The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-10-07
A Crop for Every Months inthe Year

A Crop for Every Months tnthe year
The Florida farmer must even up for
his small yields Of grain and forage
crops by raising the more of them
says the Florida Agriculturist. If he
can raise only twenty bushels of corn
to the acre, he must have cowpeas
come along next, yielding the equiva-
lent of twenty more to be fed on on
the ground, then follow with oats or
rye or vetch to make the equivalent
of another twenty. Thus he has sixty
for the year and is fully up to the
measure of the rich-land farmer VINO
raises sixty at once and makes no
more than this that year. And the
beauty of it is, one Florida farmer can
have his land holding it's own II not IN
creasing in fertility, by the constant
use of cowpeas, velvet beans or peg
garweed as one of the factors in his
rotation. -,
But on part of his land he will prob
ably want to grow cassava, which can
be made one of the most profitable Tor
age crops in Florida. With an apph-
cation of IS worth of fertilizer per
acre-though the stable manure would
be the best applied to this coarse
feeding crop-one can raise from nve
to ten tons per acre, worth for feeding
purposes from $50 to 800, as stated by
the Florida Experiment Station. For
starch making it would be worth only
half as much, but when given TO the
lank, raw-boned cattle of the piney
woods, in connection with the velvet
beans or cotton seed, 1t produces
gain far beyond what would be posi-
BILE with the better fed cattle of the
North.
All kinds of animals, horses, cows,
hogs. poultry, and especially children,
eat cassava freely as soon as they be-
come accustomed to it. While 1t will
probably never become a staple article
of human food, its great value as
stock food is unquestioned. This ana
velvet beans almost, If not quite, place
the meat producing capacity of an
acre of thin Florida soil equal to that
of lands further North, costing from
$50 to $40 per acre.
OF roots crops Of course, the farmer
will not neglect the sweet potato. This
is and must ever remain the great
standby of Florida food crops. If
grown on a fairly liberal application of
fertilizer, rich in potash, it will be
smooth, mealy and digestible, a far
better article of human food than is
now generally grown. And the sweet
potato has all reasons for its own.
No other question is so perplexing to
the Florida farmer as how to provide
himself with a supply of grain for feed
ing all the year round. But the general
and effective use of bi-sulphide of car
bon as a preventative and destroyer of
the weevil has done much to simplify
this problem.
J he farmer sometimes encounters
practical difficulty in growing corn
crop; in endeavoring to avoid the Scyl-
Ia Of lateness and the consequent bud
worm he steers against the Charyddis
of the early drought. If his corn is we'll
fertilized il may be so stimulated as to
come to the critical period of caring
just at the elimination of the drought,
which stunts the ears. Still. we think
no farmer should be deferred by this
possibility from fertilizing his corn.
Let him secure himself against any un-
toward effects of a drought by deep
blowing, shallow and level culture and
constant stirring Of the soil
Cowpeas or beggarweed should be in
the cornfield, ready to follow the corn
at once. They would be difficult to har-
vest in the corn stubble and may be
fed down with very little waste and
handsome profit. Where either OF these
legumes grows in the corn. the oats
sown after the land has been fed over
will grow four feet high and head ac-
cordingly, while on land not fortified
with these soil-enrichers they will not
grow over two feet high.
on separate piece let beggarweed
be grown for the winters supply Of
hay. We have the greatest confidence
In this plant; 1t win prove in future
years an immeasurably valuable agri-
cultural resource TO Florida. IL Is self
sown and inexpensive. IL viii me- Ike two
crops Of hay per year, or a crop Of