The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., May 21, 1910, Page 366, Image 2

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

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
Professor Massey’s
Editorial Page.
How John Crakore Fooled His
Neighbors.
- HAVE TOLD how our friend, John Crack
er, after visiting his relatives in the
_ North who called themselves Crakore,
adopted the same name and became John Crakore.
But John did not stop there. He bought two
good blocky mares, and plows and implements to
suit the team. He subscribed to The Progressive
Farmer and Oazette and studied improved meth
ods of farming.
The old house got a coat of paint and a broad
porch, and he laid off a lawn around it and seeded
it to grass and planted trees around it, and flower
ing shrubbery, made a pretty drive to the front
door and a side road to the barn, and the old
place soon began to look home-like.
His wife and daughters got catalogs and bought
flower seeds and bulbs, and delighted in plant
ing them. John got a full-blooded Jersey bull,
and purchased a pure-bred boar and used these
to breed up his common stock.
John’s neighbors watched all these things
Closely and at the store on Saturday afternoons
John was discussed, and the general opinion was
that John was on the road to the county home.
He was getting to he a “book farmer,” and book
farming did not pay in the South, they knew very
well.
But when these men who had no cows went to
the store to buy butter, they were told that they
could get Mrs. Crakore’s butter for 30 cents a
pound and not a cent less, and the store-keeper
said he had quit selling the oleomargarine they
had been getting for butter.
John had a fine lot of half-bred pigs, and his
neighbors had to buy some pigs in the spring,
and John got $5 each for his as soon as weaned,
and would not sell many at that price.
Then, when they saw John driving his mares to
they said that John had gone'5 'crai^°ttftP
was going to ruin his crop. But John kept on
with harrow and weeder, and the weather turned
rainy, but between showers he got over the land
and broke the crust rapidly while his neighbors
were getting hopelessly in the grass.
Then when they were trying with single plows
to cover up the grass, John mounted his riding
cultivator with his two mares hitched to it, and
went over his crops in less than half the time his
neighbors took, and did better work.
Jt
His neighbor, Jim Mulekin, came over one Sun
day afternoon and was astonished to see that
John’s cotton and corn were perfectly clean and
thriving. “Why,” said he, "the grass in my cot
ton is almost as high as the cotton. I am just
waiting till the rain stops so that I can go into it
wun a turning plow ana cover the grass up.”
"You need not have had the grass there,” said
John, “if you had used the harrow and weeder
when it started, and then had a two-horse culti
vator to get over rapidly between the rains.”
“But I ain’t got but one mule,” said Jim.
“And you will lose enough on your cotton crop
to have paid for two more mules,” said John. “I
have found out that horse power is cheaper than
man power, and that there is profit in farming if
it is done right. Are you going to sow peas in
your corn. Jim?”
“Sow peas, and they sellin’ at $2.50 a bushel?
I reckon not. Can’t afford it.”
“I can not afford not to do it,” said John, “but
I have plenty of peas and would not take $2.50 a
bushel for them so long as I can find a vacant
place for them.”
“Fact is,” said Jim, “I don’t see how I am to
pay for the fertilizer I bought, and it growln’
grass lnstid of cotton.”
“What did you buy," said John.
“Why, I bought the regular 2—8—2 that I have
always bought, and they charged me $25 a ton
for it, and that was the cheapest they had, and
I used 200 pounds an acre on the cotton.”
“Perhaps the lowest priced, but not the cheap
est,” said John. I did not buy any ammonia, but
mixed acid phosphate and potash, about 10_5,
on the crimson clover last fall, and this spring I
added only acid phosphate for the cotton, for the
clover is giving me all the weed I want, and on
the clover and cotton I have used 500 pounds of
fertilizer an acre that did not cost me much more
than your 200 pounds, for I bought for cash."
"Bought for cash!” said Jim. “Whar in the
world did you git cash in the spring?”
"Been selling you fellows butter at 30 cents a
pound all winter, and pigs in the spring, and I
fattened two steers and sold them to the butcher.
Sold some corn, too, and oats, and a lot of late
potatoes and sweet potatoes, and all the help I
need I can get cheap, for the darkeys know they
will get their pay Saturday night, and when my
cotton is made it will belong to me, for I do not
owe anything at the store. The store is always
owing me, and the chickens and eggs my wife
raises buy all the clothes she and the children
wear.
“Then directly my winter oatsi will be com
ing in, and I shall have a good crop to sell. In
fact, Jim, since I went up the country and saw
how those farmers there do, I have gone to farm
ing, too, and we can beat those people up-country,
for we can make as much corn and oats and wheat
as they can, and have the cotton for a surplus
crop.”
J«
“Well, John, we had all about concluded you
were gittin’ so extravagant that you were on the
road to the poor-house, and the fact is, you are
gittin' the start on us fellows, and after the crap
is laid by, them mares of yours are going to have
colts, and next thing, you’ll be a four-horse
farmer.”
X am going 10 nave an me uursu power x ueeu,
and hope to have some to sell, and my heifer
calves will make better cows than the old ones,
and I shall sell my bull and get another one not
akin to them, and shall, before long, have cows
nearly full-blooded. In the same way I shall
breed up my hogs, and as soon as I get the land
to make more grass, I shall have some sheep.
“ I was as poor as you, Jim, and it only takes a
little use of brains to get out of the one-mule
class and go to farming. Cotton is a wonderfully
profitable crop where one farms, for actually I
expect to get over a bale an acre this year, and I
will have made a good living out of the other
things I raise, and my cotton I can put under
cov^Mid^^l^^^a^^e^ice^^^st^^^you
“Well, John, I am goln’ to tell these things
to the fellows out at the store, and I rather think
we’ll wake up.”
