The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., October 29, 1910, Page 737, Image 5

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

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farmers who wish to increase their
acreage of oats have this year an un
usual opportunity to do so.
The error that too many farmers
will fall into next year will be in
planting too large an acreage in cot
ton. This will probably be especially
fatal at that time, since we may ex
pect a universal attempt to produce
a largo cotton crop in 1911, induced
by the present high price or the sta
ple. If the attempt is successful,
there Is the probability of lower
prices next }oar than now* prevail.
fence, the wisest policy is slightly to
reduce the acreage in cotton and to
attempt to make at least the same
number of bales by more intensive
cultivation of the smaller area. It
none too early now to make plans
for this reduction, the first step in
which consists in putting into profit
able use the poorer acres now in cot
ton. I his may well be done by sow
ing them in oats, to be followed by
any of the legumes next summer, for
example, by cowpeas or velvet beans,
or soy beans or peanuts.
PRACTICAL TILE DRAINAGE.
,1l*n<U 7hnt Shoo,d n° drained—Great Areas Alone
the C\*n*t That May He Reclaimed—How to Handle the Little
Wet Spots in the Uplands.
By A. I. French.
1n uuk I'Aai paper we discussed
the different purposes of tile
drainage; now let us consider
for a little while the places on our
farm that it will pay us in dollars
and cent* to thoroughly drnln (and
thorough drainage means almost
every time under
drainage, for the
reasons pointed to
in our previous
paper). In the
great Coast-Plain
country millions
of acres of choice
land, almost level,
need drainage the
_ worst way. I have
a. u racMOL seen thousands of
acre* in eastern North Carolina and
Of hftf I hAiiennda_h..., .1.^,1 ..
-— — — — / wutaui VMO V* &
thousands—In south Mississippi that
I am positive could bp made to pro
duce three times their present aver
age crop were they thoroughly drain
ed. Then, with under-drainage, as
hinted In an earlier paper, we have a
aood crop year after year, because
we have put our lands In shape so we
may take advantage of adverse sea
sons; our tiled land being able to
care for vastly more water In a sea
son of floods, storing up millions of
tons of surplus water, because of
grpater porosity of soil, for use of the
Crops In times of succeeding drouth.
On these flat lands, especially those
having stiff clay subsoil, we have a
succession of floods and drouths be
cause the water that falls in such
abundance at times cannot penetrate
to any great depth, so that when the
top few Inches of soil Is water-soak
ed and the crops half drowned, the
balance of the water flows away to
make trouble on the rivers and
creeks.
We Can Afford to t'nder-Druin Cheap
latiuls.
This great advantage we have of
abundant rainfall In the southeast
should bo made better use of than
■Imply drown us out. Western peo
ple nre plowing, harrowing and sub
worklng their Innds two years to se
cure one crop and must keep up this
expensive work every yenr and then
secure only half the crop every other
year than our country, because of
abundant rainfall, is capable of pro
ducing every year If we will proper
ly underdrain the Innds. And with
us, when the work Is completed the
expense stops; for tile properly laid,
will last forever.
Men complain that our southeast
' ern lands are too low In price to pay
us for this expensive work of tile
drainage. As the writer sees It, this
Is an entirely erroneous Idea, as with
the high prices that all farm products
command today—and are almost
sure to commnnd In the future—no
soil that Is put In shape to produce
bumper crops every year, with scarce
ly a chance of failure, will be low
In price. It has been my experience
that about the most expensive thing
we do Is to cultivate land with the
attendant expense necessary today,
then, because of failure to comply
with one or two necessary conditions,
reap a partial or complete failure.
One of the chief reasons for our
cheap Southern lands is that said
lands' are not in shape that they can
he depended upon to produce proper
results from labor expended upon
them, and when we have them in
condition that dependance may be
put upon them, they will no longer
he low in price. We must get away
from this idea of working four acres
of land to secure the crop one acre
would produce if proper conditions
prevailed.
Co-Operative Work in the Coast
Country.
