The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., November 05, 1910, Page 758, Image 10

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. O. STARKVILLE, MISS.
COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING ADVERTISING OR SUBSCRIPTIONS
MAY BE ADDRESSED TO EITHER OFFICE. ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS
MATTER AT THE P08T0F FICE AT RALEIGH, N. C., UNDER THE ACT OF
CONGRESS OF MARCH 8, 1879.
Under the Editorial and Business Management of
TAIT BUTLER and CLARENCE POE.
Peof. W. F. MASSEY.Associate Editor.
E. E. MILLER..Managing Editor.
JOHN S. PEARSON.Secretary-Treasurer.
Advertising Representative*FIBBER SPECIAL Agency, New
York. Eastern field : Albert H. Hopkins. Chicago, Western field.
We Guarantee Our Advertisers.
VI will positively make good the loss sustained by any subscriber
" aa a result of fraudulent misrepresentation made in onr 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 cane of actually fraudulent dealing, we will make good to the
subscriber aa wa have just indicated. The condition of this guaran
tee la that the claim for loss shall be reported to os within one
month after the advertisement appears in our paper, and that the
subscriber most say when writing each advertiser: I am writing
you aa an advertiser in The Progressive Farmer and Gazette, which
guarantees the reliability of all advertising that it carries."
Weekly Circulation First Half of 1010. .. .07,230
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
One year, $1.00; six months. 66 cents: three months, 80 cants.
Fa induce new subscriptions, one new subscriber and one old
saiscrlbsr amg both get tks paper oms gear for $1.SO.
TEN WEEK'S TRIAL ONLY TEN CENTS.
To new aobacribers only. The Progressive Fanner and Gazette
will be sent ten weeks on trial for ten cents Sample copy tree.
Tell yoar friends who need it but do not read it.
Editorial Gleanings.
TO A “PLOWING match” out in Illinois, a
month or so ago, 6,000 came; and the farm
ers—men who own big prairie farms—buckled
down to the task of plowing a half-acre of land
Just as well as they could. Such contests would
be well worth while here in the South. One of
our greatest needs is more knowledge of how to
do the fundamental work of farming and a truer
appreciation of what it is worth to do it well. We
are altogether too tolerant of slipshod work; and
until the farmer himself learns how to do farm
woTk, and do it well, it is sheer folly for him to
expect good work of the “trifling negroes” he em
ploys.
J*
Replying to the old cry that the parcels post
would be socialistic, the Atlanta Constitution aply
says:
xi me principle or a parcels post is so
cialistic, then the Government is already com
mitted to it, none the less. For a long time
the patron of the mails has been able to avail
himself of a limited parcels post service in
this country, but it is senselessly limited and
arbitrarily unjust as contrasted with interna
tional parcels post facilities. You can not
mail for delivery in this country a package
weighing more than four pounds. You can
mail in this country for foreign delivery a
package weighing eleven pounds. If you
wanted to send eleven pounds in this country,
and made it up into three packages to com
ply with the law, it would, even then, cost
your four cents a pound more than to send
#it to the outposts of Germany or Austria.
If an eleven-pound maximum parcels post at
twelve cents a pound is good for other coun
tries, and between the United States and oth
er countries, it is good for our own Nation ”
This will be my first Christmas away from
home,” writes Editor Poe in a note just received,
and if any readers of The Progressive Farmer
and Gazette wish to play Santa Claus for me In
this far-away continent by sending me a postal
card or note, it goes without saying that I shall be
very glad indeed to hear from them, entirely re
gardless of whether I know them personally or
not.” Undoubtedly many readers will wish to
send just such greetings to Mr. Poe, and in order
to reach him in time, any letters or postals of
this sort should be mailed at once—before No
\
vember 15—and addressed to “Clarence Poe, care
of Thomas Cook & Son, Bombay, India.” Put on
2 cents postage for postal cards and 5 cents for
letters.
The Oklahoma Farm Journal says that at the
Oklahoma State Fair there were signs saying.
“Get on to the Bermuda grass,” and adds: “Of
all the grasses famed in song and story and told
about where stockmen congregate, there is no
other grass which will withstand the tramping
of thousands of hurrying feet for two weeks.”
Yet there are farmers who think that they can not
have permanent pastures in the South.
ja
A man may succeed in farming as in any other
business without knowing the scientific principles
underlying his practice. He may learn good
methods, and these being right in a majority of
cases, he is generally successful, but he can Hot
teach others nor can he meet unusual conditions
so well as the man who kiows why he does
things.
Don’t Burn Anything Off the Land.
EXPERIMENTS conducted in Louisiana and
elsewhere show that a very small per cent
of the boll wevils that are deprived of food
early in the season are able to live through the
winter. The object sought by the destruction of
the cotton stalks in the fall must, therefore, be
to destroy the food of the weevils and not to de
stroy the weevils themselves; for they die anyway
if their food is destroyed, and it mnkeB no differ
ence to the farmer how they are killed.
