The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-03-19
PUzzL1NG FARM PROBLEMS.
Scarcity Of Labor and Other DisoOurag1ng
Conditions to Face.

| Inc season for active farm opera
tiOns is at hand. The winter has
generally been favorable for farm
ing, and for the number of laborers
much has been done.
Labor is scarce. The young white
men of the county have quit the
farm. They are going to school,
travelling as agents for nurseries,
clerking, or have gone to the fac
tories. The negroes who went North
last summer returned last December,
but so far as know not one of them
has offered to do days work for
hire since their return. They all
contemplate going North in April,
and all the bucks who are not tied
down with families, and can raise
the means, intend to go with them.
So labor for the farm is scarce and
the prospect is that it will yet be
scarcer for many years to come. For
no negro who goes to town for q
year or gets to teaching or preach
ing ever after thinks Of Offering
himself for hire on the farm. Our
only dependence for labor is the
crOpper with children, old men, and
girls.
Our tenant system is wretched and
the landlord is to be blamed the
most of them have suffered their
tenants to work their own stock and
to cultivate the land in whatever
way they chose for so long that it
is imp Ossible to control them. If
you undertake to do 80, the oropper
asserts his independence and leaves.
Your neighbOrs take him in and ask
no questions. Most of the negroes
when they go to farming, pick up
tools, chains, harness, etc., wherever
| they can find them; attend sales,
buy an old plow for 25 cents or a
shovel. Then they buy broncho,
or old worn-out mule from some Of
our many horse dealers (who takes a
mortgage on the horse, also on the
COW, hogs, household goods and
whatever else is in sight). He is
then fixed for farming.
If it is wheat sowing time, he often
throws the corn or tobacco rows
down with two burrows, then plows
up the corn stalks or tobacco stubble
with third furrow. The wheat is
then sown broadcast and brushed in.
The corn land is often prepared by
breaking it by turning burrows f1f-
teen inches apart or turning two
burrows upon the unbroken ground
sometimes the middle is broken.
This ridge is opened and the corn
planted. Six weeks after planting
the corn is barred off from two to
three weeks afterward two burrows
are turned to the corn; sometime
after, from one to three weeks, the
middle is thrown out. This is the
furrow working requiring for the
whole crop from beginning to end
only eleven burrows.
do not say that all croppers work
their crops in this way, but many do
| this way in our sandy lands in Ala
nance, Orange, Caswel and Person.
They generally work their tobacco
much better. Farming in our section
is conducted generally in a haphaz-
ard way. I took the census in Pleas
ant Grove township. Nearly every
farmer in reply as to the number of
acres sOwn or planted in any given
crop invariably answered "about so
many" or "about so much" While
I met with many working
! thrifty farmers who are making a
good living, found very few who
have improved their lands and sur
roundings. But little clover, pea
vines, or hay from the natural
grass harvested. In some of the
fine tobacco lands found the timber
nearly all cleared away. Some land
holders with no timber, others worth
not enough to repair their barns,
burn their plant beds, or cure their
crops of tobacco. The township
has fallen off in population nearly
300 within the last ten years. This
is, admit, gloomy picture, but it
is not overdrawn. I have not the
blues to-day; what have written is
truth unvarnished.
B. T. WHITE.
Alamance Co., N. G.
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