The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1891-10-08
SOWING SMALL GRAIN.


If our southern farmers were per-
vaded with the same spirit III regard
to grain growing that they exhibited
just ten years ago this tall we should
have more hopeful feeling for the
outlook next spring than we have
just now under present conditions.
There is 10 question as TO the poor
condition OF cotton over very large
territory, aud there are plenty Of
farmers in Middle Georgia who
claim, and justly, that they will not
realize more than two-thirds of a
tair average crop. There are many
who will not get over 80 per cent.
Some have made good crops of corn
while others have not. Some have
stored remarkable quantity of hay
while many others have not done so.
Winter will probably show in many
localities a considerable deficiency
of forage. There is no likelihood OF
their being superabundance of it
anywhere in the south. Where
good forage is saved there is no
trouble in disposing Of it in the
spring, if it should happen that one
saves more of it than he will have
need for himself.
This certainly does not often hap
pen to be the case with many south
ern farmers. Thousands of tons OF
western or northern hay is still sold
in the south every winte:r and
spring.
1t is very unfortunate that our
tanners, as class, give so little care
to the raising and sowing of abuG-
dant supplies of hay. We can, it
we choose, store up as good hay as
is supplied to US by the west, and at
one-third or one-halt the price that
has to be paid for it. We rely upon
annual plants almost exclusively.
The day is not far distant when we
will appreciate more fully those
perennial plants that, when once
we'll established, will endure for
mary years, and supply us with
abundant forage without the trouble
of sowing every year.
In the meantime, however, we
should not neglect these ANIMALS
that have been used so long and
found so suited to the needs of the
farmers of the so-th. Among these
oats stands suprepely eminent-or
eminently Supreme.
Then under certain conditions
comes rye and barley as great crops
and especially for dairyman ofwhom
there are increasing numbers in the
south.
Both oats and rye are valuable
crops in the south, and so is barley
when properly treated by sowing at
the proper time and on land that is
suited to it.
The trouble mas been too many of
our farmers expect these grains to
prove valuable on land that is not
fitted tor anything in fact.
For many years now we have not
advocated the sowing Of any CT these
plants for the purpose of threshing
the grain, but simply for the purpose
of forage. Cutting them before the
grain is dry enough to shatter, and
feeding it during the summer in
lieu of corn or other heating foods.
Below the 33d parallel OF latitude
oats and rye can be scwn any time
in October, pastured to a consider.
Bile extent by light stock, especially
during the winter months. then cut
during April and May and feed in
the sheat from April to November.
OF course economy suggests the
propriety OF cutting it up before be-
ing fed.
Where one appreciates, even par
TALLY, the value of plenty of forage,
either as hay or pasture, they must
know that it is to the fall sown
crops that we must look for a fair :,
proportion Of it if we would use our
climatic advantages to anything like
tho nvtn,t 4hn ,rn NO..