The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-07-26
SOME ADAPTATIONS OF THE
SOUTHERN STATES, AND PAR
TICULARLY NORTH CARO-
LIMA, FOR DAIRY FARM
ING.


ING.
We would respectfully call attention
to the climate Of North Carolina as
the first particular advantage she has
naturally for dairying in these modern
times. The winters are mild and open,
enabling field forage crops to be gain
ing ground every winter month. This
State is far enough removed from the
extreme Southern heat and Northern
cold to make it a happy medium in
which dairy animals may be developed
to full maturity at comparatively
small cost fer an equal physical de
Velopment. They may be grazad in
many counties of North Carolina every
month in the year, yet it may be best
to feed part, or all the time, and the
most progressive dairymen, especially
where land is worth most neal the
cities, soil their stock most of the year.
This brings out the great advantage of
the mild climate.
Another advantage to the dairy in
terest lies in the fact that most South
ern farmers are a class of specialists
and produce cotton or corn. This fact
insures a market, and comparatively
cheap corn if the dairyman does not
raise what he needs.
The mildness of climate mentioned
above can be turned to account to
draw double crops from the land while
il favors the production of milk and
butter and growth Of pork at small
cost for food and shelter. Where this
double cropping is procticed food is
PRODUCED cheaply and in great abund
ance. OF course it is done by rota
tons and catch crops. The soil of a
large part of this and nearby States
consists of a heavy %retentive clay soil
known as red clay, either overleid, OIL
not, by a lighter and often sandy or
rocky thin soil which has been tickled
with a scooter" attached to a single
mule for a generation or two. It has
been the aim to cover the largest area
possible with this combination without
any attention to that other and better
farm below the 3 or 4 inches partially
stirred in the haste to cover the 20
acres with one mule. The advent Of
the dairy COW is changing this kind
of farming by the aid Of other irhu
ences. Wherever the soil is red or I'M
derlaid by red clay the dairy farmer
may be sure of a friend with which he
may place his bank balances with
safety and feel assured that the scrip
tural promise: land 1 will repay, saith
the Lord" will come true. This much
for climate and soil. The poor stock
and barren lands which may be seen
in the South are reminders of changes
which have reduced many nee thrifty
farms to waste and which have left a
large percentage of the people in men
tai darkness. With dairy light and
new school houses, the CALLED hillsides
will become covered with clover and
COWS. At first they will be largely of
the Jersey type grades and fullbloods,
but as a rule unregistered, for as a rule
the average COW owner is too careless
and values the record of the descent of
his COW as little as many Of them do
their own line. With the primitive
methods of Dreaming the milk and
making butter in vogue, the Jersey is
a general favorite for obvious reasons
to him who knows that she puts her
butter into larger globules than other
breeds, and it ia therefore more easily
and more exhaustively obtained. A
change m with the centrifugal
separator, but the Jersey has her hold
on the hearts of the people, and will
| stand ahead of other breeds a long
time in this respect as she now does in
point OF numbers.
TIE Jersey is as well suited to u
! conditions ia general as any other
breed, unless, possibly, it may be the
Devon or Kerry cattle. For the farm
! ers generally a better knowledge of
feeding followed by a grading up Of
the poor common stock in hand is most
! needed to precede any general step TO-
ward dairying. But if any reader is
looking for a desirable location in
! which to make q comfortable home
aud living by dairying, let him not
pass by North Carolina in hate else he
may miss biz best opportunity.
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7~rVNH mr. TER HDgaHE