The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-01-25
SENSIBLE SUGGESTIONS FOR
FARMERS.
The Farm as a Factory.


Correspondence of the Progressive Farmer.
Whoever expects to make farming
pleasure and profit combined, should
carefully survey his surroundings, look
at his sources and resources take his
bearings and regard his farm as fac
tory where he lie to change crude ele-
ments and materials into such com
modities as are in demand either for
use or sale.
OF course the farmer should know his
markets and what he can put on them
from his particular farm.
Let US suppose he has good land for
corn; if so, and he knows how to raise
it, he can easily raise crop of 25 bush
els to the acre, and at q cost not to ex
ceed 30 cents a bushel housed.
Now suppose corn is too low on the
market for him to sell as corn, or even
as meal; he can very easily turn that
corn and meal into something that will
be demand; and if the farmer is close
observer, he will know just what he
cen turn his corn into easiest and
cheapest.
= And here is where his factory comes
into use. A bushel of corn will make,
carefully fed, six dozen eggs worth
from 80 cents to one dollar, or three
pounds of butter worth seventy five
cents, or six pounds of lard or pork
worth 40 or so cents, or six gallons of
milk work worth so cents. And any
or all of these manipulations may, and
with carefully made plans can, be sue
cessfully carried on on nearly all farms.
We can use the hen, the COW, the pig,
the sheep and some other animals to
help turn the farm into factory, and
while the farmer may be reading, or
sleeping, this we'll arranged factory is
in operation, turning his crude prod
ucts into marketable merchandise, and
some OF the articles mentioned above
are always marketable, at price, too,
that will generally pay from so to 100
per cent. profit on that busheI of corn.
But, says one, there is no market
near me; then make one, by having
such things for sale as are in demand,
and by carrying or sending them where
that demand is greatest.
A hen can manufacture at least two
dollars worth of merchantable produce
in year from fifty cents worth OF
corn, and a part of the surplus bugs
and worms that infest the farm.
The happy farmer looks on with de-
light as he sees hen gathering worms
around his freshly.plowed fruit trees,
knowing that shortly the cackle Of that
hen will announce the arrival of one of
the most useful articles of food and
medicine too, that our country affords
"a freshly laid egg, and this, too. from
bugs and insects which are serious
hindrance on the farm.
We can change grass to wool, worms
cabbage and wheat to eggs, peas to
nitrogen, wool to potash for enrich
ing the soil, &C., &C., and all this so
cheaply if mind as we'll as muscle are
brought into proper requisition, that
the careful farmer soon finds his re
sources far beyond his expectations
waiting his application of mind to mat
ter, of crude material to palatable en-
joyable products of mother earth. And
while the director of this intricate fac
tory, the farm, is experimenting this
wonderful work, directing its details,
and suggesting its changes, he is con.
stantly growing in knowledge and in
love with nature, her boundless re-
sources, her wonderful changes, her
perfect harmony in such endless
variety.
The man who resolves his farm into
a we'll Lorgauized factory, whether with
large or small capital, can, and ought
to be the happiest, the most independ-
ent and the most complete Christian
on the face of our Fathers beautiful,
wonderful earth. D. L.
Bellair, N. O., Jan. Is, 1898.