BThe Legume Special
" * ’ i ••.V' ’■ *" *.. “SB ; U'r' ^-V
IE GREATEST evidence of the wave of
improvement in farm methods and practice
In the South is Bhown by the attention be
ing paid to the legume crops, especially to cow
peas and crimson clover. When, more than twenty
years ago, I began a crusade for the cowpea it
was rare to see a field of peas, except in the corn
fields. The Southern farmers hardly seemed to
realize what a bonanza they had in the pea, which
they and their fathers and grandfathers had been
planting in a sort of haphazard way for eenera
tions. Then peas were picked and flailed out and
sold for 50 to 75 cents a bushel. Now a hundred
acres are grown where one was grown twenty
years ago, and such a demand has sprung up all
over the country for the seed that peas are seldom
lower than two dollars a bushel, and generally
higher. It is a curious instance of an immense
increase of production attended by a higher price
for the product. Now, a farmer can mow and
cure his pea hay at the proper stage, and the
seed will ripen and can be threshed from the hay
and cleaned by the Koger machine at rate of half
a bushel of clean peas a minute, and the hay left
in fine shape for feeding. Twenty years ago a
Legume Special would hardly have attracted the
attention of the farmers. But the paper and the
institutes have made the farmers acquainted with
the important role the legumes play In the im
provement of the soil, and the farmers are finding
out their value.
Jl
Nine years ago I came from Raleigh to Salis
bury, Maryland, to speak at a farmers’ institute 1
I told the farmers that I had ridden that day all '
the way up from Cape Charles, nearly 100 miles, *
and my eyes had been pained by the sight of the 1
bare land in winter where the corn and truck
crops had been grown the previous summer, and
I told them of what we were doing in North 1
Carolina with crimson clover, and what could be 1
done with it here on their sandy soil. Now, I t
ook out the window as I write and see broad
ields of this clover. And what is more surpris
ng, right across the road from where I am writ
ng the land rises into a sandy ridge. It is deep
;and, probably six or eight feet to the hard clay,
■tnd yet, on that sand ridge to-day, is a sod of
aluegrass that Kentucky can not beat. What has
lone it? Some little manure and fertilizer, some
'lover and a little lime; and now, where the grass
was left uncut last summer among some old apple
trees, the grass will tangle one’s feet in walking
through it. This sod has been unbroken for years
and will not be broken.
All over over the upper South such a sod could
be had if the farmers will but take the trouble to
get it. This is well shown by the sod that covers
the campus at the A. & M. College at Raleigh,
where one crop of peas turned under over twenty
years ago enabled us to get a sod. With such a
sod as that I see from my windows, one could
have a permanent pasture that would last a life
time and improve if given a little bone meal an
nually and a little lime once in six or seven years
And the way to get grass is to use peas and
crimson clover to improve the soil. With a good
permanent pasture, well kept, one would never
have to graze his cultivated fields, and would only
have to fence the pasture. Of course, in most
parts of the South, Bermuda will be the summer
pasture, and mixed with Texas bluegrass, there
would be a winter pasture, too.
With the legumes for forage and a permanent
pasture, the live stock industry would be easy,
and this is the greatest need of the South to-day.
Comments and Suggestions.
,7 I AM CHEERFULLY writing personal re
\ plies to letters from the subscribers to The
'*-• Progressive Farmer and Gazette, but I do
not propose to do this for men who do not take
the paper. If you are a subscriber, say so when
you send a query. Otherwise, I shall expect a
dollar for the reply, and you had as well send the .
dollar to the paper for a year’s subscription. I
cannot spend time and labor writing letters for
a two-centstamp to people who will not take the
Jt
COMMISSION MERCHANTS.—Mr. R. E. Han
ley, business manager of the League of Commis
sion Merchants, Buffalo, N. Y., writes, asking
why, In a recent article in The Progressive Farmer
and Gazette, I "should proceed to condemn all
commission merchants?” The fact is, that I did
not condemn all commission merchants at all, but
only warned the shippers against the rascally
ones, and said that the best way to market pro
duce is the way we are doing here on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland and Virginia, by organizing
produce exchanges. I have no quarrel with hon
orable men in the commission business, and am
glad to get the printed list of the members of the
League of Commission Merchants, who have or
ganized for self-protection against rogues. I am
also heartily in favor of the growers organizing
lor meir own protection and advantage. The
League is, doubtless, a good thing for those who
have to ship direct to commission merchants, and
it will protect the shippers. But the exchanges
have proven their value and have come here as a
permanent thing. Where there are large numbers
of growers shipping, an exchange is the best
thing to handle the crops. But where one is lo
cated so that an exchange is not practicable, then
consult the agents of the League before shipping
and find out who are to be trusted.
NUT GRABS.—The only way to kill nut grass
is not to let it show a leaf above ground. This
means constant cleaning off, for it will be up next
day, but if constantly prevented from making
green leaves the roots will die. Nut grass spreads
more from seed than from the roots, and being
neglected late in the season, it fills the soil with
seed, and nothing but constant vigilance will
eradicate it. I have Just made a garden here
'rom a piece of land that is full of it, and I am go
ng to do Just what I advise; clean up every shoot
>very day. Nothing short of this will answer.
Jeese penned on the spots will keep it down, it is
aid, but I have never tried them.'
The best way to rest land is to keep it busy
letween sale crops growing something that will
eed stock and feed the land at the same time—
he legume crops.