The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-05-21


Been Done With Stock; With the Sugar
Beet-Why Not With Corn and all Grain
Crops
Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
One of the great laws of life is
progress, and nowhere else have the
principles of this law been so strik-
ingly illustrated as in the United
States during the past 25 years. The
old is continually being replaced by
the new, and this ceaseless change
marks the never ending tendency
towards improvements by which the
elements are harnessed and made to
do mans bidding. Particularly dur
ing the past % years the industrial
vocations of civilized man have ex-
perienced a revolution that has work
ed complete transformation in their
character.
At the present time close competi
tion in all industrial pursuits is de
veloping scientific and economic
methods, at a rate not dreamed of
% years ago. In no industry is this
more apparent than in that of agri
culture. Sometimes when we get to
looking over the past, we wonder if
so many improvements can come
during the next so years as have
been made during the past half
century. In that time improvements
have been made which seemed al
most impossible. Man was made for
dominion over all the earth, and in
this latter day he is improving his
opportunities by placing all the
evolving forces of nature under con-
tribution for his benefit. Civilized
and enlightened man is continually
inventing and unfolding new meth
DDS for easing labor, saving time,
enhancing the value of, and cheap,
ening the cost of his productions.
Despite the great advancement
that has been made in the arts and
sciences, there nevertheless remains
the evident fact, that the science of
agriculture has not been keeping
step with the great advancement in
other lines. True, we note the rapid
advancement that has been made
during the past so years, in the i'm
DrOvement of our dOmesticated ami
mails and poultry, solely through
the energetic efforts of skilful breed
ers, but regretful in the extreme it
must be that there has been such lit
tie progress made in our grain bear
ing plants with a view to a steadily
increasing yield, and needed compo-
sitiOn.
In view of the disgraceful average
yield of all our grain bearing plants,
it is fact beyod dispute that until
very recent years, the efforts of
cereal breeders (if they could be in
any wise termed such) have been for
the most part unsystematic and in
termittent Little wonder that as
farmers have been fast depicting our
virgin soil, that the average yields
of our most important cereal crop
should steadily decline. But, hap
PLY, as the wheels of progress are
now being oiled by a generation OF
born cereal breeders, they have be
gun to rapidly revolve in the action
of steady and surprising increase
in average yields Of our cereal
plants.
Any one who would have predicted
d two-minute pacing record possible
twenty years ago, would have been
proclaimed first-class rOmancer, If
ngthiug stronger. And yet despite
all that, the two minute record has
been reached and surpassed. And
there is no more reason to doubt
that Star Pointers record will be
beaten, than there was that some
horse would do a mile in less than
two minutes. 1t is a case of breed
ing and development. That Is tl-o
way to look to the future. Breeding
for a purpose has made the present
records possible. The writer can
see no limit to future Improvement,
because there is none. In this day
of so general improvement in so
many branches of farming, 1T is
matter of astonishment that our
average Weld of our most important
crop. corn, should remain so low.
But the slip-shod, py-go-lucky
methods of the present day, of many