The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., October 29, 1910, Page 740, Image 8

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

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT
RALEIGH, N. C. 8TARKVILLE, MISS.
COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING ADVERTISING OR SUBSCRIPTIONS
MAY BE ADDRESSED TO EITHER OFFICE. ENTERED A8 SECOND CLASS
MATTER AT THE POSTOFFICE AT RALEIGH. N. C.. UNDER THE ACT OF
CONGRESS OF MARCH 3, 1879.
Under the Editorial and Business Management of
TAIT BUTLER and CLARENCE POE.
Prof. W. F. MASSEY..Associate Editor
E. E. MILLER,.Managing Editor
JOHN S. PEARSON.Secretary-Treasurer.
Ado -fifing Repmentatires; Fisher Special Agency. New
York, Eastern field : Albert H. Hopkins. Chicago. Western field.
We Guarantee Our Advertisers.
WE will positively make good the low sustained by any subscriber
” as a result of fraudulent misrepresentation made in our col
umns on the part of any advertiser who proves to be a deliberate
swindler. This does not mean that we will try to adjust trifling
disputes between reliable business houses and their patrons, but in
any case of actually fraudulent dealing, we will make good to the
subscriber as we have just indicated The condition of this guaran
tee is that the claim for loss shall be reported to us within one
month after the advertisement appears in our paper, .ml that the
subscriber must say when writing each advertiser! '*1 am writing
you as an advertiser in The Progressive Farmer and Gazette, which
guarantees the reliability of all advertising that it carries."
Weekly Circulation First Half of 1910. . . .97,230
SUBSfKiraUJi KATES:
One year, 11.90; aix months. 56 cents; three months. 90 cents.
To induct ntu subscriptions, out ntu subscriber and one eld
subscriber map both pet the paper one pear for SI SO
TEN WEEK’S TRIAL ONLY TEN CENTS.
To new subscriber* only. The Progrenivf Farmer and Gazette
will be sent ten week* on trial for n n cents Sample copy free.
Tell your friends who need it but do not reed it.
Editorial Gleanings.
THE MORE subscribers we have the better pa
per we can make and the greater influence
we can have. Our readers write to us by
hundreds saying in effect: “You are helping me
to do better farming.” If we help them, we could,
it would seem, help others. Won’t you do your
neighbors the kindness of calling the paper to
their attention? We will pay you well for your
trouble, and it will be benefiting them as well as
us. It will be benefiting yourself, too, for if more
of your neighbors read the paper, there will be
better farming done in your neighborhood, your
own farming will be better, your farm will be worth
more, and the whole life of your neighborhood
will be bettered. See our offers on last page
and get busy. This is the subscription season,
and therefore, your chance to do the best work.
We want those 12 5,000 readers, and now is the
time to get them. Won’t you help us, and benefit
yourself by so doing?
pM
The question of when to sell cotton is one to
which we would not attempt to give any positive
answer; but we believe that, one year with an
other, there is one safe rule: Begin selling early,
if prices are good; stop selling when prices begin
to break; sell only enough at first to get yourself
free from debt; store your surplus in the dry and
market gradually, keeping in touch with the mar
kets and refusing to sell when prices break. The
man who is ind<y>endent can sell when he chooses;
the man in debt must sell at the demand of his
creditors; hence our advice first to get out of debt
and then hold whenever the market is depressed.
Kieffer pears, according to a dispatch from Cin
cinnati, are selling in that city at from 50 cents
to $1.50 per barrel. Good fruit in double-head
ed barrels brings $2.50. An over-supply, no de
mand for poor grades, the best still bringing a
fair price. 'I he old story and the old moral:
Bon’t send poorly selected or poorly packed fruit
or any kind 1o market; it doesn’t pay itself, and
it helps depress the price of good fruit.
The Mi Msbippl Poultryman, Starkville, Miss.,
is not authorized to solicit, collect or receive sub
scriptions for The Progressive Farmer and Ga
71 te, and we will not be responsible for any
outits paid that journal or its present man
ager.
Where Our Fairs Fail.
IS IT A FACT that the average farmer goes to
an agricultural fair chiefly for “amusements?
If he does, he does not fail to find so-called
attractions; but they are usually of a low order
that do no credit to either the intelligence or
morals of those who supply them or those who
are amused by them. If the agricultural fair has
any right or reason for existence, it is not to sup
ply this sort of cheap amusement. If the fair is
ever to reach that stage of growth, development
and usefulness in the South, which will insure its
perpetuation, we believe it must be managed
from different motives and exist for a different
purpose. If the fair does not educate, if it does
not instruct in agriculture, it can npt and will not
live and carry the burden of filth usually in
cluded in the so-called attractions.
We are convinced of this because we believe
the people, as a whole, are above the attractions
generally given at these fairs, and that they pre
fer to select other amusements, and will only
continue to go to the fairs if supplied something
more substantial.
There are two other points at which our South
ern fairs must also be improved. The classifica
tion of exhibits must be better. For instance, to
give premiums for “pairs” of pigs, or to class all
calves under a year old together, or to practice
many of the absurdities now seen in our pre
mium lists is no longer excusable on any ground.
Why not copy some intelligent and modern classi
fication? The other improvement must be made
in the judging. It must be done by more compe
tent men, earlier in the days of the fair, and some
effort must be made to have the judges give In
telligent reasons for placing the premiums. It is
only in this way that exhibitors and the public
can receive sufficient benefit to justify the cost of
making exhibits.
The Local Newspaper and the Farmer.
