Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1886-03-27
Diversity or Crops.

MIR. EDITOR
Tho subject, "a diversity of crops
being in my opinion matter of vital
Importance to our farmers, you will in
dulge me to elaborate the matter little
further. The one crop idea, being fatal
to the prosperity of Our people, it should
be agitated until our farmers see the err
rors of their ways and your correspon'
dent hopes for help in the accomplish
ment of that object. Especially do our
farmers need to he awakened in my
opinion to the folly of the one crop,
sweet potato, since of late years 1t has
not brought to them satisfactory re-
turns for their labors. 1t is not enough
that our farmers produce the sweet po-
tato in quality and abundance, unsur-
passed by any section of our cnnntrY.-
1t is a matter for just pride that the
county of Accomac, occupying as it
does so small a space on the map of our
great country can boast that she is the
largest sweet potato growing county in
in the United States, excepting, per-
haps. Monmouth county, New York,
and that such is the case is due less to
the adaptability of our soil and climate
to the growth of the sweet potato than
to the Industrious habits Of our people.
But does it pay to grow them to the ex-
clusion of other cropsp Coull not our
labor he better applied? Could not the
rapid strides, which q comparison of the
census reports of 1870 and 1880 show
that our farmers made In the growth Of
the sweet potato, have been made in a
more profitable direction? Surely the
farmer would not lave to work harder
thanhe is required to do, to successfully
produce crop of sweet potatoes. The po-
tato crop requires one continuous course
of labor all the year around and is
source of revenue to the farmers for
about three months of the year, leaving
the farmer nine months to spend his
surplus, or otherwise resort To that most
dangerous of all MISUNDERSTANDING
in debt" Now let us sec ifa diversity
of crops will not keep the farmer out of
debt and in so doing add another button
to his uniform of nobility. evil con-
slider again, for instance, our ten acre
piece of ground, not SO very large but
that single one of our Industrious far
mers with little day labor could work
it, and always have, if not money in his
pocket, the crops which he could Con-
vert into money on it. Under our diver
sifed system of crops, he could have
money coming in almost daily the year
around. lie could have k;lle and spin
age to ship in March, Irish potatoes IN
June, sweet potatoes in August, Sep
TENDER and October and later on, cab
bage that could be relied on to pay him
two cent "a head-and he would find a
market TO. Me latter in the Southern rs
well us the Northern cities. The wri-
ter, while living in New York helped to
pack day after day thousands of heads
of cabbage for the southern ports, us
fur as Fernandina, Florida, grown by
Lcng Island farmers, and that too, after
crop Of Irish potatoes had been taken
from the ground. The greatest of all
blessings, will certainly accrue to our
farmers from diversity of crops-that
of keeping them out of debt, because of
the fact, that there will be hardly any
time during the year, when something
cannot be sold to buy such things as
the farmer needs. Now does our
speciality, sweet potatoes..do this? Not
at all-on the contrary of late years so
small have been the return for honest
labor, that many of our farmers talk of
abandoning this most honorable of all
callings, saying "that they had us well
play for nothing as work for nothing. F"
Truly. awakening measures should be
discussed, that our farmers may be
aroused to the Importance Of the work
before them. They need only to be got
ten out of the ruts in which they have
been so long moving, and to have
their labors applied in the proper direc-
ton, as Indicated by your correspondent,
to reap a rich reward. We feel sure,
that only the llappiest results could fol-
low well directed labor of 50 indus
trious farmers as ours are.
Respectfully, &C.,
T. G.. ELLIOTT.
N,nnchrro Mar "a 1856.