Why, then, burn the cotton stalks and destroy
the nitrogen and humus-forming material they
contain? It is not sufficient to advise the growing
of winter cover crops. Of course we can and
should grow winter cover crops; but that is no
good reason for burning up the stalks when it Is
plainly shown that it is not necessary. We could
have grown cover crops in the past and have also
refrained from the use of fire in destroying hu
mus-forming materials, but we have done neither,
and our lands now need all the vegetable matter
they can be given instead of being robbed of what
little grows on them through the old burning hab
it, which never was, and is not now, necessary or
Justifiable. It is possibly better to burn the cot
ton stalks than not to destroy the food of the
weevils at all, but even this is doubtful; for the
man who farms on that basis will not grow cotton
rery long with or without the boll weevil, and If
he continues the old practice of burning over the
land and destroying all the vegetable matter on
It, he won’t grow anything else at a profit, so, per
haps, it is as well to allow the man who has not
yet learned the one great need of Southern soils
—humus—better than to burn up the vegetable
matter on the land, to be put out of business as
quickly as possible by the boll weevils. It is
stated by those who advocate the burning of
stalks that the farmers will not cut down the
Btalks and plow them under. This is rather a
weak argument, but such force as it has applies
equally to the burning of the Btalks. They won’t
all do that either; but as many will pasture or
cut down and plow under the stalks as will burn
them; for Southern farmers have had the lesson
of the need of humus in our soils too well drilled
into them and have learned by experience its won
derful effects on their crops to take kindly to the
further use of the torch, which destroys the very
substances which are most needed in practically
all soils. In this connection read what Mr. T. It.
Barber says on page seven.
Get the cotton out as early as possible, pasture '
the cotton fieldB for a few days, then cut the
stalks and plow them under and sow a cover crop.
Do this certainly, but by all that is Bane and rea
sonable spare the torch as an aid to Southern agri
culture. Fire is destructive, and we need to build
up and not destroy the life of our soils.
t
Our New Advertising Man.
R. J. A. MARTIN, Memphis, Tenn, who has
during the last several years been employ
ed on the weekly News-Scimitar, and its
successor, the Southern Farm Advocate, as ad
vertising solicitor, editor and general all-round
hustler, came to the staff of
The Progressive Farmer and
Gazette November 1. Mr. Mar
tin will bo Advertising Man
ager of the Starkvllle edition
and traveling representative
in this territory. Ho is a na
tive of Arkansas, having been
bora at Little Rock, where his
ancestors started the Arkan
sas Gazette in 1819, so that
j. a martin he comes by his newspaper as
sociations naturally. Most of his life has been
spent in the city of Memphis. Starting as sten
ographer in the News-Scimitar ofTlce, he has
rapidly developed Into an efficient and hustling
agricultural advertising man, and The Progres
sive Farmer and Gazette considers itself fortunate
in securing his services. Mr. Martin will make
his headquarters at the Starkvllle. Miss., office
of Tho Progressive Fnrmcr and Gazette.
This Week and Next.
THIS IS BY NO menus an Idle time on the
farm; Indeed, idle time* on a properly man
aged farm are few aad far between. It la
ono of the banes of our Southern agriculture that
so many farm workers regard the winter an a sea
son of idleness—an idea that our miserable crop
ping system has done much to foster. We trust
that no reader of ours, whether land-owner or
renter, will so regard the coming winter. Much
of the success of next year's farming will depend
upon the work done this fall, and the approach
ing season of comparative leisure Is the best sea
son In tho world to make those permanent Im
provements on the farm for which time can not
be found during the busier months.
It is a pretty good lay-out of work, too, that
the reader will find outlined In thlB lssne. Pro
fessor Massey’s "Farm Work," tho "Ten Thing*
to Do," tho plowing and dralnago article*, the
suggestions from readers who nro preparing for
better crops next year, tho "Plowhandle Talks,"
Professor Niven'B instructions about orchnrd
planting—surely there is no lack of things we
are telling you to do. Of course, no one will be
expected to do them all. but It is doubtful If there
Is ono among our 100,000 farmer readers who
will not find a helpful suggestion as to better
methods In tho work ho Is doing, or some remin
der of a Job he needs to do but had forgotten.
Then, there Is the article by Mrs. Steven*
which should he read over and discussed at a full
meeting of tho family. If wo are not working
primarily for a more beautiful nnd cheerful homo
life, wo have the wrong Ideals of tho end of labor;
and nothing that will add to tho charm and tho
joy of the household should bo neglected. Dr.
I.ay's article is for the whole family, too, as la Mr.
I’oo's Interesting and thought-provoking letter,
and thnt little clipping on "The Cash Value of
Good Society.”
Next, week Mrs. Stevens will write another ar
ticle for tho whole family: It will bo on tho
things to do, before cold weather comes, for tho
prevention of tho common ailments nnd Indispo
sitions of winter. Tho concluding portion of
Mr. Poe’s account of Japanese farming will
be published; our long-delayed story of tho rlco
lands of Arkansas; more talks about dralnngo
and on plowing and stump-pulling; another batch
of letters from readers who uro working for bet
ter crops; a little talk to the boys about hunting,
and some Illustrated descriptions of cheaply built
but serviceable poultry houses.
A Thought for the Week.
FTV!K PERSON who llveB on tho labor of oth
I "ot Klvln« himself in return to the best
of * la ability, Is really a consumer of hu
man Hfe and1 therefore no better tlmn a cannibal.
—Libert Hubbard.