The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1885-10-07
sULTURAL DEPARTMENT
The Culture of Red Oats.

to commence sowing small grain,
shiIk it will be beneficial to those OF
~ who follow that method Of obtain
Gag our subsistence, to have an eX-
gchange of views upon this important
subject. | know there are farmers
who are we'll verSed in this branch and
would like TO get their ideas as
matter OF improvement for myself.
My experience has been limited, but
| have made some observations ana
perhaps some of your readers might
like to hear them.
There was period Of time when
we were not dependent on the oat
crop for stock feed, but that has long
since passed away, and we now con-
slider the oat crop our only hope, as
corn raising in this country has come
to be but one OF things of the past,
part Of the agricultural history of the
anti beWUm regime. Just after the
war closed and cotton was selling al
the way up as high as 10 cents per
pound, when everything was IN an
abnormal condition, when the com
me:ce, the finances, and the agrlcui-
turc of the whole country was on
boom, the basis of which was ali IN
tlated currency, when money flowed
like water, we could afford high stock
feed, but in few years when every
thing settled down to a normal condl-
ton, the farmer began to look about
for cheap food for the mules that
worked the cotton crop and the result
was q general introduction Of the
famous red rust proof oat.
Some claimed tina. it was God-send
to this country, the only hope of the
cotton planter, while | have always
been undecided whether it was bless
ing or curse, for this reason, If the
cotton e6lanter had been unable to get
this oat some twelve OF fourteen years
ago, he would have been forced to
adopt q different system of agrlcnl-
ture and he would have been unable
to raise cotton at the low price he re-
ceived for it, without this cheap stock
food, consequently he would have
given more Of his time and attention
to production of food crops, the rear
ing of cattle, hogs, sheep, poultry, ETC.,
together with sowing the various
grasses and making fine pastures.
Again he would never have known
and suffered the evils of that vampire,
: the lien law, which, while it is grad
ually sucking his life blood, cools him
with the flap of its wing in the form of
hope. The red oat, like whiskey, is
good in its place, but is and has been
harmful as basis for cotton crop.
AS leader there is no better crop for
our farmers, and we should give to it
that intelligent study that it deserves;
there is one serious drawback, how
ever, to our oat crop and only one
which have carefully studied to rem
edv so far as my own crop is concern
ed and that is the freezing out process
which has proyea so disastrous of late
years.
Last season I planted one hundred
acres in oats, and planted in several
ways to satisfy myself which was the
surest way to get a good stand, and
the safest way of protection from
freezes The first safeguard is early
sowing always, as late sowing is
seyenty-fEe per cent. more liable to
freezeout than early sowing. sowed
my crop in various ways to find out
the best mothod of putting in crop.
The4argest part, / prepared it nicely,
cotton seeded II well, then sowed the
seed and narrowed in the whole thing,
and such stand Inever saw on ground.
next -plowed in some very shallow
and then narrowed the ground, get
ting as fine stand as the first. Next.
plowed>in some as deep as mules
could pull the plows, q mean one
horse plews,, and narrowed the
ground, also got a fine stand. All of
this done in due season, not later than
Goth October Ithen sowed some in
latter part Of November and Decem-
Der, all of which l plowed in about an
average depth. Some narrowed and
some ] left rough in order to find out
if narrowing the ground had any effect
on the stand, but being sowed late,
and the freezes commencing, not more
than three per cent. of them ever came
up at all, being killed in the process
of termination. Ninety acres ont of
the hundred were killed out, while
the remaining ten acres were far from
having full stand. Now the best
stand of the ten acres were those that
I plowed in deepest, and the next
best were those that plowed in shall
low, while the poorest stand were
those narrowed in.
[ aisa. took occasion to notice the
different stS9es OF sowing adopted by
nearest neighbors, and found about
the same results with them as in my
own fields. claim if we will plow
in the cats fdeep and then harrow the
ground oEer that the freezes will not
effect the staud more than ten per
gent, which is reasonable allowance
: for bad seed and weakly plants, where
if we put them in shallow, the stand
will be injured fully fifty per cent. l
give as my reasons the following: My
actual experiment for that purpose.
It is potent to all that where hats have
been sown on cotton land, you can
stand and trace the original water
burrows between the old cotton beds,
bv the regular stand Of oats looking as
if they had been sown in drills. Again
I can tell where the laps Of two lands
is by the oats being more regular
along this ridge, because in blowing
along this lap the oat seed get twice as
much dirt thrown over them, by
reason of.tha tapping process, as any
ether part of the land. Yet again, |
can trace out every water furrow
~ l., t1,o