The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., August 06, 1910, Page 542, Image 2

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

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Professor Massey’s
Editorial Page.
Second Application of Fertilizers to
Cotton.
A DAILY PAPER has an article on cotton in
which the statement is made that, “The
more up-to-date farmers of the country have
learned that it is profitable to make a second ap
plication of fertilizer to cotton as soon as it is
thinned.”
If an insufficient amount was used in the first
place, perhaps it may pay to
apply more. But, as a rule,
the full amount of phosphoric
acid and potash should be ap
plied at the start. These are
not going to get out of the soil
till some plant takes them up.
If cotton grows off slowly, it
may pay to apply 5 to 100
pounds an acre of nitrate of
soda alnng the rows, where
Pbofkssob Massey. jjje farruer does not farm well
and has no clover or peas to furnish him nitro
gen. But there is not the slightest advantage in
using too little phosphoric acid and potash at the
start and then having the labor of going over
again with these and waiting for them to be
come available to the crop as they would be if all
was applied at first. Nitrogen will leach from
the soil rapidly when in the form of a nitrate, and
nitrate of soda should not be used largely at
planting, but can be used when the crop is grow
ing to advantage, where the soil is deficient in
nitrogen.
The Stock Laws.
NO SECTION will ever get rid of cattle ticks
so long as cattle are allowed to run at
large. The public roads belong to the
farms on which they pass, the title of each farm
running to the middle of the road, and the use
of this part of each farm has been given up solely
for travel, and not for pasture. Under the com
mon law doctrine cattle pasturing on the highway
are trespassing on the property of the adjoining
land-owners. Many years ago in one of the Mary
land counties farmers were annoyed by cows turn
ed on the public roads by people who had no land
and no pasture. They applied to a lawyer who
told them that there was no statute in that coun
ty requiring any one to fence his land, and that
the common law prevailed, that no one was re
quired to fence other people’s cattle out, but only
fence in their own. He advised them to leave
their gates open and take up trespassing cattle.
This stopped it, and now fences have practically
disappeared there except around the pastures. The
man quoted July 25th would be a failure with
stock under any condition, and simply does not
want to provide pasture for his stock. But im
provement never goes backward, and this man,
and others like him, will have to come to the
point of providing for thier own stock.
It is odd that some people imagine that they
have a right to pasture everywhere but on the
land they own.
Pastures and Hay for the South.
THERE ARE FEW sections in the South where
good pasture grasses of some sort do not
_ thrive, and on most of the lands of the Pied
W mont and mountain country the finest sort of a
permanent sod can be maintained.
The fact is, that the Southern cotton farmer
has been all his life fighting grass, and he dreads
nothing more than a Bermuda sod, the finest
summer pasture grass in the United States in its
proper climate.
It is not a good thing to have in a cotton field,
of course; but I knew one of the most successful
cotton farmers in South Carolina, who, when he
was living, always had a permanent pasture of
Bermuda grass, and had fine cattle, fine sheep
and fine hogs, and grew cotton with more success
than most farmers, seldom making less than a
bale an acre, and often more, and he had no trou
ble with the grass getting into his fields.
Then in the upper Piedmont and mountainn
country, where Bermuda is out of its element, we
grow orchard grass, Virginia or Canada blue
grass, the latter as permanent a Bod as Bermuda,
and green all the year. Then In the eastern
coastal and southern sections the Texas bluegrass
thrives wonderfully as a winter grass, and is ex
cellent to mix with the Bermuda, for it just be
gins to grow green when the Bermuda turns
brown.
But to get good pastures we must treat them
well. We must prepare the land and seed thick
ly, and then by annual top-dressing we can main
tain and thicken the sod indefinitely. Therefore,
I hope that all of our readers will study closely
what Mr. French says about pastures.
Then as to hay. There is no part of the
country which can compete with the South in the
production of great crops of the best of hay from
cowpeas, soy beans and velvet beans in the vari
ous localities. The Southern dairyman or stock
feeder can grow all the protein he needs, while
the Northern man buys it in grain. But with
cottonseed meal secured in exchange for seed,
legume hay that can be grown after a small grain
crop, and corn silage, the Southern stock feeder
has a great advantage over the stock feeder in
the North.
The Oleomargarine Fraud.
ONE OF THE arguments used by the Southern
papers who have been led to think that it
would be good for the oil interests in the
South to let the oleo people color their product
r— — ... ■■■" - ..— - -i
MUST MAKE PROFITS TWELVE
MONTHS INSTEAD OF SIX.
JjNDER the present system general
farm activities cover a period of
about six months—four months in pre
paration and cultivation, and two
months in harvesting; the other six
months of the year, so far as creating
wealth is concerned, business is prac
tically suspended and the farmer and
his family become consumers, living
off the profits of the six months’ pe
riod of activity. Is it any wonder,
then, that we don’t go ahead? Can
any business survive that practically
shuts down for six months in the year?
That some change is necessary, and
what those changes are, one only needs
to study the front page of last week’s
Progressive Farmer and Gazette. The
figures and illustrations on that page
are a revelation, and prove to us that
along with other changes and improve
ments that are being made in this
country, that we must add live stock;
and we will never measure up to our
full possibilities as an agricultural re
gion until we do it.—T. J. W. Broom,
in Monroe Journal.