AT THE RECENT North Carolina Farmers'
State Convention a resolution was adopted
asking the local newspapers to give more
attention to the development of agriculture and
to the work of the individual farmers in their re
spective sections. The day before the resolution
was adopted the farmers had had a lively discus
sion as to whether or not the country newspapers
give as much attention to their rural readers as
might justly be expected of them. Some of the
Convention members thougnt that they do; the
adoption of the resolution in question seems to
6how that most of them held a different opinion.
Well, some of the newspapers resented the
criticism and said, in effect, that the farmers were
unappreciative, and all that; some of them talked
in a kindly, patronizing way to the farmers and
informed them—very politely, to be sure—that
they were making a mistake in venturing to offer
suggestions to the newspapers. One editor came
back at the farmers as follows;
“That statement down at the Farmers’
Convention that the newspaper man did not
do enough for the farmer Is amusing to say
the least. The newspapers have been knocking
at the door of the farmer ever since the Civil
War, but for half a century they did not open
up. A small portion of them have taken In
to their homes some kind of a paper, but
usually they get the cheapest one. regardless
of Its quality of reading matter. If they had
been close readers of Southern newspapers,
and had the disposition to act to the valuable
suggestions contained therein, we would not
have had to wait fifty years for our present
day improvements to the farm. Almost all
of the Improvements on the farms have come
through the demands and aggressive spirit
of the town-people, and we might say against
the wishes of a majority of the farmers. It
was so on the ‘no-fence law,’ and it Is true
as to the good roadB campaign. In most
cases they have been set against all up-to
date Improvements as a stone wall. To prove
tills, we have only to look over our State
and see the slowness—shall we say Btub
borness?—of our farmers In making good
roads. What the Southern farmer needs l8
breadth of vision, which comes by reading
and contact, and less of the self-will in the
face of facts. We could no more say that as
a rule the farmer has been an up-to-date pro
gressive than we could refuse to our own
child medicine if he were 111.”
Now, the writer of this article also wrote the
resolution in question, and feels that it was fully
Justified. At least two or three hundred news
papers come to our office, and comparatively few
of them seem to us to realize at all the oppor
tunities they have to he of service to their farmer
readers. With all this, however, there Is much of
truth in the editorial just quoted. We, as farm
ers, have a right. In many cases, to expect better
things of our local newspapers.—but. In many
cases, the paper has a right to expect better things
of us. We may just as well recognize that fact
that If we have been neglected It is pretty largely \
our own fault, and that It Is discouraging work
for anyone to try to help people who will not help
themselves. We have It largely In our power
to remedy this lack of understanding of our prob
lems on the part of the newspaper men. and It Is
up to us to do It
Some of them are now doing all that could be
expected, and others nro gradually getting Into
line. Here, for example. Is an extract from an
other paper:
“We feel there Is nothing hotter we can
do than to publish articles written by
wide-awake farmers on the different agricul
tural problems and achievements We would
be glad If they would tell what they have
done, and are doing, that has proven success
ful, what they have learned by experience
and otherwise. And If a brother farmer can't
agree, let him any so. giving his reasons.
Healthful discussion* through the county pa
per will be helpful to all. Our columns are
open to you. gentlemen; let us hear from
you."
(»et In touch with your local newspaper, Mr.
Farmer. Interest the editor In your work out on
the farm, let him see what better farming means
to the welfare of the county and the State, and
to himself. Then you will be In position to de
mand something of him in return, and if he Is s
discriminating man. you will get It Most news
papers are willing to meet you half way. Ths
great trouble has been a lack of understanding on
both BtdeB.
This Week and Next
YOU MUST drain your wot laud*. We know
t takes money to do It. but It will pay Mr 4
French goes right along piling Up the oyl. *
?.!?:« °n tbl8 a«d - are going to have ar
ani from H;en who tan •P®“k with authority
Y°U “rt* “» Interested In
you wan !! n,°W\ °r •h0uld b(1- ot course
what Prof ft w tr'er 1,l0WlnK; b«* remember
at rof. s. \\. Fletcher says: "Tile draining Is
permanent subsoiling." training is
youThrr: t,* * ho,° ,ot °f °tb*«- “»«««th.t %
next vear1 v n, t0 prepare ror hotter crops
next jear. You will find ome of them suggested
interest I ngf bet t81"1 r" * “haU PUb,l“h nu,ro these
interesting letters from week to week
to TLu“*r'' cr„p,
c.,h . c,n ,lror(l 10 overlook,
to iv; VLuZ:ron p*« 15
l° B0‘ "'»'k ready lor win
hone ! ' °» ■’“*« <"or and ,he
snorter notes on page 11.
nlBliTn* TuUi ,,|U|" talk about tb® house fur
Z»tu, J1 !fr Very beat and I- full of
the .“Itof 1X0X1 w- k «b® will talk on
get them y°U Should bav® “nd how to
fromhMrfepore“ °f#,he 'M'Xt ,S8"e w,» b* a ,®“®r
v e eet sure n °" !ar,,,ln* ln something
sttrv of "i b i r°a v WUI mlM8; ,b« interesting
Lav an J, T‘y Tankee” by Uov l>r- Geo. W.
fires- • noti t0r ft ,illk °M tbo Prevention of forest
f e ds- "F,‘er n,°, ° ?f war,,|ng against fire. In the .
veiy inter !.H ,f°r Novemb««V' and some '
tunateiv or ''u,'rH ,roni °l»r readers, ynfoi
tunately crowded out this week.