The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-08-20
FARM NOTES.

1cle on the question docs raining
Pay?" / answered them that TINS was
/ very silly question that newspaper men
lave been asking for many years, ana
hat neither the fools nor the FARMERS
we're all dead yet. There are thousands
making livelihood out of the SOIL VINO
have not the means to make living IN
any other pursuit. The bulk OF the cot
ton crop is grown by men without cent
Of capital who pay for being "acrried
rate of interest that no commercial Dusl-
ness in the country could stand. They do
not make money of course, mainly De-
cause of their ignorance OF business
methods as applied to farming. But
wherever a man of intelligence appiles
the same busness-like system to farm
ing that men are obliged to use in other
pursuits in life, he makes money az
other business men do. There are not
wanting instances where an investments
Of capital in good farming has rewarded
the investors with wealth. One or the
leading instances of this in this country is
that of Mr. Allerton, of Chicago. he
says: ''The secret Of successful farming
lies in the application of an intelligent
system. Lack of system is the curse OF
the average farmer. He may, and gen
orally does, practice all manner OF petty
and eXacting economies, but he will never
dothings on a large scale until he sys-
tematizeS his entire scheme OF opera
tizes his entire scheme of operations
Whenever the question of crop distribu-
ton comes up before a lot of farmers,
there is always a good deal Of wise talk
about crop rotation. Sift this down tc
tn bottom and it will be found in most
cases that farmers understand this term
to mean sowing a field in oats one year
and in wheat the next They
do not make provision for giving the
soil chance for recuperation. :.
About thirty years ago | began farming
on tract Of 100 acres in New York In
three years l saved $4,000 frcm the farm
and had a good living besides" Mr.. AL
lerton then went to Illinois and began to
buy farms and operate them through
foremen, and he says that he has never
made an Improbable investment. He
now owns seventy Independent farms,
containing $4,000 acres. In one year he
made a profit net OF $37 900 from farm
that cost him $4,000. He bought this
farm at time Of low prices when the
young men there were trying to get away
fro mthe farm to the cities to make an
easy living. He further says that quite
recently three farmers died in Contra!
Illinois, leaving fortunes OF over $3,OO0,-
900 each and all made at farming, and in
the same general region he knows scores
of farmers worth from $100, 900 to $780,
600 made at farming.
Mr. Allerton has his office in Chicago
and directs his operations largely by tel
ephones connected with all his farms so
that he can talk to his foremen at any
time. He says that he has fOremen on
his farms who have accumulated as much
as $4,000 each and are living in greater
comfort than most city men.
And yet here in the cotton country of
the South. where the money crop is with
good farming far more profitable crop
than the money crop OF the Illinois prai-
ries it will take a long time to find
farmer. The great corn crop
Of the Illinois prairies is largely turned
into cattle and hogs. and the men who
are making money are farming and not
merely gambling off the chances of get
ting something to sell by dribbling
little fertilizer in the ground and then
selling not only all the fertilizer produced.
but what the land could do besides. II
our men of means could only realize
what there is in busness-llke farming,
and instead of carrying" men to crop
The land and make it poorer they would
make the troopers foremen to farm tie.
and right on a salary, the result might
be greater than in the west. But some
will say the Illinois lands are so rich that
they easily make money there without
fertilizers, but We have similar examples
Of fortunes made in the East on lands
as thin as any in the South.
After the Civil War Mr.. McKenny Of
Maryland, started buying run down farms
and putting Men on them to cultivate
them on an exact business system. He
kept this up till he owned large num-
Der of farms. and before his death in he
last year. he was assessed on The tax
books of his county for over one million
dollars worth of real estate. all made at
farming and bringing up poor land, and
today there are lawyers and business
men in the same section who are buying
land and working it in the same way
making fortunes. Their is a far crater
chance for profitable farming in the
South today than there is in the North
or West if men will invest capital in it.
But to do so we must get out of the old
time careless habits, and make farming
an allthe-year business. We must turn
all feed crop INFO live stock and so get,
not only profit out of the stock. but get
manure for the land and get freedom
from the fertilizer agent. We must not
only diversity our crops, but must do so
in business-like and intelligent manner
with a system correctly designed for the
building up of the soil while making
paying crops. We must study farming
as profession as every other profess
sional man is compelled to do. We
must quit the practice of educating the
boys Of the family for the So
called learned professions and imagin-
ing that the one who is to be a farmer
needs no education. OF course there are
men who cannot write their name who
have by industry and hard economy
accumulated some property, but doubt
less with better education they would
have done even better and would have
lived better. That a man by living like
a hog and dressing like a negro, and
"Gfaili5 ;.S wife t. de nas accuElu-
lrted property. an hardly be rated as a
success II the highest sense is certainly
true, for there IS something in this life
more than mere accommodating money.