The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., August 27, 1910, Page 590, 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.
Notes From a Car Window.
I RODE YESTERDAY from Salisbury, Md., to
Philadelphia and back, and, of course, looked
at the farming. I wished that every South
ern farmer could have been with me as I rode
through the beautiful farms in upper Delaware.
No better farming is done anywhere in the United
States, and the broad, clean
fields were very attractive. The
corn everywhere had been cul
tivated and laid-by perfectly
level, for these farmers ride
over the fields and cultivate
both sides of a row at one
passing.
Yesterday they were still
plowing fallow land for wheat,
and many fields were already
Professor Massey. prepared and left to settle. But
where the plows were running it was rare to see
less than three horses to a plow. And I could
see that they were turning the soil as deeply as
the three could well pull the plows. These fal
low fields will be tramped and harrowed till fine
and wpll Rpttlpd
But many are abandoning the fallow system as
too expensive and exhaustive, for the exposure to
the full sun all the hottest part of summer de
stroys millions of the nitrification bacteria, and
while much plant food is brought into use, the
practice is more costly than to use a hoed crop as
the preparation, and then use the disk only in
the preparation of the land. In Lancaster Coun
ty, Pennsylvania, the banner farm county of the
country, they grow wheat after tobacco almost en
tirely, and grow fine crops, and in Maryland they
grow equally as good crops after corn.
In many of the fields where I passed yesterday
the wheat had already been threshed and great
piles of straw could be seen just as the blower
of the thresher dumped it, for they take little
account of the straw except as an absorbent for
the manure in the barnyards and stables. In
other fields the shocks were still crowding over
the whole. But I noticed that more than ever
they are stacking the grain near the barns. And
I wish that our Southern farmers could see the
stacks. They are as symmetrical as the roof of
a house and the upper part overhangs the up
right sides of the stack, making eaves to every
stack. Grain put up in that way can be kept in
fine order till the thresher comes. Most of the
Maryland farmers now thresh directly from the
shocks in the field, and avoid the danger of fire
from keeping the threshing engine away from
their buildings. And I noticed even from the car
windows of a flying express that there were good
stands of clover on the stubble fields. I noted
here and there fine fields of cowpeas that had
been put in with the wheat drill, and in some
places in rows for cultivation, evidently intended
to be saved for seed.
And I saw, too, that these farmers believe in
the silo, and there were here and there herds of
black and white cows, and at the railroad stations
there were scores of milk cans, showing that they
.. _;__mi
miiiv.
I asked one Maryland dairyman, who ships to
Baltimore, how the milk business is doing. He
told me that he is getting the same old price for
milk, while feed and labor have both advanced in
cost, and that there is not the same profit as form
erly for shipping milk.
1 hose who are making butter on the farm are
doing better than the milk shippers. Here I have
to pay 40 cents a pound for good butter, and the
creamery I passed at Middletown, Delaware, gets
that at wholesale. Others find that it is better to
turn their product into ice cream in summer, and
even the creamery makes a large amount of ice
cream.
Northern Delaware, and, in fact, all of Dela
ware is a fruit growing State. The peach orchards
are not so large nor numerous as formerly, but
this year they are full. Long lines of Keifer pear
trees are planted by the railroads and the county
roads, and there are large orchards of the same
pear. They are loaded with fruit, and the pros
pect is, that it will bring little, though they claim
that these pears pay even at low prices. Plant
ing by the roadside suits the Keifer, for no one is
going to take the fruit green, for a green Keifer is
as bad as a green persimmon.
Delaware, like all the peninsula, is a land of
fine farms and fine farm buildings, broad, clean
fields and green pastures, just such a land as all
the South could and should be.
Where Terraces Are Needed.
SO LONG as the farmers in the Southern up
lands scratch the hills with one mule and
grow cotton after cotton perpetually, ter
races are a necessity to partly stop the waste
of the soil, though I never saw one that did so
entirely. But I have cultivated as steep red hills
as can be found in any part of the Piedmont coun
try. I never made a terrace, I never started a
gully, but I cured old ones that are now full of
grass. Deep plowing alone will not do it, but
deep plowing, with a rotation that always has an
abundance of vegetable matter to turn when the
land is plowed for a hoed crop will enable the
farmer to work his rolling lands and prevent the
washing.
This is no more theory, for 1 have done it on
hills so steep that I have had a pair of horses
Present Tenant System Keeps
The South Poor.
TALKING the other day to a man
who is at once an eminent lawyer,
a good farmer, a keen observer and a
clear thinker, I made the remark I
have often made before, that one day
the cotton country would be the richest
instead of the poorest farming region
in America. His reply was immediate,
and to the point: ,rlt will never be
while your people rent out their lands
to ignorant negroes, to be abused and
worn out ”
1 had to admit that he was right, for
we all know it. Until we get rid of
our present soil-destroying tenant sys
tem, permanent prosperity for the
mass of Southern farmers will never
be realised, because prosperity can
not come from the working of poor
lands.—E. E. Miller.
and hand to slip down hill in making a turn when
the horses' feet got on the soft plowed laad. With
a sod turned down and the land broken deeply,
there will be no disastrous washing if the hoed
crop is cultivated shallow and level, for much of
the washing is due to the forming of deep furrows
around a hill in laylng-by the crop, that catch the
water and break over and gather head In furrow
after furrow till a gully is started. And 1 have
seen the terraces doing the same thing, and I
have seen terraces with hillside dltcheB above
them, and every ditch making a gully.
