The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1889-06-20
PROGRESSIVE FARMING.

we are glad to note the great i'm
prOvement that has been made in
the last few years in our farms and
In our system of farming in grand
old Cobb county. Farmers in olden
times worked their fields for all
they were worth, regardless of TAX
ing care of them, and when they
had exhausted their fertility, (Which
soon occurred), abandoned them
and cleared new grounds. Now
they have very few woodlands to
fall back on, 80 driven by necessity,
they are taking care of the old
fields, and by careful hillside ditch
ing and terracing, and by alternat-
ing the crops and using homemade
manures, the old fields are made
more productive every year, and if
the improvements continue in the
future as they have in the past, it
will not be long before these large,
ugly gullies and barren CALLED spots
will be thing of the past, and the
fields will present a smooth, even
surface in which every foot of land
will be productive. Then, too, look
at the farmers homes of today and
compare them with the homes of
six or seven years ago. How much
they have changed in this brief
period. Rough looking log houses
of few rooms, in which the family
was unpleasantly crowded, have
given place to neat four and five
roomed frame cottages, prettily
painted in whites and we'll ceiled or
plastered inside, with the we'll in
the back verandah, so convenient
to the good house wife does not
even have to step out of the house
to get water, much less take long
trip down the hill to the spring,
and break her back carrying the
aforesaid bucket up so steep an in
cline. Then look at the front yards
now, and think of them as they
formerly were. Look at the pretty
honeysuckle vine that gracefully
twines itself over the door. Look at
the large rose bush near by, loaded
with luxuriant, sweet smelling roses.
Look at the pinks and geraniums,
and the other flowers that beautify
the yard, and the walks that curve
around them, and the pretty grass
lawn under the grove of spreading
oaks beneath which the home is
nestled. Then look across to the
left and see what a neat, comfort
able barn has been erected, with
the gear house and CRIB to the front
and the stalls for horses on each
side of middle hallway, and the
shelter made by extending the roof
for the wagons, buggies and plows,
and ON the other side good stalls
for the cattle where they may be
fed from the upper story in which
their feed is stored, through holes
cut above each trough. All the
products of the farm can be stored
under this one roof. To the right
and LETT and all around are patches
of millet, clover and orchard grass.
A we'll is near at hand from which
the horses and cattle can be water
ed, and back OF barn is a passage
leading to the pastures, far better
than that to which we have been
accustomed. How much better this
than the vast town of old log stables
and cribs and storage rooms we
used to see.
As result OF this better treat
ment our live stock is being i'm
proved, and look much better than
they did of old. Our farms, as
general thing, are getting more and
more like the ideal Kentucky farm,
with its drove of horses, mules, cat
tie, turkeys and poultry, with its
waving fields of corn, wheat, oats
and grasses. Where golden plenty
reigns supreme and where the one
crop idea does not operate as a |
poverished and dependent.