Connecticut western news., 1882-05-31
A GEORGIA PLANTATION.
How Farming Pays in the Way of
 Oats.


 Oats.
 On the first day of May, says M. Quad in a letter to the Detroit Free Press, rode out from Augusta with Capt. Warren and the State Commis- sioner of Agriculture on little trip of inspection. Capt. Warren is probably the only grass-farmer in the State of Georgia. He has 8 meadow about three miles from the city containing an even hundred acres, and on that day bad two moving machines at work cutting his first crop of hay, and heavy crop it was. This first crop was species of grass called "vetch," looking more like leafy plant than like hay, but highly nutritious and eagerly eaten by all live stock. It is perennial plant and is not killed out in winter.
 The crop of "vetch" being cut early in May, it's place is taken by Guinea grass-a broad.leaf grass which makes first-class hay. The first crop of Guinea grass is cut about the middle of June, the second in September and the third about the middle Of October. If the fall is late one a fifth crop can be cut month later. Then the "vetch' comes up again and remains until the next May. Here, then, are four certain crops of first class forage off the same meadow the same year, with even chances of a fifth.
 Fertilizers are used on the ''vetch" early in the spring, but never to the extent of over $5 per acre. That 100 acres will cut 300 tons of forage per year. and last year every ton of the fodder sold at $25 per ton. There was an income of $7, gross. Deducting expenses of working, fertilizing, baling, etc., and the owner cleared at least $4, 900 in clean cash. That's what hay will do in Georgia for man who knows what he is about, and if any other sec- tion can beat it the captain wants to hear from it.
 Some of our Western States pride themselves on their oat-felds, but let them read what can be done in this ban ner State of the South. This year Capt. Warren reserved six acres for on oat-patch. By a blunder, his men sowed seven bushels of seed to the acre, instead of two and half or three. Every one predicted that not a stalk would head out, but To how little. they knew their own soil. The field as saw it may be described as a perfect mass of oats, and in search of twenty minutes we could not find one single stalk with out plump and well-filled head. The average height was five feet, and the crop was still growing. The commis- sioner offered wager that the yield would be sixty-five bushels to the acre, while neighboring planters put it at seventy. If these figures make our Northern farmers open their eyes they can likewise depend upon it that am writing cold facts.
 We then rode on to the Eve planta- tion to see how farming was done on 8 large scale. This plantation contains 2,O0O acres, and its negro quarters are standing as they stood before the war. Here was one solid field of 500 acres of st-proof oats, and it was almost i'm possible to find stock without a plump head. The Commissioners estimate on that field was fifty bushels to the acre 25, 900 bushels in all. Last year this plantation sold 1000 bushels of oats in one lot at $1 per pushel, and the average of its sales was eighty-two cents. Prices will be lower this year. Therefore, put the average at sixty cents, and we find that field yielding $15, ,OO0. I make no deduction from these figures because, as soon as the oats are off, the big field will be sown with peas, and when these are cut the vines will sell for enough to make good any shortage. Besides, the oat straw will alone bring many hun dred dollars as fodder.
 On that same farm were 200 acres of rust t-proof wheat, and about the same of corn, together with a potato patch as large as many Northern farms. Ten men are employed the year round, and the machinery and tools are of the best The expense for this year is put down at $7.5OO. That farm will return clean profit of over $2O, 1000 this year, and I ask if the North or West can beat it