The larger amount of this coast
country is so level as that the drain
age should he undertaken, we be
lieve, on a co-operative plan, many
| —.-.. .. ~ - : -
land-owners combining, and a com
petent engineer should be employed
to lay out the drains wrhere the drain
ditches must be graded to a nicety,
to secure the maximum of capacity
for the tiles. Where large amounts
of tile are to be used and the proper
grade of clay is available, it will
probably pay well to purchase a good
tile machine and make those needed
within a radius-of ten or fifteen miles
at some central point, thus saving
freight charges, which add very
largely to the cost of the tile. The
writer knows of several places in the
Central West where tile-making
plants are located and the farmers
within a radius of ten to fifteen miles
take millions of the tiles right from
the yard, the hauling being done at
times when other team work is not
pushing. Ten years ago 3-inch tile
could be purchased at the yards at
$8 to $9 per thousand.
Drainage in the Hill Country.
Let us run up-country a little way,
now, into the Piedmont country (the
section, by the way, that the writer
expects to live long enough to see
become one of the great live stock
producing sections of America), and
have a look at the springy hillsides,
the little cat swamps, the low, wet
valleys between the hills, the swampy
creek and river bottoms, etc., with
which this section abounds. Up here
in my own county I want to see many
million feet of tile drain laid within
the next few years. That little nar
row valley full of springs and cut up
in every direction with deep ditches
is going to become the finest land on
your farm, brother farmer, when
strings of tile have taken the place
of the deep ditches and lateral drains
have tapped every wet weather
spring and even gone way up on the
side of the hills and provided an un
derground outlet for the water from
that troublesome little spring that
has for generations been jmaking
the whole side of the slope too wet
to work properly, or when worked,
to produce even average crops. Then
when all of this land is in condition
that you may drive large teams haul
ing heavy tools clear across, you will
he encouraged to plow deeper and
cultivate more carefully, and your
farming operations will have become
a delight because of your ability to
accomplish so much greater results
with less expense for labor.
Redeem the Little Waste Spots.
And that miserable little swamp
right in the center of your finest field
which is so small as that an open
ditch for an outlet would take up
more land than does the swamp it
self, and for this reason you and
father have worked around it for
« ffTT + __ -A._
J W f fcUV * A C OUI C Diaj"
ing right there cutting up the field,
making the working of the balance
of the field much more expensive,
because of cutting the rows in half
and making twice the turning of
machinery that would have been ne
cessary had the little place been
drained.—I am going to tell you next
week how we are getting rid of these
little fellows on Sunny Home Farm.
Yes, and those rich little bottoms
that you always pick on which to
plant your pet acre of corn (and a
good thing that you don’t try for
more than an acre else you would
be obliged to have more than one
field). You are going to lay tile the
coming winter in all those ditches,
cover every thing up, then when you
find you can just as well cultivate
your pet acre in 40- to 60-rod rows
you will decide that the whole field
may as well be petted, and you will
g3t to working for big average crops.
Choose the Wagon That
*
Has Best Served
Southern Planters
—For Over Fifty
Years —
4V IV THY buy a wagon you hope will turn out all right
\\/ when it’s so easy to get one you know will be
** satisfactory? Studebaker wagons are built for
every section of the country and to meet all conditions. Do
you know that over 2,000,000 bales of cotton have been
hauled to market each year for 40 years on Studebaker Wagons?
The best recommendation that any vehicle can have—
B the strongest guarantee that it will give its purchaser satisfac
tion is the fact that—
M B M ' & -M--W _ri_ _g~t m /r> n & ^
More than a million vehicles bearing this name are in daily use—many 25 to 30 years old—and
still giving good service. This is only possible because no material is received and accepted at the
Studebaker works that is not first class and up to specifications, and no vehicles are allowed to go out
of it until they have been carefully inspected and tested and found to be right up to the Studebaker standard
H The oldest, largest and most successful dealers everywhere handle Studebaker Wagons—another proof
H of their superiority. Let us tell you the name of the one nearest you so you can be sure about the next
H wagon you buy. When you write we will send our Studebaker 1911 Farmers’ Almanac.
I STUDEBAKER BROS. MFG. CO., South Bend, Indiana
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