The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-07-14
FARM NOTES.

OF late we have been getting many let
ters detailing the ravages of the Spring
floods and now letter comes from M nj
gomery county asking for help in this
state OF affairs. The writer says: Il have
your letters in the Farmer and
Mechanic, which are worth the
cost of the paper to those en-
gagged in agriculture. Heretofore / have
been able to find my needs in your replies
to others, but now find nothing to help
me tide over the present state of affairs.
My mode OF farming has been as near as
possible to the plan you have laid out,
and | have been bountifully benefited
thereby. l have 40 acres of river low
lands which by your method l have
brought to high state of productiveness.
This spring l planted the land i'll corn,
with the exception OF five acres in oats,
expecting to SOW peas in laying by and
follow with oats this fall and peas next
summer. The freshet carried away my
soil as deep as it was plowed, and now |
have 80 acres of barren looking land with
oats instead OF losing. caught 8 or 10
inches of settings. Lost oats but gained
land, which balances that very satisfac-
torly. Can safely say the corn land is s
inches lower, and to that extent more
liable to overflow, and my former plans
a.e upset. / propose as soon as dry
enough 10 broadcast clay spots with sta
Bile manure. scooter up the whole, harrow
with q disk harrow and SOW two bushels
of peas per acre, turn the whole under
this fall and SOW in oats and follow with
peas again next summer, drilling 200
pounds of acid phosphate with them and
then follow with oats again in the fall.
In other words l propose to rotate in oats
and peas perpetually. Land is naturally
loose and puffy. and does not give salts
factory results in wheat. | will be thank
full for any information or suggestion IL
the plan proposed is not in accordance
with the bese practice in farming. Also
give me the oats best adapted to my use. :"
/ give this letter almost in full as it
(, fairly represents many others not intend
ed for these pages. it is hard to fully
advise in such case. | think however
that you will find that the lowering of the
soil level is hardly as much as you may
suppose. The plan you have concluded to
adopt is a very good one at least for a
few years. It may be however that you
will find after a while that it will result
in too heavy q growth of straw and a
consequent lodging Of the oats. Land of
that character RECEIVERS more rapidly than
you might suppose from its present APP
appearance. | have been in just such a
fix in the mountains of Virginia, where
just after had reaped my oats and got
ten them in shocks the freshet took them
all off the field and washed the soil away
apparently in large spaces, and where
| there was corn, the whole soil seemed
to be gone. The oats had been sown with
clover and there was a good stand, but
the clover was buried in some places and
washed away in others. at once planted
the land in corn for ensilage and in lay
ing it by sowed clover again among it and
got as fine stand of clover as l ever saw
and today of that land you can hardly
tell where the washes were as the plow
ing was done with a view to pillow into
them nd gradually fill up the difference
in level. At that time l was trying to run
the bottom lands for the benefit Of the
uplands in the growing of ensilage and
clover on them alternately or rather an
nually, for I sowed clover in the corn
every SumIleT dUu cut TIE Hdy Tie ueAL
spring and turned the stubble for corn
and again sowed clover among the corn
The bottoms were fertile, and very foul
and | was trying not only to grow forage
for a large stock of cattle and horses but
to clean the land from weeds and to raise
manure for the land which needed it worse
than the bottoms. Your plan, as l have
said will be a success for few years at
least, especially if you give the peas some
acid phosphate annually. But when you
find that the oats are growing too much
straw and falling down you had better
seed the land to clover and grass for hay
for while and then go back and try the
corn again. for by that time | expect you
will believe the land is as high as ever.
You can SOW either the Red Rust proof
cats or the Virginia Cray Winter Turf
oats. I have always used the last, but
some in this climate prefer the Red Rust
proof Some time ago the editor of one of
the leading agricultural papers in the
North was asked by one of his subscribers
if the winter oats grown in the South were
any more hardy than the oats commonly
grown in the North. The editor told him
that there was no difference whatever
and that one kind Of oats was as hardy
as another and that the winter oats were
SO called simply because they were sown
liz the fall in the South. That editor
would be a wiser man if he would come
South and bring some Of his Northern oats
and sow here in the fall. once knew
a friend in southern Virginia who was
a merchant and a farmer too, and want
ing to sow oats on his farm one fall he