The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-12-23
THE RIGHT TIME AND THE RIGHT
WAY TO PLANT OATS.
Capt. Paul F. Hammond Gives the Far
mers of South Carolina the Benefit OF
his Experience In Planting an Important
Grain.

To the Horticultural Department of THE
Weekky Ne1us and Courier: Although it
has been winter killed two out the last
four years, thing unprecedented, the
oat crop is very valuable crop and
should not be neglected. Whether on
red land or gray, on clay or sandy, and
whether planted early in October or late
in December, unless one and only one
method is followed, very severe weather
in January will destroy the oat crop.
What that method is will be stated fur
ther on. If our planters raised more
corn, oats might be dispensed with; but
even if they raised an abundant supply
of corn, it would hardly be wise to give
up the oats. Consider single fact, the
farmers of the Northwest, of the great
corn States of Illinois, Wisconsin and
Iowa, rarely feed corn to their work ami
mails, their horses and mules neither do
the livery men in the towns and cities.
a few years ago oats were very scarce,
nevertheless the writer found the horse
car and omnibus people in Chicago feed.
ing oats at sixty cents bushel in prefer
ence to corn at fifty cents. TIL seems
surprising, but take our own practice in
Charleston. Rice -four is fifteen cents
and corn sixty-6ve cents, and rice -four
is more fattening, pound for pound, than
corn, and nearly as nourishing 10 other
respects, yet if rice -four was fed to
horses to any great extent it would not
sell for fifteen cents bushel. 1t brings
disease when constantly fed, and so with
corn. The Western people say, "it is too
heating for animals at work." that "it
burns them out" 1t may do very we'll
for colts, and is largely used as far North
as Kentucky for young mules, though not
for young race horses, but even with them
it is believed to develop. any lurking ten
dency to blindness, and, in fact. every
hereditary predisposition to disease. The
more intelligent farmers in the North
west, who are we'll informed on these
matters, in conversation with the writer,
point to the early age, twelve to fourteen,
at which our stock gives out, while theirs
remain serviceable until sixteen, eighteen
and twenty, and they claim that it is due
mainly to the difference in feeding corn
or oats.
But I am afraid to say one word to
discourage in the very least degree any
planter who proposes to increase, by one
single acre, the area Of bis crop of corn,
even though he should substitute oats for
it. At the present prices of corn aud
cotton, at the present ruinous over'pro.
duction Of cotton, every acre diverted
from the great staple and planted in corn,
or in anything, is benefit to the iadi:
vidual and to the whole Sonth. Why?
1t costs very little to grow corn. If all
the work, man and animal, had TO be
hired, here is about the cost of it, item
by item-I mean the cash outlay, not
estimating rent or interest or pers 81
attention:
1. Breaking an acre of land inches decp..s 65
q Marking OF, (and marking off with
good tool is much better and cheaper than
laying off and planting In deep furrow- 5
g. Planting, thinning and repanting...."... Is
l. Ploughings e good ploughings sufficiently IS
s. Chopping through once with hoe........". IS
6. Planting peas. ......................". ~