1I
In imitation of butter, is that cottonseed oil is
more wholesome than animal products. But they
overlook the fact that more animal product en
ters into the making of oleo than cottonseed oil.
Why tallow from any Bort of an animal should be
more wholesome than the milk of cows, is hard to
understand.
Then they call it class legislation to protect the
dairyman from fraud. Every one has a right to
defend his trade-mark, and the yellow color is the
trade-mark of the dairyman, and no one should
be allowed to Imitate it with a cheaper article.
In this whole contest there is the one fact to be
kept in mind. That is, that the only powdble rea
son for coloring oleomargarine is to make it hx»k
more like butter, and to make |x<iO|de think that
it is real butter. The present law has not hurt
the sale of cottonseed oil a particle, while its
abloltion would ruin an industry now far more im
portant to the Southern farmer than all the oil
used in oleo. The Southern farmers should lot
their representatives in Congress hear from them
in regard to this, for some of them actually think
they are serving the farmers when they are sim
ply playing into the hands of the oleo people and
the oil trust.
Let all secret processes for making butter alone,
and do not pay any one to tell you how to make
churnlesB butter. I have told you how to make
that. But you can not sell it for butter.
No one who wishes to grow more corn per acre
can afford to depend upon barn selection of seed.
Notes and Comments.
MAKING a PASTURE of woodland terminates
its value as a renewing forest. Down in
one of our coast counties I was driving
along a road and noted that the woods on both
sides had been burnt over. I remarked to the
driver that they had had a bad forest tire. “That
was done purposely,” said he. “The idea is to
destroy the ticks so that cattle can range In the
woods.” Cattle ranging the woods will not only
keep up the supply of ticks, but the burning and
the cattle together will destroy the value of the
forest for timber production, lienee, Mr. French
is right in what he says about woodland luistur
ing.
J*
Dr. Butler’s advice as to crimson clover is well
given, and $600 a year will not count the profit
this clover will make on any man's farm. Ju«t
now we want to advise the Southern farmers to
wait till the imported seed is in In August, for the
home-grown seed is now held at $10 a bushel, and
it will be easy, I think, to get the imported seed
at $6, and, perhaps, at $6 a bushel. Hut what
ever the price, sow it, for it is far cheaper at pio
it bushel than U—H—‘J ferilllzer nt a ton.
Anywhere that any clover has been commonly
grown It will succeed without any Inoculation.
Where there are no clover bacteria in the soil, get
some soil from where it has grown and scatter It
over the field.
j*
We have too much, or rather u«e too much, hu
mnu labor In the South. So long as every mule
takes a man in the field no farmer should complain
of lack of labor. It D rather a lack of machin
ery and mules, for one man riding on a cultivator
will do more and better work than two each with
a mule and n single-horse plow or cultivator. The
Iowa farmers have always had a lack of human
labor and have been compelled to uso teams and
machinery, and hence one man's labor there pro
duces far more than one man's labor does In the
South. Four-legged laborers are cheaper (ban
two-legged ones.
Keep your cows dry in the stable and sigh for
the good old times when you had a free range
over the country like the man quoted on tho first
page of the July 2 5 issue, and some one else may
free tho county from ticks. But let the cows out
on the range, and you will never get rid of lha
ticks. Clean your own pastures and have good
pastures, and rend what Dr. Butler says about
the ticks, and you will not want to abolish stock
laws. The saving of fencing alone is reason
enough for shutting stock off the range, for under
such conditions every one must fence all the land
ho cultivates, or have his crops pastured on by
other people. Down with the fences and starve
the ticks out.
If you will use the basic slag or Thomas phos
phate, you will not need to buy lime for your
peanuts, for you will get in It to pounds of lime
In every 100 pounds. Four hundred pounds of
this and GO pounds of muriate of potash will be
wlmt the peanuts need, for pops aro not caused
by lack of lime but by lack of potash, and the
lime Is used for releasing potash In the soli. Lime
Is useful to sweeten and acid soil, but It Is not
properly a fertilizer. You will got 200 pounds
of lime free In the Thomas phosphate.
1 he first of this month I sowed my first spinach
and curled kalo and will muke two more sowing*
for winter and early spring. Then the second
week in August I will sow some lettuce soed for
the fall crop. I will set these plants In the
frames so as to have them where they can be pro
tected if necessary, but I hardly expect they will
need the BaBhes. 1 never monkey with cloth cov
ers on my frames, and am even doing better, for
I am now using Bushes with two layers of glass
five-eights of an Inch apart. With frames well
banked, these sashes will keep out any frost we
have, and I can head lettuce and bloom some flow
ers under them all winter through. I will have
over thirty sashes the coming winter, unit expect
to Increase the number by degrees. Kven the
double-glased sashes, which cost nearly twice as
much ns the old style, are cheaper In the long run
than cloth, and Immensely better. (Moth covers
aic a very poor substitute for glass, and In u
series of years, cost more than the glass.
Do not fall to reap the full frultB of your la
bors by depending upon barn selection of seed
cora. but rather select your seed In the field this
fall.