Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1875-06-24
Agrifnltntal department.
(OriginaI.l
STOCK FARMS.


STOCK FARMS.
So long as the majority Of Southern plant
ers make cotton the principal crop, provisions
of all kinds will be dear. The transportation
of these commodities will make them dear,
and their absolute necessity will make them
saleable. The price of cotton must, in the
future, be regulated by the supply and de-
mand. Food cropsar annual. Corn, wheat,
oats, rye, barley, rice, bacon, and, generally,
all bread-stufs, cannot be preserved from
year to year, and cotton can. Such being
the case, provisions of all kinds will not, in
a great number of years, vary much in their
market value.
In the South the price of homemade pro.
visions will be regulated by the prices of those
which are brought into the South from what
are called the grain-growing States. Amy
extensive failure in the grain crop in the
grain-growing States, will effect the price of
provisions, independent of the price of cotton.
Such being the order Of things, there is an
opening in many sections of the South for en-
ergetic men to amass fortune. There is
scarcely any good cotton farm in the South
but by proper management can be converted,
with but little expense, into stock and grain
farm. In almost every community in the
South, fair corn land, good grass land, and
land that will produce reasonable crop Of
wheat and oats, can be found. Wherever
grass will grow, COWS can be raised and but
ter made. In that community where corn
and oats will grow, hogs, horses and mules
can be raised. The multitude of our South
ern people either do not know this, or almost
entirely ignore the fact 1t has been demon
strated frequently that more money can be
realized from any Of the hay grasses than
from cotton that is, more money can be re-
allied by sowing grass than by cultivatng
cotton. A good COW will pay all expenses
and make her owner fifty dollars year.
One hand could make grass and grain, suffi-
cient to support ten such COWS. This would
bring the owner of the COWS five hundred dol
lars. His land would improve, and he would
enjoy many pleasures of which the cotton
planter and n-buyer knows nothing.
SOUTHERN VS.. NORTHERN FARMING.
But the Northern farmer makes more money
than we do, say those who know nothing
about it but it is all mistake. They make
less, and handle less money than we do, and
if they lived the lives we do, they would be
far more poverty stricken. The Northern
farm that will sell for one hundred dollars
per acre, will produce, perhaps, an average of
thirty bushels of wheat, or its marketable
equivalent in grass, worth probably thirty
dollars. Outof this must come ten dollars as
interest on investment, half as much more
for taxes and labor, and when the subsistence
of the family is deducted, there is precious
little left True, employees are less numerous
constantly, but day labor is doubtless valua-
BILE, and all Northern farms require double
the amount of plow stock we do at the South,
and everywhere the annual expense of horse
is almost equal to that Of an average hand.
The net income from a 6rst-class Northern
farm is not five per cent, and l consider a
similar Southern farm as failure that does
not double that income. / have repeatedly
seen farms in South Carolina of from one to
FIVE hundred acres, sell for from five to twen-
ty-6ve dollars, and no sooner had they changed
hands than they were leased to negro farmers
for twenty-five per cent on the investment.
And Just here is where we of the South have
a great advantage over Northern farmers, if
we could only SO accommodate ourselves to
the times as to utilize our advantage. Lands
are cheap and labor is abundant, and we must
learn to control. Concessions must be made,
and if properly made, will invariably rebound
to our profit. If, as owners of the soil, pos
SCISSORS of what little capital there is in the
South, and with superior intelligence, we
do not control the labor of the land, the fault
lies at our own doors. We have no system,
no concert of action. To the contrary, we
are constantly pulling against each other.
We are the employers, but every farmer has
his own notion of things, and cares nothing
for his neighbor's plans. If hire hands for
wages, one of them may at any time conclude
to leave. If so, he only goes across my line
fence and my neighbor hires him. If I give
my employees portion Of the crop, everybody
says they will steal more than their share.
You may as we'll kill a dog as to give him a
bad name. So, as practical farmer, / have
never adopted this policy, nor did hire for
wages longer than I found l had to become a
day laborer myself to enable me. to control
the labor to suit me. Hence, since 1869 l
have simply tenanted my lands and have yet
to see a reason for not doing so.
/ allot the land, the laborer furnishes every
thing else, and pays all expenses except the
taxes. If he is unable to carry on the farm
alone, assist him for the year, with the hope
he will be able the next year. If he makes
nothing, and think he is to blame, | dis.
charge him, and have no difficulty in securing
others My rents are reasonable, and have
never failed to be forthcoming. except in two
instances, where two men contracted store &C.
counts without my knowledge, and being
threatened by the merchant with law suit,
they stole my cotton to pay the accounts. l
blamed the merchants more than / did the
negroes. I have never had hand, but in
these two instances, to fail to make more than
the rent and the expenses Of his portion of
the farm.
To my mind no people ever had a fairer op-
portunity of becoming lordly land owners, or
of establishing system of agricultural ten
antry, unsurpassed in the history ofthe world,
than have the Southern farmers at this pres
ent time Whether as race we will ever
see it, and practice it, is another thing-D.
WYATT AIKEN, in Rural Carolinian for June.
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pa~ An important consideration at this sea-
son of the year is to prevent, so far as possible,
the evaporation of moisture from the soil.
One means of doing this is to frequently stir
the surface. Another is shade for the ground.
The last is best obtained by mulching ng-that
ia hv ooverino the soil between the rows and