The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-10-25
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Arp on the Meteors-As to Their Origin he
Says he Knows N othing.
.Atlanta Constitution.

we never neglected to say, ''and we
saw the stars fall in 1888 Dewey
never saw night like that-but I
reckon the Spaniards at Manila thought
they did on the 1st of May.
But this is enough about the me-
teors. At least, it is about all that /
know. Joe Muhattan, or NIunchausen,
made up big fake few years ago
while was in Texas and tclegraphcd
the fall of a meteor near Brownwood
that was as big as meeting house
and had buried itself thirty feet in
the earth. was at Brownwood few
days after and the postmaster was as
mad as hornet with Joe, for tclc-
grams came to him from all over the
United States and England wanting to
know about it and wanting to buy it
at any cost. Joe had to leave there
aud hide out for month or two. The
postmaster answered few and then
swore off. There is one good thing
about meteors. They never hurt any
body. The books say it is remarkable
and perhaps providential that in all
the earth there is no record Of one
having fallen On anybody or destroyed
a habitation. Terrestrial lightning
gets us sometimes, but celestial fires
are not dangerous.
And now the next inquiry is from
young farmer who wants to know if it
is good farming to follow grain with
grain. He does not say what kind of
grain, but I will tell him that fifteen
years ago the Courier-J ournal Of Ken
tucky offered prize Of 81, 900 for the
best essay on practical agriculture.
Over 200 were contributed and the
essay that got the prize detailed the
writer's plan of farming il Kentucky.
it was brief, very brief. He laid off
his corn rows seven feet apart,
drilled his corn eighteen inches apart,
cultivated the ground thoroughly and
narrowed it; sowed wheat early and
narrowed it in. When the corn was
ready to gather he drove the wagon in
every sixth row and loaded from three
rows each side. After the corn was
all gathered he went over the corn
stocks crossways with heavy roller
and rolled it all down fat on the wheat.
The stocks and the blades covered
it like blanket. When the first good
snow fell be sowed clover on the snow.
When it rained or thawed the clover
seed fell into the ground and took
root, and SO he had corn and wheat
and clover following in rotation and
made fine crop of each.
But in this region our farmers have
learned the value Of peas as fertili-
ger and stock food, and the harvest Of
hay this year will no doubt double all
previous records. One of my friends
has small farm near town and last
year harvested fair crop of wheat
from twenty-acre field. After the
wheat was off he so we'd ten acres of
the ground in cow peas. Last fall he
sowed it all down in wheat and this
spring you could tell just where the
line of peas came to. There was no
difference in the quality Of the land.
1t was all level and all alike and yet
he harvested this year ten bushels pr
acre on one-half and eighteen on ne
other. Now, what caused this great
difference? It was the shade OF the
pea vines, the shade that produces
nitrogen, and nitrogen is the best of
all plant food. The denser the shade
the more nitrogen goes down into the
soil. A canebrake, briar patch, a
clover covering, an old house in
feld-remove it and plant the ground
that was under it and see how luxuri-
ant vegetation grows. Plant grape
vine near your house and the roots
will all run under the house to feed
to feed on nitrogen. My wife has
wisteria vine at the end Of the veran-
da, and in three years time it's roots
had travelled underneath the floor and
sent up sprouts twenty feet away, and
for time we did not know where they
came from. A good farmer will shade
everything he can. He will cover the
thin and gelded spots ;n l:is fold with
wheat straw. There is no virtue in
wheat straw, but it makes shade, and
that makes nitrogen. There is no
virtue in stone or in rocks, but they
make shade, and notice how plants
will grow near to rocks or rock wall.
My lo.g lamcnted friend, DR.. Berck-
man. told me that trocks were God' a