The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-12-22
OUR FARMERS CLUBS.
What our Farmers are Doing and How
the Work of Organizing is Progressing.
TRINITY CLUI
TRINITY CLUB
Subiect-Benefcial Reading for the
Farmer. s."-.


Sutiect-Benefcial Reading for the
Farmer. s.'~,..
DR.. d. Reid Parker.-Allow me.
gentlemen of the club, to, suggest
few primary treatises on subjects
of absolute Importance to the farmer.
Get some good work on stock, their
diseases and general management.
Harris on the pig. Harris talks on
manure. How plants grow, by
Johnson. Waring, on drainage. How
ards Southern grasses. Ville's lee
lures. How the farm pays. The
chemistry of the farm. After read
ing these elementary works light
will begin to fall On the agricultural
pages and you will pass on to higher
studies. Besides these standard treat
ises there are many very valuable
weekly and monthly publications
that are absolutely ly indispensable to
the farmer.
The farmer to-day must read and
think or ingloriously surrender and
leave the field without any further
ado about it. 1t is monstrous non
sense to ridicule book farmers, for |
have observed that the most intelli-
gent and successful farmers are those
who read books and papers and
think. You had as we'll deride law
yer or a doctor for reading and call
them book lawyers or doctors as
to make little of the farmer for try
ing to keep up with the best meth
DDS in his own calling.
A farmer should be familiar with
the nature and requirements of all
farm animals-how to raise, feed
and manage them for profit And Il
man is not born into this world with
this knowledge, neither does he learn
it in the schools and colleges, and
! if he ever becomes informed on this
subject be must therefore do it him
self: Too many Of us know just
enough about the hog to initiate
him in eating and living and this
seems to satisfy our ambition for
knowledge
Every farmerwith family should
be well informed as to all needed
sanitary measures about his premi-
ses-Iocation, pure water, etc. The
comfort, energy, usefulness, the
moral and religious character de-
pend, in a great measure, upon ones
Digestion And this in turn depends
largely upon what man eats and
how it is prepared. The everlast-
ing frying-pan, hog meat and soda
bread are making Of us generation
of thick skinned dyspeptics-heavy
bread and bad cooking tend to
shorten life, kill out all manly ener-
gy, crowd our pathway with blue
devils, fill us with all manner Of
ickedness-and-th we go buy
patent medicine, thinking to purge
away all these ''dismal stains" and
thereby only plunge the deeper into
the gulf of dark despair" Any
farmer in North Carolina, | don't
care in what section he may live, or
what crops he may grow, that will
mortgage his farm, crops or stock
to buy Western side-meat and there
by Danish peace and comfort from
hlS nome deserves 10 Do uduuCcu Dy
the most hideous hobgoblins that
Ground about the caldron 60"
Wake up, my farmer brother, and
learn your duty in this matter, and
then teach your wife and children
how to cook and eat, and live for
noble purpose. Buy books and
papers and 60 right to work
now. 1t is a grand field of use
fulness. The field is white for
the harvest, the laborers are few
and the demand is urgent-enter
now and begin the good work. =.
In raising stock we pay some at
tention to the law Of selection, we
feed and groom with an eye to inn
provement; this is all right and com
mendable and if this be true with a
blooded colt or a Jersey bull cali,
how much more urgent the neces-
slty to give our farmer boys chance
TO grow up to the stature OF first
class men. The country boys are
all the strong suDpOrt of the farmers