Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1899-02-23
IMPORTANT TO- FARMERS.
Head OF National Department OF Agrl.
culture Delivers an Address.

AT the Interstate Farmers Insti-
tute, held at Jackson, Miss, q few
days ago, Hon. James Wilson, head
of the United States Department OF
Agriculture, delivered a notable ad-
dress in which he made special refer
ence to farming in the South.
Secretary Wilson said in part:
We are rapidly coming into COM
petition through the cheapening of
transportation and the improvement
of commercial facilities with pro-
ducors of foe throughout the world
and it is necessary that the Ameri-
can farmer should know where each
staple crop is most at home, because
where they are most unquestionably
successful, competition with foreign
competitors will be most pro6tably
prosecuted.
If nothing were sold from the
soil but the fibre and systems of ro-
tation were practiced the soil would
not very rapidly become unproduo-
tive, provided the more heterogeneous
part Of the plant, tho seed, was re-
turned to the soil regularly. But
this has not been the case, and peo.
pie who have been growing cotton
and selling to other countries and
other States the heterogeneous part of
tho plant will have to learn by expe-
rienco that the process cannot be
continued indefinitely, as the people
of the Upper Mississippi Valley
learned regarding wheat growing.
Evidently it has come to the time
when tho Southern farmer must
study system of rotation, through
which the necessary plant food be-
comes available for the more exact
Ing crops,
The department is making an ef-
fort to extend the markets of the
United States to foreign countries.
We can make butter cheaper than it
can be made In any other country,
for the reason that we have cheaper
grasses and grain. We have estab-
lished the fact that first class Ameri-
can creamery butter Ia equal to tho
fine butter of Denmark, France and
the British Isles, and have the salts
faction of knowing that our buffers
sell as high to the retail merchant as
those do. No doubt we could re-
oeive as high prices from the whole
Rale dealers if we could maintain q
steady supply as the Danes do.
The department has made vigor,
GUS efforts within the last two years
to experiment widely regarding our
ability to make our own sugar. The
work has progressed far enough to
indicate the fitness of our soil and
climate in broad bolt across tho
country to produce beets of sufficient
saccharine quality to justify the in.
vestmcnt Of capital, skill! and labor
in this direction.
WHAT SUGAR COSTS,
We pay for "ugar annually some.
thing like &10O,O00,000 to foreign
countries where the conditions are
no more favorable for the industry
than here at home. Enough facto
ries have been built and operated, az
o result OF our experiments, to indi
cate that along the upper parallels OF
our country, from New York to Cali.
fornia, and down into New Mexico
sugar can be successfully grown,
We have entered vigorously upon
the introduction Of valuable new
plants from foreign countries, with
the object OF introducing them
into the life zones similar to the
conditions from which they sprung.
We have received ten tons Of rice
~,.aoed that will Improve, we think,
the RICE grown in tho Lower Mis-
aissippi Valley,
Between tho limited belt along ou,
@outhorn ooast, where the ribbon
oane Is grown, and the belt where
we have sugar beet, there is belt
where neither the ribbon cane nor
tho sugar beet, as far as learned, car
be successfully cultivated, The de-
paptment Is considering what might
he done for the people in this grea,
region, and has been developing q
sorghum oano with q high per ocnt
OF aaooharlno matter. During a
visit to Georgia lately I learned that
tho State grows over 100000 tons OF
cotton seod in year. I made an
estimate of the amount of nitrogen.
ous matter necessary for the rations
of the 100000 fat steers which thu
United States shipa abroad annually
and found that with tho addition OF
some cr:aonaceous matter, the State
Of Georgia, through it's cotton aeed