The Mangum terraces are better, but I have
seen them gather head enough and break over
and rush down hill because they had gathered a
head of water that would not have been there
had the land been smooth and deeply plowed. So
long as the rolling lands are kept in clean culti
vated crops and plowed three inches deep it will
be necessary to take some means for keeping the
water from rushing down hill, for that is the only
way it can go under such conditions. When plow
ed and subsoiled to 15 inches deep, and a sod
turned under whenever it Is to go into a hoed
crop, I would not give a cent for the best terrace
ever made. Terraces are a refuge for bad farm
ing, and they often are the means for making
gullleB instead of curing them.
Visiting some years ago the farm of Mr. Claren
don Davis who went to Alabama from Kentucky
and established a wheat and Block farm near
Huntsville, he showed me the use he made of his
wheat straw. He filled the old gullleB with it.
he covered the red galls with it, he plowed deep-^
ly and make great crops of wheat and clover in
stead of all cotton. And he got rid of gullies
and galls.
Land that is kept In clean cultivated crops year
after year till all the humus is burnt out of It
will wash, no matter how many terraces you
make, for there is nothing to hold the soil to
gether, and if, with this constant exposure you
add shallow breaking, the soil muBt wash, for
there is no way for the water to go but down
hill. But give a deep bed of loose soil, with
Plenty of humus in it Tor the water to sink Into,
and it will take a cloud-burst (o wash it
A More Beautiful Farm Home.
EVERY FARM HOME can he made as cozy M
the one represented on the llrst page of the
issue for July 30th, and instead of a bare
house there should be vines climbing on the porch
and a lawn of tine grass in front framed in with
trees and shrubbery, but not planted all over with
trees that will prevent a good lawn, for there is
nothing so restful as a stretch of green grass in
front of the windows.
Flowering shrubbery all around the house and
on the borders of the lawn, too. will add a great
deal of Interest, and a place decorated In this wav
Is not only more home-like, but if the place has
to be sold, it will add dollars to the value of every
acre on the place.
Then one should have water all over the house
and a good hath. In these days of gasoline en
gines it is easy to have an elevated tank and to
keep up a supply of water. And there is noth
ing that will add more to the comfort and health
of the family than a good bath-room. Being in
reach of the city water supply and sewers, 1 put
in a supply and furnished a bath-room with the
finest porrelain-iined material for 1145. But
then every month I have to pay the rent of the
water. I could have put in a tank and had my
own supply for about 1200. and would have been
rid of the tax of the water r«jnt. Hut while my
well water is still exrellent, the city Is gradually
building out my way, and the day will come when
the well water may not 1m? safe I,a*t summer
there was not a case of typhoid reported from
families thnt used the city water only, while there
were cases In which wells were used in the thick
ly built-up parts of the city.
Notes and Comments.
MU. POK should have had that 20.0UO names
before he left to take his trip around the
world, and I hope that after he has rnsde
the trip we will have another hook like the one
on his Kuropean trip, only a bigger one; for the
only fault I find with that hook was that It was
too small, for I would have enjoyed more of lb
The names should come In with the term# offered,
and 1 know that when a man once get* to reading \
the paper he will stick, and I would like very
much to see the list up to 300.000 or more. With
the great wave of Interest in Improved agriculture
now spreading over the South, there Is need for
a farm paper that tries to teach the best meth
ods. and this we are trying to do In The Progres
sive Farmer and (lazette
J*
HAIIt\ \ KTt'II.—-The hardiness of the ICatrjf
'etch, and the fact that It can he made to re
seed the land, are arguments In Its favor. I have
had a good stand from only 2f> pounds of seed per
acre, hut the Cn pounds that Hr Hutler »d'!se*
will be more certain The only difficulty Is. that
the seed are usually very high I have never
known them down to three or four dollars a bush
el. hut was once charged $ 1C for a bushel and a
half \\ hat the price Is now-, | can not say.
J*
< ItIMSON ('IX)VKH ONVK MoitK.—You can
sow rye With crimson clover, but I would prefer to
sow oats, as they will make better feed with the
r °'f*r ^ ri,t for hay. It in a common practice in
some places, especially |„ southern Pennsylvania,
to sow turnips and crimson clover together Here
Honw sow buckwheat and clover and get a crop
of buckwheat and leave the laud In clover. •
>u'e Been the past two days several fields sown
ti t lit* way with the buckwheat now coming up
you can still sow it or the turnips.
Jt
I>ISK I lOWs.— I he <1 Ink plows are excellent
n Home soils | heir chief advantage, It leeiim to
!Ue’ le* ,u th,‘ facl that you can plow land that
1h too hard and dry for a moldboard plow On
in* How ground they do not do no well. You
can Plow as deep as jrou CbOOM wlth^ih.-m it yon
use team enough. f
One of the best corn crops that I *uiw last
>car was made on a crimson clover sod turned
down and no manure at all applied. Hut the
hind had hud manure and a good rotation for
many years and had been making good crops of
corn and wheat through the gradual building m>
of the humus In the soil, and the field of 30 acres
made nearly 3.000 bushels of shelled corn, while
land right alongside that has been worked In a
h*s systematic way did not make over 30 hush
els per acre and had fertiliser applied