The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1875-08-28
Talk to Farmers.

dIh " Z tIi14C4os
The policy pursued Ivy our Louisi-
ana friends, which cannot he charged
as being confined to any one locality
in the State, but is more persistantly
chung too in some, than others; is a
policy admitted by all thinking men
to be ruinous to our material pros
perity.
The failure of our crops are not to
he attributed solely to the seasons,
nor yet to the enemies Of our staple;
to prove which We will state that in
the former instance, crops yielding
largely-crops as good as can be de
sired, have passed successfully
through a three months drought and
are to-day as blooming as tho rose,
whilst others, with or without rains,
have failed eDtirely-in the second
instance, that of the obstruction Of
our cotton crops-some have succeed
ed in making fine yields during all
that dark and dreary era Of the ca
terpillars. This can be attributed to
but one cause, that is superior cult
walton. ..... ,...
We learn from our most eminent
practical farmers, that the prepare
tion of the soil "is half the CROP" and
We heard a friend of ours say, few
days since, and that most truthfally,
that ''good strong teams wers tho
whole battle"
The policy before the war was to
raise more bales of cotton than your
neighbor, and to do so we depended
entirely upon the number Of acres I"
cultivation. This ''more bale" ques-
ton was amusingly demonstrated by
"Porte Crayon" in Harper's Monthly
in 1855. When he showed the car
toons Of the 'ten bale man" and "the
hundred bale man." j a..h ~,
There has been a great advance
from this acreage system of cult
walton IN advance as marked as
that-from wooden to iron and steel
plows. Educational cultivation, IN.
tealigeht farming, have completely
overtbrown the old system, which we
to-day, with but rare exceptions, con-
t,nue - cling to with the pertiDacity
of the Bourbons. Now the farmer
who is advanced in bis ideas, drives
his subsoil plow, with heavy mules or
stout horses, deep into the earth-he
harrows; be uses pulvetising cult
vators; be fertilizes; land our COT
ton seea il uneqasled for that almost)
he puts In less acres tl.at be may work
his crop more perfectly, and lol and
behold be makes twice as much, des'
| pite want Of roin aud the presence Of
caterp,llars, - the ''hundred bale
man." who, with mustang ponies or
bis rabbit mules, scratches the ground
where it has been scratched over and
over for a hundred years, and sits, at
the end Of the season, up Of nights to
cogitate and wonder that his neigh.
bor, With less land, less team, less
work, has made large crop, when
he has made none--then curses hi
luck 1t last, and goes to work the next
year Ia the ''same old way his grand
pa did,"
We ask onr unbiased friends if this
picture is overdrawn-it is to-day
found 10 hundreds of places, in vii.
dernesses of corn stocks without q
nubbin-in deserts Of cotton without
a boil. 5%
One gets tired talking reason to
men who listen, but pay no heed,
Necessity hos, year after year demon
strsted this to our people-the neces'
sity to run to merchants for credit
the necessity to deny yourself oil
pleasure to pay debts, and still Will
the arguments Of reason and necessity
before you. you ore deaf to your owl
interests. - ~ 2
The Carroll Vatckmas, which b,
the Wav IL q rood country .p0Der II