in a year of exceedingly high prices such as arc cur
rent just now The average yield of cotton per acre is so
low that the man who does not make more than an average
yield cannot hope to get any great profit from his work.
We are convinced that there is yet much to be teamed about
cotton growing, and that it is possible by better methods to
make it a much more profitable crop than at present.
But there are other things that on the average farm will
pay far larger profits for the labor and money devoted to
them than the cotton crop has done or will do. The most
profitable industries on almost any well-managed farm-—
that is, those giving the largest per cent of profit---are not
the staple crops, but those minor branches of farm work gen
erally known as "side lines."
The farmer who makes a good garden, who has a well
tended strawberry patch, who plants and prunes and sprays
a family orchard, who keeps a flock of good poultry, gets
much larger returns from the time and labor and cash outlay
devoted to these things than he can hope from his cotton
field or his corn-field, his tobacco-field or his hay-field.
The gross returns may not be so large, and it is not likely
that he could devote all his farm to gardening or all his en
ergies to poultry raising and reap a proportionate reward; but
the family garden, the family orchard, the farm poultry, yield
in many cases profits that would seem fabulous. They all
cost so tittle and mean so much that no farmer can afford to
be without them.
This is why we once again take occasion to urge every
reader to took after these too often neglected "side lines."
One of our correspondents said recently that a half-acre
garden could easily be worth $500 in one year to an or
dinary farm family; and we believe it. The orchard, the
small fruit patches, the vineyard, may be of almost equal
value, while the chickens, ducks and turkeys that feed
largely upon what would otherwise be wasted are often al
most clear gain.
You are going to make a great mistake if in your ea
gerness to make a big cotton or com or tobacco crop you
neglect these things this year. To have them and care for
them means, not only more profitable farming, but also a
more wholesome and satisfying farm life.
So once again we say: Have a good garden this year.
Get to work right now, if you have not already done so,
and keep it going the year round.
If you have no small fruits, put out some this spring,
then some more next fall.
Look after the orchard. Give it a chance. Don’t starve
it or allow insects and fungi to destroy it.
Get some good poultry and give them good care.
Arrange for a supply of milk and butter the year round.
See that the potato and truck patches are large enough
to supply your needs with some over.
In short, have a farm, not merely a cotton patch or a
place to stay while you pitch a crop.
■
FEATURES OF THIS ISSUE.
BEE KEEPING FOR FARMERS. 214
BEST VARIETIES OF CORN FOR ALABAMA .202
HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR CORN CROPS: GOOD SEED OF THE
BEST VARIETIES . 201
HOW TO BUY A PURE-IIRED SIRE .218
LETTERS TO THE FARMER BOY.. 212
RAISE ONLY PURE-BRED POULTRY NEXT YEAR. .. 214
THE RELATIONS OF WATER TO CROP PRODUCTION. 109
THE SPECIAL FERTILIZER NEEDS OF VARIOUS CROPS.200
SUBSOILING AND 'x ERRACES. 108
THE HEALTH OF THE HOUSEHOLD . 216
WHERE HARD THINKING WILL PAY . 208
WE NEED FIRST TO CONSIDER THE SOIL.204
WHY WE SHOULD GROW MORE BEEF CATTLE .210