The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1875-08-13
AGRICULTURE.
THE VALUE OF RED RUsr.pRooF OATS

ceptlon, because sit was growing oats
too cheap" Another year has come
and gone. have repeated the expert
ment, succeeded equally as well, and
am pleased to say, I have witnessed a
better success with more than one of
my neighbors. Red oats can be grown
at an expense of twenty-five cents per
bUshel upon any ordinary farm in the
South, every such bu9hel will weigh
thirty pounds, and pound of oats will
produce Just as much muscle and fat as
a pound of corn. have kept horse
for two years without ever feeding him
an ear of orn or blade of fodder, his
daily diet being shelled oats and straw,
or cut oats from the sheaf he has been
ploughed, wagoned, hacked about in
buggy, and ridden under the saddle,
and there never was time he was not
ready and willing to do full share of
work. Any land that ever have seen
in the South will. produce two bushels
of oats where it will grow one bushel of
corn each farmer for himself can cal
culate the cost of growing the two
crops.
Red oats will yield more grain to the
straw, and more delicate straw than any
oats have ever. grown. Sown in the
fall, they will produce remunerative
crop on good land, even if frozen out
during the winter to single stool to
every square foot. They are heavier
than any other and have never been
known to take the rust. A few years
ago, I selected eight adjoining acres,
and on them sowed a. bushel to each
acre of eight varieties of oats. Some
were entirely destroyed by the winter.
soma were ruined by rust, and all but
the red oats were more or less damaged
by this parasite. Not even blade of
the red oats was touched, though the
acre was in the midst of those most
thoroughly ruined. The time is upon
us when they should again be sown.
though they are remunerative if sown at
any time between this and the LIST of
next March.
1 prefer to SOW in cotton.land broad
cast, and plough in with three or four
sweep burrows. This lays by cotton
crop as we'll as sows small grain crop,
hence saving of half the labor. It is
cheaper to SOW in the cotton field even
if postponed till September or October,
because cotton requiring clean culture
the land is in better filth, and fewer
burrows are necessary. The hands while
picking cotton during the winter will
trampleupon the young sprigs, and make
them stool out better therefor. Sheep
will winter on oats in a cotton field and
never modest the cotton till they have
eaten up the oats.
Where cotton is the exclusive crop.
there is no little vexation and harrassing
doubts at harvest time to him who ven
lures to SOW small grain. In June the
cotton and corn need the attention of
the laborer constantly, Hence, the
policy, almost necessityyfof interesting
the laborer in the ownership at least of
the oat crop. A fair contract, IN this
regard, is for the employer to furnish
the seed, fertilizer, and land, and re-
qulre the employe to supply the labor
of seeding and harvesting, and at har-
vest time divide the crop, one-fourth to
the lGbOrer and three-fourths to the en-
ployer. An acre of land, producing
twenty bushels of oats, would thus give
the labOrer five bushels of oats for
about two days work, (ploughing, scat
terlng manure, knocking down stalks,
and harvesting,) and fifteen bushels to
the owner, one and a half bushels of
seed, three and a half bushels to paw
for fertilizer, and ten bushels rent. I
have never known red oats to sell for
less than seventy five cents per bushel,
and even at fifty cents per bushel, ten
bushels are very fair rent for land that
will not produce more than twenty
bushels of oats per acre. Fair uplands
in middle South Carolina will average
twenty bushels without manure: and I
have seen it stated that the Mississippi
bottoms have yielded one hundred
bushels per acre during favorable sea-
sons.-CoL ID. Ryatt aiken, an R,traI
CarOlinian.
THE CHEAPEST MANURE KNOWN.
DE<Daniel Lee, in the Nashville
Union and American, saws that land
plaster (gypsum) is the cheapest ma
nure known to him, and he has been q
careful observer of its effects for sixty
years. He adds that it has been in use
in this country Ons hundred years, since
Franklin wrote his name in sowed pIasI
ter, brought from Paris to Philadel-
phia, which had such fertilizing effect
that all could read his name in clover
and lucerne. He refers to a locality in
the state of New York, where it has
been used for fifty years, and though
containing no ammonia or nitrogen in
of which exist in all crops; no phos-
phoric acid, yet many upland fields were
more productive in 1874 than in 1924,
after the removal of fifty harvests, re-
ceiving in return less than seventv.eie
pounds per acre of a true sulphate of
lime year, and never any other fertili-
yer.
WHY SMALL FARMERS ARE PROSPEROUS.
We have often had occasion to call
attention to the fact that those we are
accustomed to call "small farmers +"
are generally the most prosperous peo-
pie in the south. They are not so be.
cause small farms and very limited
operations are, in themselves. best. but
because these farmers are working in
harmony with their circumstances.
They have accepted the situation, and
put their own hands to the plough,
Having small capital, and often very
limited knowledge and skill, they 90
safely, as they see the way clearly be-
fore them. The large planter, on the
contrary, often without any capital at all
of his own, attempts on borrowed money
Cat fearfully high rates of interest,} to
conduct large operations, without close
ly counting the cost or the risks, and
fails, as any sound minded man. not
infatuated with cotton, would see that
he must. This does not prove that
SMALL farms and small farming age nee.
essarily most profitable, but that our
operations, both as to method and to
extent, must correspond with our capital
and other circumstances.
As the land grows older the danger
of this increase, unless great care is ex-
ercised in keeping up the fertility of the
soil, and in destroying weeds in what
ever quarter they may present them
selves. Along hedges large enough to be
beyond the use of cultivation, and other
fences too, strip wide enough for
turning row should be devoted 60 grass.
In this way. the dirt in blowing, may be
thrown from the fence as often as in the
opposite direction without difficulty,
and not only adds wonderfully to the
convenience, but to the artistic appear
ance of the fields.
All these unsightly patches, so often
seen about farm, doing so much dam
age, and bringing nothing in return,
may be occupied in some way to advan-
tage without much labor. A grove may
be planted, few shrubs and flowers, or
Soma Of tho cvoaU fvr,T4s y,oo- 10 Ia: