The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1899-01-17

age for cattle from corn. cow pea hay
and other food, and when a farmer
grows an abundance of the best cattle
food and feeds it to good stock on the
place, he not only can make profit
able business from the feeding, but if
he is a careful man he can save the
manure and have plenty soon to cover
his entire cornfield broadcast.
Not that farm can be restored and
made rich from it's own products alone,
for in everything sold off the place
some of the mineral elements are car
ried away, and your land is particu
larly deficient in these. But when you
put the farm into a regular system,
say a three year rotation in which the
corn is cut off the land when glazed
and cured in the shock and the land
then sown early in winter oats, then
the oats can be cut and cured and the
land Immediately given good dress
ing of acid phosphate and potash (say
800 pounds of acid phosphate to so
pounds muriate of potash) and then
sown in peas after this dressing has
been we'll narrowed in. This will give
you a very heavy crop of peas. Now
cut these when the first pods are well
filed, and cure in the shock for two or
three days, turning them daily, and
then store in the barn while still limp
so as to save the leaves. Then shut
them up and let them alone while they
are heating, as they will. and you will
have the finest of pea hay with little
trouble.
Now when the time comes to prepare
the land for the cotton crop, plow deep
burrows in the middle and in these
bury all the seed frem last years crop.
Buried in the middles, the plants will
reach the rotten seed just when they
will do them the most goodAat fruit
ing time, and the result will be a crop
of cotton with no fertilizer bill at
tached. You will soon find that In
every round of this rotation, il you are
liberal with the acid phosphate and
potash on the peas, your land will be
increasing in fertility while you will be
getting larger crops at less expense.
Then if you want to try tobacco, you
can plant small part of the corn land
in tobacco, and gradually learn how to
treat it, and you will not have your
eggs in one basket. You will fud
that on the tobacco you will have to
be particularly liberal in the matter Of
fertilizers, and that you will have to
use different kinds from that applied
to other crops.
As a source of ammonia for tobacco
you will find that dried blood is the
best when aided by little nitrate OF
soda for early effect, and that the per-
centage of acid phosphate should be
lessened and that the potash should be
always in the form of high grade sui
phate and not as muriate. A good
mixture for tobacco will be 900 pounds
acid phosphate, 900 pounds dried blood,
100 pounds nitrate of soda and 400
pounds sulphate of potash. This will
make ton, and one of the best tobacco
growers in Granville county uses ton
per acre. Bat in your section OF the
State / do not believe your soil will
grow the same kind of tobacco as
Granville, and hence you should adopt
a d. IF rent plan. You should manure
heavily and try for different class.
l Ibelieve that the time is not far dis
tant when Eastern North Carolina will
find that she has been making a great
mistake in trying to grow bright to
bacco, and that the farmers there
whose interest is in tobacco will find
that their lands are better adapted to
the culture of cigar leaf from the
Cuban or Sumatra seed, and when
they learn the methods Of handling
this kind Of tobacco, and abandon the
bright tobacco to the upper section Of
the State, they will reap large profits
from tobacco. But We do not advise
you or anyone to at once abandon a
crop with which you are familiar, and
place your dependence on a crop OF
which you know nothing, Change
gradually, and farm better, 80 that the
cotton you grow will be grown at less
cost. W. E. MASSEY.