The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-06-09
NOTES OF THE FARM.
BY w. F. MASSEY. Of A. & M College
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES 0Oo00OOo Oo0O0oOoOo o

has Baldwin apples in fine order and is
getting "a per barrel for them and
would have them till the middle of May.
If the Baldwin can be grown and kept
in the Piedmont section, it can be bet
ter grown and kept west of the Ridge.
My advice is for you to study fruit Gull
ture. Get all the books you can on the
subject, and then visit some of the
large orchards north of you. Go to the
Pippin section Of Virginia, where the
great Albemarle Pippin is grown and
examine the condition under Wnlcn 1t
is grown, and the way the growers
there handle them for sending to Eu-
rope You might find a good man to
help you, but it will be far better
to help yourself. A study of the meth.
DDS of men who are successful on their
own grounds will help you very much,
and reading the best works will also be
of help. Determine to excel every one
around you and you will finally succeed.
Il have several acres of land which
have been cultivated in cotton for
years. / thought | would let it lie out
this year. Would prefer to SOW it in
peas for hay. Do you think this advis-
able, and which would benefit the land
L,
for the loss of fertility to the land?"
Well it seems amazing that any one
could have been reading what | have
been writing so long, and still think
there is any question between the adj
visibility Of letting land lie to grow
up in weeds or letting it grow some
thing more useful to the farmer and
helpful to the land i have time and
IN, Il
to rest land is to keep it at work grow
ing something to help it between sales
crops. Letting land lie to grow up in
weeds is not resting it anyway moro
than growing something better than
weeds. Weeds will make some poor
sort of organic matter to pillow under,
and to that extent the lying out will
help the land. But we can do far bet
ter. You can grow a crop of hay of the
finest kind for stock of any kind, and
after the hay is off you will find the
land in better condition than before
There will not only be no loss of fer
tility except to some extent Of mineral
matters, but an actual increase in the
nitrogen content of the soil, and a capa-
bility of producing larger crops the fol-
lowing year. Whenever you have va
cant piece of land in summer get it
into peas and grow forage and feed
stock 1t is evident that we need to
keep hammering along on this line when
it is possible for a man to write such
questions as the above. We will not say
where he lives, but his letter lies by
me as / write and is a genuine inquiry.
here is evidently great need for mis-
sionary work to get our tillers of the
soil to farming in systematic way.
We have received from a friend in
Edgecombe county n specimen of his
crimson clover. hairy vetch and wheat.
He has two pieces of land on one Of
which he soWed crimson clover and
wheat and on the other hairy veto.
and wheat. He is now cutting them for
hay, and the growth is magnificent. He
a physician, living in town, and writes
expect to keep my horse free of eX-
pense this year on three quarters of an
acre Of clover and wheat, and on one
third of an acre of vetch and wheat,
besides selling ten or twelve wagon
loads of the green forage. Every one
who sees the crop asks me how l made
it, and smile rather incredulously when
l give them the formula and tell them
it is on land plowed II to ii inches
deep, and after COW peas with nobody's
guano to help When eastern North
Carolina can grow such forage as this
in winter and then can make another
crop on the same land with peas, why
is it that she is not sending fat stock
to Europe, when the west is using the
souther COW pea as the best feed they
can get for export cattle, and is shipping
the cattle right by our doors after
crossing the whole country? And right
here in eastern North Carolina where
the COW pea grows to greater perfection
than anywhere in the west the towns
are getting beef from Chicago, and the
farmers are dribbling little of some
body's fertilizer in the rows to make
cotton in competition with Texas, the
State that grows three steers to every
bale of cotton, While we grow three
bales to every steer, and a very poor one
at that. When will our people wake
up to their opportunities?