The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-08-29
The COTTON STATES
IN SESSION HERE.
Continued From Fifth Page.)

loss of crops from drouth and the neces-
sity of adopting systems of management
that will prepare the soil to resist to as
great an extent as possible the effect of
long continued drouths. Soils that have
had their humus or decaying plant food
oxidized and burnt out by perpetual cul-
tivation, when put into cultivated crops
like cotton or corn are much more sub
ject to losses than soils that are full OF
r.ant roots that enable them to retain
moisture. l think it would be entirely
practicable on your light billy lands to
double the amount of cotton grown, by
putting the lands into grazing pastures
or even into meadow condition, where
the crop is taken off by the mower, or
by green manuring.
The methods by which fertilizers are
supplied to Southern soils require consid-
GRAFTON and careful analysis. Where
nitrogen, potash, phosphoric acid and
other elements of plant food are applied
as commercial fertilizers, they are much
more emphatically at the mercy of heavy
rains than where they are applied other
WISE Where the fertilizers is applied
in the shape of barnyard manure, or
green manure or grazing it cannot be
ashed out by rains as readily as where
it is applied as super phosphates. have
observer in many places ridges made
across the face of hillsides to prevent the
soil from flowing away during heavy
rains. The recourse is doubtless wise,
but the feeding down of the hillsides to
grasses and legumes suitable to the latl-
tude would be much more effectual in ar
resting the flow of soil towards your
streams. An old hillside, cultivated again
and again, for many years, with its
humus gone, would grow good crop no
doubt if sufficient commercial fertilizer
were applied. The operation would be
entirely successful if it did not rain too
much; but the nitrate is subject to being
washed away into the sandy and gravelly
subsoil, and taken beyond the reach of
the plant. This will occur much more
certainly in the old cultivated field than
in a newly broken UP pasture field.
1t is necessary to continue the Guilt
walton of crops during a drouth longer
than we are in the habit of doing. 1t is
customary with most Of us to give the
land so much cultivation and then lay
the crop by If the crop has shaded the
ground to protect it from the rays of the
sun, so that evaporation will not take
place, followed by the cracking of the
soil which is the result of evaporation
then the cultivation might be stopped.
But if the ground is bare, then cultiva
ton should continue, and a dust mulch
be maintained, until the crop does shade
the soil. l remember planting crops of
several kinds in a dry year at the Iowa
Experiment Station, after two-inch rain
| the last of June. The crops were tur-
nips and cabbage for feed, planted
for the purpose of ascertaining the eff
feet of the volatile acids of those roots
| on the flavor of butter. Sweet corn and
tomatoes were planted for the college
| kitchen. l was entirely aware that with
out cultivation the soil would lose all
it's moisture inside of ten days, and the
crops must perish for want of it. l set
about maintaining a dust mulch of per-
haps two and a half inches, and in or
der to maintain it, cultivated twice a
week until rain came, which was only
after seven weeks drouth. / succeeded
in my object, and good crops were the
result That kind of cultivation is much
more necessary in the South than it is
in the North, because you have warmer
sun and generally lighter soils. We have
been importing fine table grapes from
Europe lately and sending them down to
your State. Our Pomologist visited them
lately and found them suffering from
drouth. The mulching process is pre-
cisely what they need either by the APP
| plication of a mulch to the soil or by
continual cultivation that will maintain
| dust mulch.
The improvement of Southern soils
| brings into consideration the money crops
| that can be grown from them outside OF
| cotton. There is a great demand abroad
| for first-class horses, and for such horses
as are more common to the South than
| to any other part of the United States
The road horse, the carriage horse, the
gated horse, are all in demand. We
sold 64,09 horses last year and received
| 81 ,612,056 for them. The demand will be
| continuous, and the Southern States can
we'll give attention to the production OF
such horses as are needed in other coun-
tries. 1t would be wise for us to produce
what the merchant wants and not what
we think he should buy. The principal
basis of the horse is pasture, and while
the grasses and legumes l am speaking of
are filling the Southern soil with humus,
they can be grazed by the brood mare
that will produce high-sellinE horses. We
sold 296,977 cattle in 1900 and received
$50, 025,76S for them. In addition to this
we sold many cattle products. We can
produce such cattle and such meats as
are wanted in foreign countries, and
bring the best prices there, cheaper than
they can be produced elsewhere; and
while the humus is being put back into
the won-out fields of the South, the
dairy cow and feeding steer can turn
the grasses into money. The same can
be said of sheep. The Southern States
can just as we'll furnish the Northern
markets with early spring lambs as they
can with early vegetables and fruits and
while grasses and legumes are replacing
the humus in the Southern soils, high
selling sheep can be grazing there pretty
much the year round.
The bacon hog is a popularity of the
South, and has been for many years. The
finest bacon hams of which we have any
knowledge have been produced in the
South and are produced there now. The
bacon hog is product of heterogeneous
feeding-of grazing, of pasturing in the
woods, ETC. 1t consumes the by-products
of the dairy, and soils for one third NOR.
money than is received for the lard
hog. The South perhaps could not COM
pete successfully with the Northern
States in the production of the lard
hog, but the South can compete sue