The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., July 23, 1910, Image 1

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

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MOW TO'GET GOOD ROAD8\\WITHOUT EXTRA TAX—PAGE S.
Volume XV. No. 29.SATURDAY, JULY 23,1910._ Weekly: $1 a Year.
Why We Must Have a Twelve-Months' Stock Law.
J^EFORE the stock law was passed on the people here we
could buy beef for 4 and 5 cents, and now it is from 10 to
15 cents per pound, and can hardly get it for that. We could
get pork for 4 to 6 cents and now it is 10 to 18 cents. We could
also get com for $1.25 per bag and now it is $2.15. I have
tried all breeds of hogs. I have the Berkshire, Poland Chinaf
and Vanderbilt.f?) All kinds are failures with the stock law. I
also have two Jersey cows shut up in stalls and not getting a drop
of milk. Will have to get rid of them if I do not get the range
back."
The above paragraph was taken from a recent letter in a county
paper that came to our desk. It was evidently written by a man
who had no idea as to how he could adjust himself to the new
conditions and restrictions. It seems never to have occurred to
i
him that he coaid make and fence in a pasture for his cows, and
get more milk and more money from them than he ever got when
they ran at large.
Of course, he waited and is waiting in vain, because when a
community once tries this law it sticks to it—the first proof of
its superiority. As we said a few weeks ago, "Year by year the
area coming under this law, which prevents the live stock of
one man depredating on the lands of another, is being increas
ed, until now there are few sections at all thickly settled, or
making a pretense to good farming that have not adopted it.”
In this issue Prof. Duggar and Mr. Prince give some sound
reasons why every man should be obliged to keep his stock at
home twelve months in the year. These arguments are, it seems
to us, unanswerable. It is useless to say that live stock can not \
be raised without free range, because the best stock of all kinds
in America today is raised in sections where the farmers never
dream of turning their animals out to forage over the country
fora living; and if cutting out the free range increases the
price of pork and beef, it seems to us that a shrewd farmer
could make some mighty good money producing this same pork
and beef. The difference between the man who succeeds and
the man who fails may consist solely in the difference in the
ability of each to adapt himself to changed conditions. Some
men may sit down in despair when their cattle and hogs are no
longer permitted to get a living from their neighbors’ land;
but the really thoughtful and capable farmer will see at once
that the change will enable him to raise better stock, to take
better care of it and to make more out of it.
Again, two of the leading articles in this issue treat of winter
cover crops and the eradication of the cattle tick ; and until we
get rid of the tick and save the millions of dollars we are losing
by tick fever and the quarantine, and also learn to keep our
lands protected during the winter from washing and leaching,
we shall have poor soils and poor cattle. Yet those who have
had experience in the work of tick eradication know that it is
practically impossible to get rid of the ticks where the cattle
-1
run at large; and how is a man to keep cover crops on any con- 1
siderable area of his farm if his neighbors' stock are turned
loose to run over the country during the winter? v4MMl'
This question as to whether a man shall care for his
stock or turn them loose on the community is not a small af
fair; it lies at the very foundation of successful stock raising
and good farming. The all-the-year-round stock law is not
only right in principle, but has been found to be absolutely neces
sary to the highest agricultural development.
INDEX TO THIS ISSUE.
Blackroot of Cotton .. 520
$5,000,000 Damage Done Annually by Cattle Ticks as Parasites. . 518
How to Care for a Typhoid Patient.. • • • 524
Late and Early Irish Potatoes. 510
Mid-Summer Garden Notes. 533
Permanent Pastures for the South—111. 513
Salary System Would Give lTs Money to Build Good Hoads. 513
Symptoms of Tick Fever. *^10
The Country School Playground. 514
The Wheat Crop and Winter Oats. 510
What A Boy Wants to Know. n20
When You Go to the Farmers’ Institute. 510
Why We Should Grow More Crimson Clover. 511
THRESHING RICE IN ARKANSAS.