Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-01-28
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A GEORGIA FARMER.

|
Mr.. Robert Rood is young farmer.
Thin Drowned, all fiber. slow and easy of
motion, self-reliant Al. independent he is
"The earth is a gold mine," he says, "to
any man that works it diligently"
1t has certainly proved to be one to Mr..
Rood. In seven years he has made over
$4,000 in farming-not by speculating-
he has lost $40, 900 by that method. But by
! the patient tilling of the earth, and the
slow transmitting of sunshine, rain and
sweat into corn and cotton. The story of
his work is significant, and it may be i'm
proving, so here it is in paragraphs COAX
ed from his own lips.
"My father said to me aboat seven years
ago, My son, Pm going to die, and / leave
| In six weeks he was dead and | took the
plantation in Stewart county on the Chatta-
hoochie River. l mortgaged the place for
81, 600 and went to work. The first lesson
| / learned was economy. | darned my own
rocks and patched my own clothes as they
wore out. When I went to Eufaula put
biscuit in my pocket, and when I got to
town tied my horse to rack and saved no.
tel bill. l ran plough myself, leading the
way for my hands. At night lit up the
forge and did my own blacksmithing,
learning as 1 went. I never left my farm a
day and slept only six hours night"
"That must have brought success ~
"Of course it did, as it would have
brought it in any other business. In two
years I had paid my debt and had money
| in bank. l have made in actual money
over $4,000. This is my poorest year and
yet will clear over $500. l would not
give any man s. to guarantee me $4,000 a
year on my ten mule farm for the next ten
years. Farming is the safest business a
man can engage in if he goes at it right"
"What are the rules by which you
work ?"
"First, raise my own provisions. Inow
have 1000 bushels of corn, 100 bushels of
oats, 800 bushels of peas and 400 gallons of
syrup now for sale. l raise much of my
own meat and would raise it all except
| that my climate is too warm to cure it. |
never saw man who did not raise his own
corn that made money on cotton. | never
saw corn raiser that wasn't prosperous
farmer. You can often figure out that you
can buy corn cheaper than you can raise it,
but that is only on paper. Corn-raisers
prosper-the others fail. My cotton crop is
always cash surplus. I make my other
crops carry the farm.
"NeXt to raising my own corn, count
personal attention to business. I SOW ev-
cry bushel of oats myself, because l never
found hand that could do it right. This
fall 1 worked eleven hours day with a
three peck basket on my arm and soWed oats
ahead of twelve plows until the ends OF my
fingers were bleeding. In making syrup l
got along with four hours sleep in twenty
four, and the result is perfect syrup. su-
perintend every detail of my farming as
this. Every back strap of my harness has
bag of moss sowed under the leather to
protect the mules back. Thread wouldn't
do for that sort of sewing, as it would rot.
Iron wire wouldn't for it would rust. So
every pad is sewed with copper wire. l
never had scald back or piece of broken
skin on mule since I've been farming.
"Next to personal supervision is econ
omy. Nothing is wasted on my farm. l
have 12O tons Of homemade manure COM
posted now, and one ton of composted man.
blade of grass is burned on my place. That
with the refuse Of my sugar cane even is
turned under and enriches the ground. 1t
is small things that make or ruin the farmer.
My neighbors use two or three sets of plow-
lines year-mine last me two or three
years. Every night I oil every wagon on
my place using cotton seed oil. Once a
month / have every axle cleaned and the
old oil rubbed off. This saves my wagons
My stock and crops are all protected the
same way. The poorest house on my place
is the house live in"
"How about your labor ?"
"Better than slaves. I pay them 80 a
month, half in cash every Saturday night,
one ration and allow each hand half acre
for potatoes and an acre for corn and allow
them every Saturday afternoon. They
work because they know 1 know it when
they shrk. They began stealing from me.
I slept on the ground every night for three
weeks, bagged three of the thieves and
now am safe. When they are we'll l make
them work and when they are sick | give
them medicine from my own hand. In
short they know I watch them and they
work."
"You find the life happy one?"
"The freest, happiest, most independent
life in the world. 1 have not been sick a
day in eleven years. When | lie down !
sleep. / ask no man any odds. My broad
acres are there and they are eXhaustless.
The best bank farmer can have is his land.
pay him interest and principal. Many
farmers sell their cotton seed. That is rob-
bing their land. buy cotton seed, for with
acid phosphate and stable manure it makes
the best fertilizer. The farmer is the one
independent man."
81 can not understand" Mr.. Rood went
on to say, "why young fellow will stay in
the city and clerk at small salary with no
future when farmers life is open to him.
No man could have had much worse start
than l did. Now, in spite of markets,
weather or anything else, l can live free
mans life, with health, open air, exercise,
and at the end of every year put from
$500 to $4,000 in the bank. This is not
chance. It's certainty. And there is moth
ing in me except hard work, attention and
little common sense. If fifty young clerks
were to 90 to Stewart county to-day and
farm Just as do, each one would reach the
same result. It is no experiment. 1t is
the most certain of certain things"
And away the young farmer went with
gang of friends who had called for him.
Why may not he prove to be type? Why
may not there follow in his footsteps race
of young farmers, sturdy and self-reliant,
with smooth brows, clear eyes and strong
arms? Why may they not come to the res
cue of our section from the domination of
western smOke-house and cribs, and win
for the South amid their corn rows fuller
and better experience than their fathers
fought for twenty-five years ago? There
Rood started with 1000 acres which he has
already cut down to 1,2OO. He contracts
his arabic once every year. "Intensive
farming," says he, "is the policy of the
future. There is one war cry under which
the South can command the situation.
That is bale to the acre, full corncribs,
a big compost heap and home on the farm J"
Frankly now hasn't this broad shouldered
young farmer, with his stee-like sinews,
this untrOubled sleep, come nearer to solV-
ing the problem than those of US who, aim
ing at glittering heights, are fighting and