The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-03-24
STOCK RAISING.

IN dUuId ally OhCIO IS III UOtOSA SoNh
try in the world for stock raising
than the South, with its wide range
of forest and fertile valleys, where
every kind of grass suitable for
stock may be grown successfully
and with little labor. Notwithstand-
ing this, the South, Southern farm
ers, import annually millions of
pounds of beef and pork from West
ern farmers, and thousands of horses
and mules to do the work of the
farm, which could be, and should
be, raised within our own borders.
1t is not simply the money that it
costs to buy the beef, pork, horses
and mules, which should be consid-
cred, though that is a very large
amount, but the actual value of
stock as aids to the Improvement
of the land and as sources of profit
outside of that. With stock, our
grass and fodder fields whether
wild or cultivated become themanure
furnishes to strengthen and enrich
the soil upon which the grain or
other crops grow and without which
we are forced to resort to imported
fertilizers at a high price, which
simply stimulate the soil for a time
but do not permanently benefit it.
If we continue to take from the
land annually without giving back
to it, it is only a question Of time
when it will cease to give us
anything to take, when it will be
worn out and starved beyond the
power to bear crops of any kind.
1t must have food, as nature fed it
with plant food from the beginning
and brought it from sterility to fer
tility. If we plant from year to
year and fail to feed it in return,
eventually it goes back to its origi-
nal sterility, and we have, what
every farmer should be ashamed to
acknowledge as his, worn out lands.
But we can't feed the land unless we
raise something to feed it with.
Cotton will not do it; tobacco will
not do it, for they both take away
from the soil, and give little or
nothing back. J We must have
grass and grain; and to turn the
grass and grain to best and most
profitable account, we must have
stock to feed and fatten and sell,
and supply u w wants instead
of buying to convert the grass, and
straw and corn fodderin t manure to
feed the land they came from.
W. ho-o hoorJ - cold that With
pork at six centsa pound and corn at
sseventy-fve cents a bushel, twill
not pay to raise pork, that it is
cheaper to buy it; and there are
some who will probably say it is
cheaper to buy horses and mules
than to raise them, or to buy but
ter than to make it. People who
pursue this practice evidently be-
lieve So If we, have no pasturage
for stock, of course it is cheaper to
buy than attempt to raise. If we
have no ranges for hogs and no
land that will yield corn in sufi-
cient quantities to pay the labor Of
cultivation and fatten the hogs, it
will be cheaper to buy meat than
than to raise it. Of course we
must have the foundation to build
upon or we cannot build. But
with grass to feed stock and stock
to eat grass, the problem is solved
and success becomes only a matter
of short time. a~ p
w know-a plantation in Rock
ingham county which the proprie-
tor sold years ago to the present
owner at a nominal price, because
it was so poor that he could not
make a living upon it. Clover re-
deemed that land so that it brought
crops of wheat, oats, and corn that
would have been regarded asNex-
traordinary on the fertile lands of
the Mississippi valley; and we know
another farm within two miles of
the city OF Charlotte, which the
present owner bought as sold field,'
to-day lis one of the finest
plantations in the South, the yield
in wheat, oats, corn, &c, being al
most incredible, and which could
not be bought to-day for $500 an
1t was a worn out old field,
but grass and barnyard manure
have made it a marvel of fertility.
Neither of these farms had anv
advantages. They were
about on an average with the lands
surrounding them, some of which
are too poor now to grow army
beans, and will be so until intel