The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-05-09

GENTLY eyinces the absolutely ruin
Gus nature of oul agricultural pro-
cedure. ANY rational alienation i
excluded. The rotation Is corn and
cotton. corn and tobacco, corn and
wheat: or at the best, it is but i
triangular rotation, consisting OF a
succession of three OF these crops:
and the necessary result is before
us and all around US, utter exhaus-
ton. In Europe. among the an
cient Romans and III those parts OF
our own country, where agriculture
has made any progress, no man
would call himself a farmer who
had not, as one term OF his rotation,
clover, roots. peas, or some other
green crop, cultivated with special
reference to the improvement of the
land. Not only IS this not done
among us, but as we have seen, no
care is taken TO return to the soil
the refuse of the ordinary crops.
There will be ne agriculture IN
North Carolina worthy of the name
until a radical change is made
right here.
And this brings me to mention.
land | can not do more than men,
ton it here,) another evil of u
system, so closely connected with
the last, as, in n aspect, to be IN
fact a part of it, to wit:
THE DEFICIENCY OF STOCK.
When the last named error shall
have been corrected by the intro
duction of green and root crops,
the advantage and necessity of at
least trebling the number Of AMI
mails on our farms will be apparent.
And this will naturally suggest
another defect. VIZ:
THE INFERIOR CHARACTER OF OUR
The business of stock-breeding
and the improvement OF inferior
kinds has vet to be inaugurated
among us. 1t can not be done too
soon. And | know of no more
promising field of enterpris for an
active and intelligent young farmer
than this. | commend the subject
also to the early attention OF this
Society.
Such are some of the defects
the more obvious ones-ef our
farming in North Carolina, palpa-
bic to the observation of all of you;
and others will no doubt have oc-
Cured to your thoughts as We
have passed along. But this gross
" defective mode of conducting
the great business of the State ar
CUES widely prevalent defects else
where, defects Of another class, per-
sonal defects in the farmer. Now,
| am aware that this is a tender
part of the subject, and perhaps it
it were wiser to have passed 1T alto
gethcr. At any rate 1t behOoyes
me to tread lightly, especially since
the medicine man, before referred
to, has not vet extended his travels
into these parts. | will limit my
self to a brief word on but three
points.
The want of a habit Of attention,
observation and calculation; the
want of industry; and the want of
organization and cooperation.
The first point is illustrated by
all those faulty practices which we
have just been considering, but by
none better than the production of
crops not demanded by the availa-
| bic market and the failure to pro-
| duce those which are in demand
and for which there are peculiar
| facilities. In nine cases out of ten
| the farmer does not know what a
given product has cost him, and
| whether he is cheating the farm or
| the farm him, and probably he
will tell you, as one of them, ordi-
narily intelligent, told me the other
| day. on inquiring the cost of pro-
duction per bushel of certain crop
that it did not cost him anything.
| he made it himself. And there is
a very recent and conspicuous ia
stance of the general absence of a
| habit of observation among farm
ers, in their failure either to give
their summer crops such depth Of
tillage and drainage as to render
them independent of the season,
or, failing that, to time their plant
ing so that the critical period, the
caring of corn for example, shall
immediately precede the season of
drought, which generally happens
about the same time of the year,
thus furnishing the farmer an OPP
portunity to mitigate if not entire
" avert It's disastrous effects. AS
to the second point, the charge of
want of industry certainly does not
l.