The Bossier banner., 1892-02-11
FARMER AND PLANTER.
SEARCHING QUESTIONS.
How Many Farmers Can Answer Them to
Their Own Satisfaction?

HOW many FARMERS Jan Answer AhtAh ~
Their Own Satisfaction?
A North Carolina farmer propounds
the searching questions below to his
brother farmers in the Tar Heel
state.'' They will be found applicable
to all sections of the country. The
questions get right down to the milk in
the cocoanut:
Do you know that the farmers of
North Carolina spent over three mill
lion dollars this year for fertilizers for
cotton and tobacco?
Do you suppose they will be able to
get enough extra from the crops to pay
the bill.
Do you know that more than three
million dollars worth of fertilizing ma
terial has been washed away this rainy
season from your barnyards because of
neglect in looking after your home
made fertilizers.
Do you suppose that the land of
North Carolina is dollars worth bet
ter off because of the three million dol
lars spent for fertilizers for sale crops?
Don't you know that field you are
resting as you suppose, by allowing
it to grow up in weeds, is ripening lot
of seeds and making more nut-grass
roots to bother You next year?
Don't you know that if you had sown
that field in peas you would now have
great crop of pea-vine hay to cut and
feed this winter?
Don't you know that the feeding of
that hay would bring you your money
back in the animals fed, and leave you
lot of manure that will pay you bet
ter than the bought mixtures?
Don't you know that crimson clover
seed scattered on this pea stubble will
give you a good winter pasture and fur
nish you a growth to turn under next
spring that would give you more corn,
cotton or tobacco than five times it's
cost spent for fertilizers.
Don't you know that the constant
culture of the soil in cotton, year after
year, with little fertilizer to make a
crop, is making your land poorer all the
time? -.-...
Don't you know that whatever makes
your land poorer makes you poorer
also?
Did you ever hear of farmer who
got rich by buying fertilizers merely to
raise cotton with?
Did you ever know farmer who
made his land rich by intelligent course
of cultivation who did not get 'well
off" as fast as his farm did?
Did you ever know cow peas or clover
to bring a man in debt to a commission
merchant?
Did you ever know homemade ma
nure to fail to improve your land?
Do you know of d farmer who has too
much of it?
Did you ever know COW injured by
a comfortable stable and plenty of hay?
Did you ever know man to get rich
in any business who did not study it, and
have faith in it, and give his whole time
and energy to it?
Don't you know that the biggest tax
the farmers of North Carolina pay to-
day is the fertilizer bill, the waste of
homemade manure and the washing
away of fertilizers from fields kept bare
of clover or grass? ..
Don't you suppose that somebody,
somewhere, makes a profit in raising
the pork you send money to Chicago
for out of your cotton crop?
Don't you suppose somebody, some
where, makes living, and perhaps
grows rich, growing the wheat your
flour is made of, which you buy out of
your cotton crop?
Don't you suppose that somebody,
somewhere, makes money by raising
the beeves which the butchers in North
Carolina towns have to send to Rich
mond to buy?
Don't you know that you could raise
all these things here, and, in raising
them, raise more cotton on few acres
than you now do on many?
Do you see how high prices are going
to benefit the farmer who has bread.
meat and manure to buy and only one
thing to sell.
With cotton low down and wheat
high, how is a man helped who raises
no wheat?
What If butter is awfully high priced
in our towns, while our farmers have
no cows, or nothing to feed them on if
they have, while somebody somewhere
else makes money by feeding cows and
shipping butter south? q
If you know all these things, don't
you see that bad farming has more to
do with farmers troubles than anything
else he has to endure, and there is no
doubt that he has much to carry aside
from this?-Southern Cultivator.