The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1886-09-04


Then chop through your peas, and I'm
due timo give them one furrow witfa
twenty-inch sweep, and yourcr0piisN
made with five farrows, including lay-I
off furrow.
AS to gathering. If you plant tho
speckled pea, which think Is by far
the best variety, all things considered,
its carly maturity and bunch growth
will thereby enable You under fnvora-
blo seasons to gather fair picking
before your cotton comes on, and
by picking tho pea as it ripens,
they will continue to bear. A hand
can pick more of the spcckled pen than
any, other variety, because they cluster
pick as many. pounds III weight Of
same circumstances. Ono hundred
will turn out u bushcl of nicely cleaned
peas.
Now as to tho pen as food. There
is always somo risk in feeding i'll any
shape. I only feed in tho hull or
meal and little chopped hay or
roughness of any kind, for oxen or a
mich COW; and almost any common
COW fed in this way will mako Jersey
butter in color and much better tasted.
AS to economical mule feeding, peas
in the hull, with shclled oats, which is
corn and fodder both, is by far the
best 1 have ever tried. lido not gather
nor feed tho vino to any extent. /
have two principal reasons. Tho first
and most important is TINT the vine
ought to be loft on tho land as fer
tilizer, and tho second is, if we cure
tho vine as most planters do (not
farmers) by pulling up the vine, pile
in heaps and tho next week haul in
house, when nothing is left but the dry
stem, containing about as much nutri-
mcnt as the dry cotton stalk in mid
winter, and not as digestiblo. But if
you care nothing for the Improvement
and rcclaiming Of your old worn and
exhausted hills, and must have feed,
put them up in stacks OH tho George
Brown plan. Gather and stack whilo
green on q limbed pole, handle care
fully and save leaf, pod and stem.
When that is done your land is i'm
poverished more than you would
think or imagine, as / will endeavor
to show by the plactical results Of one
Of tho most successful farmers in our
Statc-Dr. Barton, president Of the
Agricultural Society of Orangeburg.
When he bought his place, since the
war, it was very poor and his neigh
bors laughed at him. Tho place would
hardly bring peas, as one of his neigh
bors told me. Now, from what have
heard and from what the Doctor has
told me, he has used the pea as fer
tiliZerS longer, more extensively, and
with better results, than any other
farmer in the State. He sows or
plants his stubblc in peas, and when
matured, or later, he turns them under,
his cultivated cotton lands, at last
ploughing, he sows from one to one
and half bushels of speckled peas
necessary 'f6 Tor seed dGa@f and food, and S WITH
tho vine, leaf and pod, together with
all that is OH the cotton stalk, gives
him better coating Of Vegetable
matter than he could possibly gather
from the woods and broadcast, putting
his lands in fine condition for the re-
ccption of commercial fertilizers. TIE
results were astounding. -Four or five
years ago he had brought his lands up
to bale per acre. Now, if We rs
farmers would practise the same
methods, we would be crowned with
successful results and we would yet
see life in this old land.
Next as TO the potato as q feed crop.
1t is my experience that no ono crop
that we plant is equal to the potato as
food More good feed can be made
on ono acre planted in sweet potatoes
than anything farmer can grow.
The yield is simply enormous. Mr..
Thos. Rabb, Of this county, few
years ago made four hundred bushels
TO the acre-mcasurcd and certified to
by witnesses. Mr. Tommie Robert
son, of Longtown, man Of un-
doubted vcracity, made five hundred
measured bushels to one acre. Now,
as a money crop, that pays better and
brings better moncyed income even
at forty or fifty cents per bushel, than
anything we plant. Only Of lato
years have [ realized their value as
food. I have fattcned my bacon hogs
for the last three years almost entirely
OH potatoes. | think they make the
sweetest meat, and the lard will ibe
like w.flakes. When fed to milk
cows alone there is nothing better