St. Landry democrat., 1889-03-30
AGRICULTURE.
SOME FACTS ABOUT MIR. DICKSON AND HIS
SYSTEM OF FARMING.

SOME FACTS ABOUT MIR. DICKSON AND HIS
SYSTEM OF FARMING.
Mr.. David Dickson, of Georgia, in his
Practical Treatise on Agriculture, says that
when q boy, while blowing, he noticed that
when the roots of plants were cut in hot
days the plants would wilt behind him in
less than thirty minutes, and it would con-
tinue for days to show damaging effects on
the crops. :.
Again he says: 81 never saw new land,
full of mold, that baked. 1t was always
easily worked, and would stand long
drought and q heavy wet spell" His con-
clusion was that it is all important to keep
all soil as near up to its virgin state as
possible.
Mr.. Dickson, when he commenced farm
ing, purchased 260 acres of land, for which
he paid from 81 to So per acre, and some as
low as fifty cents.
This land had been producing four bush
els of corn per acre. and 200 pounds seed
cotton, about bale to five acres. But he
made good crops from the beginning, which
showed that commercial fertilizers were
| not his only forte and foundation for his
fortune.
Mr.. Dickson probably owed perhaps a
quarter or third of his fortune of $500, 900
| to the thorough preparation of his land,
fine culture and good management, but the
most of his property came from the use OF
| commercial fertilizers. He held that farm
ers must study their soil, their fertilizers
and their crops as physician studies dis
ease and his medicines in order to be sue
cessful.
| Under the slave system of labor, the
women and children were the main spring
of cotton raising. The loss of labor, and
| inefficiency of labor are about equally com
pensated by the increased price of our
products.
One of the reasons why there is defici-
ency in labor is that the men take Satur-
days to 60 to public meetings; they do not
work as many hours in day as they
| formerly did, and their work is not of so
good a character. Each family must have
| it's housekeeper and washer and must send
| to mill if they only send half bushel of
corn. A great loss in their labor also re-
suits in their having to stop to gather fire.
| wood and attend to their gardens and
patches.
Such pineland as mine (some of it paturI
ally very poor should average from 20 to
| 25 bushels of corn to the acre, and, wet or
dry, if the work is rightly done, there is
no such q thing as failure, as very many
visitors from ali parts of the country will
testify.
In 1861 used $4,000 worth of guano,
and in 1857 $12, 600 worth.
lone of the reasons l use commercial
| fertilizers" says Mr.. Dickson, sis that
may save double the quantity of home made
manure make double the crops, have
twice the amount of forage to feed away
and twice as much cotton seed for
manure"
| MR.. DICKsON's STATEMENT TO MIR. GIFT.
As large as you thought my investments
last year $3.50, O0W'in manures, my losses
in stock and in theft was equal to that.
I The guano and the raise in cotton were the
only things that saved me.
j To be successful in mining you must
/ first find the mine; to be successful in
I agriculture you must know where all the
elements of plants are, and how to control
them and make the most of them.
j Fill your land with humus, to stick the
soil together and to darken it. This will
prevent its rejecting the heat, and will
cause it to receive it gradually and to part
with it in the same way. commenced
using guano in 1916, did not use it heavily
4 until 1856, and it has never failed in the
first instance to make good crops, wet OF
dry, nor even when the caterpillar pre-
4 vailed.
+ Ammonia consider the best single In.
gredienssO grow green crops with to return
to tn earth, thereby producing more am
monia and 80 per cent bone earth, to be
I returned to the soil, and losing no other
ingredient that was already in the soil.
4 One Of the great objects, aside from the
immense profits of using commercial ferti
lizers, is, that it gives you the means OF
increasing your composts. 1t gives you
increased food to be used it increases your
cotton seed and grass to be turned under
/ it causes weeds and other things to spring
up early in the winter to be turned under
in the spring without any loss or trouble
of using green crops.
Cotton consider a sun plant, growing
best in latitude of 80 to "a degrees, avoid
ing most of the casualties in that belt. As
soon as the sun rises the cotton plant holds
| out the broadcast surface of its leaves te
the sun and moves round with the sun ano
is never done growing until it is killed by
frost. In order to mature the greatest
quantity of cotton before the worm or frost
comes, you must have at least eight stalks
to the yard.
| Corn is an annual. 1t delights in lati
tude a little higher than cotton. believe
that the cultivation of corn can be carried
to such point that you NAV make gooG
crop with two good seasons {rains).
| There is another means of improving
land by turning in vegetable matter. Poo
land will not produce vegetable matter
sufficient to improve the land materially
/ without the use of commercial or Other
fertilizers to increase the quantity of greer
crops to be turned in.
/ BY the use of these fertilizers you car
get two green crops year to turn in
either of grass, peas, weeds or clover, ane
cultivated grasses where they would sue
coed, where otherwise you could not ge
but one.
/ Give the South its constitutional rights
| with our best men to represent us in al
| departments, and we can make all the cot
ton the world wants, at fair prices, if it b.
ten million bales or more, without an out
side man or dollar to help us.
A VERY EXTRAvAGANT STATEMENT BY Ar
1 EMINENTLY PRACTICAL SOUTH
i ERIN FARMER.
1 81 have no doubt, says Mr.. David Dick
son, s'that on good cotton land, with a fai
year, could make 100 bales of cotton will
/ No. mule; commencing operations tn,
first day of December subsoil every acre
use twenty-five dollars worth of manure
per acre, and finish the 1st of May cult
vate sixty acres. !"
IMPORTANCE TO WET SOILS OF THOROUGH
i DRAINAGE AND UNDERGRADUATES.
| DR.. Joseph Jones, in his report IS chem
list to the cotton planters convention il
Georgia, more than thirty years ago, said