The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1894-01-25
HENDERSON, N. c. 25 1894.
INTENSIVE FARMING

INTENSIVE FARMING
GOV. TILLMAN WRITES ON THE
SUBJECT.
Some Good Reading for Our Far
mer Friends---Energy, Judg-
ment, Economy and the Posses
sion nofExecutiveA Ability Neces-
sary to Success on the Farm no
Less Than in the Counting Room
or Business Office.
Southern Cultivatorl
Intensive, as applied to farming
means concentration-conhning the
efforts to small areas, highly fertilized
and thoroughly prepared and culti-
waited. The few really intensive far
mers in the South have generally been
professional men, lawyers and doctors
and merchants who have made some
money in other ways, and not being
dependent on the land for a living,
"farm for pleasure as the phrase
goes, and being enthused with the
novelty of their new occupation, set
out to show the benighted old stagers
how the thing sould be done. Every
large village has one or more of these
intensive farmers, and our cities are
dotted around with them. Their
owners are very enthusiastic. They
subscribe for the agricultural papers
and join the agricultural society, if
there be one, and seem to enjoy
"farming" hugely.
But the farmer who has been bred
to the business and knows nothing
else, whose sole capital is in the land
he tills and the stock and implements
thereon, and who is dependent upon
his farming for support for himself
and family, rarely pursues the inten
sive system. Habit and stolid con-
servatism, characteristic of country
people the world over keep him in the
old ruts, and he is afraid TO venture, or
can't see his way clear.
But while the really intensive farmer
is seldom met with among US, farmers
who make success of the business, as
far as making money is concerned and
are doing we'll, are to be found in al
most every neighborhood in the South,
and the main difference between the
successful farmer, as l have observed
it, is not so much one of methods as
of management.
Energy, judgment, economy and
the possession of executive ability
render one successful, while the lack
of any one of these qualities makes
the other a failure. They both farm
alike in every essential particular; use
the same implements, ETC., but while
one grows in wealth, the other barely
holds his own or slowly gravitates
down hill.
In farming, then, as in every other
business,
''There is more in the man
Than there is in the land
"The man from jones' never ut
tered a greater truth this. Brains and
energy are absolutely necessary "ele-
ments of intensive farming," and the
man who doesn't possess both had
better let the intensive system severely
alone.
Remarking, then, that l am not an
intensive farmer myself and know only
one of that class, who / am glad to
say is very successful and makes it
pay (this gentleman is a farmer bred
and born, and has never done any
thing else,) will, with your permis-
sion, briefly discuss some of the prin-
ciples of good farming, as have come
to understand it. | have been an
" extensive" farmer. l feel that nom
sensive would better describe it. l
hope I have learned enough by bitter
experience to become, in time, good
farmer, and may, in the future, grow
to be an " intensive" farmer. The
change from one system to the other
cannot be sudden one, unless in ex
ceptional cases, and, having ceased to
60 by the old landmarks, the farmer
will feel very much at a loss sometimes,
and sorely in need of a pilot. l feel
that hardly know the alphabet OF
this new system, and only hope may
be able to direct the attention of the
brainy young men, who compose the
present generation, in the right direc-
ton. l am satisfied of one thing. We
must not only practice what we teach,
but will have to prove by successful
demonstration that the new way is
best. Fine argument and plausible
theories will only fall on empty ears.
In what then does good farming
consist? In making money by the
culture of the soil? Nine out of ten
will say yes. say, emphatically, No !!
l know men whose energy, thrift and
good business qualities wiring money
out of land, whom l regard, never
theless, the poorest kind of farmers.
No matter how much money a man
makes out of the land, if it grows
ipoorer day by day he is not worthy
the name of farmer. All over the
South men are doing this every day.
As fast as they wear out one piece of
land they move on to another to repeat
the operation. This is the kind of
farming which has ruined for US so
much of the best land in the world,
and the great pity is that while few
Of these butchers of land grow rich in
time, the vast majority of those who
farm on that system are making little
or nothing above support. 1t is the
same old system pursued by the old
shareholders, intensified ten fold by
the renting of land on the one hand
to ignorant negroes, and on the other
by using commercial manures on land
devoid of vegetable matter. How
much longer can we stand it?