The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-07-23
Farm Miscellany.


has the following thoughtful letter
in a recent issue of the Tri-Statt
Farmer and Gardener:
The man who tries 80 farm nova,
days, with a scooter pillow is away
behind the times, and laboring under
terrible disadvantages. He can
neither prepare land, nor cultivate
it properly, and the result is that his
soil will not begin to yield with his
neighbours, who has improved i'm
plements wish which TO cultivate it,
and with whom he m st come into
competition.
The successful farmer to-day
spends a portion of his time with a
pencil and paper figuring out the cost
of the crops he raises and seeing
wherein this cost may be reduced. If
he figures correctly, it will not take
him long to find that labor is his
chief bill of expense and that a tool
which will save the labor of a man
will very loon pay for itself and
bring a handsome return TO the
owner, to say nothing of the superior
quality of work which can be done.
When preparing piece of land we
would hardly know what to do with
out u big pillow with which to
break the soil deeply, and our cuta-
way, smoothing harrow and roller,
to work is down fine. Is is a matter
of impossibility to fit land properly
without these tools, or others of a
similar character, including the Acme
harrow, especially on old, or So
called worn-out land. These lands
are worn out so far as producing
crops with the scooter pillow method
of tillage is concerned but respond
wonderfully TO deep and thorough
cultivation. There is an old red hill
on our place which has been in Guilt
walton since away before the war.
We did not try to do anything with
it for several years after we came on
the place, it looked so poor and the
weeds and broomsedge were so thin
on is but last fall when we had time
we went in there with a big two.
horse pillow followed by a two. horse
subsoiler, then worked the land
down and planted to oats, using
about 800 pounds acid phosphate to
the acre, as a fertilizer. The bats
were sown rather late and the cold
killed them out so badly they did
pay to cut. l would have re-sown
in the spring, but annual spring
drouth usually cuts this crop short,
and l did not not like to risk it, so
we waited until May and sowed the
land down in COW peas, using about
a bushel of peas to the acr At the
present writing, June 28th, the vines
stand knee high and are growing
vigorously, while the hill looks like
anything but a poor piece of land.
When we come to the cultivation,
the improved implements cut even a
larger figure than in preparation,
the one-horse cUltivator doing double
the work of a scooter and scrape,
and leaving the land level instead of
in ridges. With this tool properly
adjusted we can often take a cotton
row at one passage, while twice to
the middle will clean most corn rows.
have seen men blowing corn with
shovel plow, going five and even
seven times to the row, and in corn
that would not make over ten bush
to the acre. What such corn
the producer if his time is
anything at all, I should hate
TO say.
We have done a great deal of work
among small stuff this season with a
2~altivator containing fourteen small
5eeth. This cultivator takes the
ground better than a harrow, and
a dust board or block attached
behind, leaves everything perfectly
smooth and gives little opportunity
evaporation during dry weather.
The horse weeder is also an import
mt implement among young crops
f your hand is smooth and free from
As the month of June has been
very wet and grass has obtained
quite a start, we are now using the
small ten-inch sweep on the Planet
Jr. cultivator to elem our corr The
Planet Jr. hand wheel hoe is an in