The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-06-04

crop than anything / know i'm the line
of general farming. Ut has been main
~ the last two years that ! learned of
their great value as a forage crop, and
we may add grain crop for live stock.
For milch cows it is the best feed we
can get, because while it enables them
to give as much milk and butter as the
best concentrated feed we can buy, it i'm
no way taints either of them. We also
find that we do not have to grow any
root crops because the COW peas will
keep the cows bowels about in the
same condition as the grass in July.
Last year, when my COW pea hay was
gone, and / had to begin to feed my
horses timothy, though most of the
heavy work was done, and | gave them
each per day gallon of oats extra they
lost flesh rapidly This writer has
great deal more to say in regard to the
value of the COW pea He Is evidently a
dairyman and he knows a good thing
when he finds it, and although living
north of the Ohio river and in a section
not so we'll suited to the full develop
ment of the pea as our Southern
country he finds that the hay beats
timothy out of sight And yet down
here, where the COW pea reaches a
greater perfection than there, we see
men calling themselves farmers buying
the timothy hay oaled up north to feed
to their animals, when they can raise
hay from the pea that is worth twice
as much for any animal on the farm
When will the Southern farmer realize
what a forage crop he has? | asked a
man from Robson county why they
did not raise and feed more beef cattle
down there 1--WE cannot grow the
grass like the Northern and Western
farmers" This was his notion in a
section where the natural grasses are
abundant on the black soils and where
for generations the chief effort of the
cotton farmer has been to kill grass
And that too in a section where the
pea flourishes at. it's best and corn
makes a heavy growth to balance the
ration. But" said he, I'VE have no
market for the beef if we fed it," This
struck me as SO funny that ] had to
laugh. No market when the men from
Kansas, Iowa and Illinois are sending
their cattle to the seaboard and ship
ping them to England, while you are
right on a railroad leading to a sea-
port at short distance? No market,
when all the towns of any size in the
State are getting dressed beef all the
way from Chicago past your door? No
market when the feeding of the pro-
ducts of your farm would double their
value and the feel would walk away
and carr yitself to market While if left
on the farm the means of rescuing you
from the fertilizer manufacturer No
market, when the markets Of the whole
South are open to you and anxious to
get good beef The western farmers
are using the very crop you can grow
far better than they can, and are feeding
it to cattle to be transported a thousand
miles to the sea near you and shipped
thence to Europe, while you are be-
moaning the fact that you cannot grow
timothy as they can, and are all the
while falling to realize that a better
than timothy is yours. Eastern North
Carolina could feed and ship beef cattle
to Liverpool at a far greater profit than
the cattle feeders of the West, and
some day she will do it, when the pres
ent generation 6ios out and men take
their places WHO will sec the great
advantages we have in the South for
stock feeding