The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-11-18

change their mode of farming-stop trying to
make a profit by pitting their own muscle
against less intelligent muscle in the cruder
forms of labor, and move on into higher forms
of farming where skill and intelligence are
brought into play, and where both brain and
Drawn work together to swell the profit.
Take cotton farming, for instance. Of course
the intelligent farmer can raise cotton a little
mo1e cheaply than the ignoramus, but in few
ether branches of farming do skill and intelli-
gence pay so little profit as on an al-cotton
plantation. "The niger and the mule" can do
almost as well as the agricultural scientist. So
the farmer must move out of this and on into
fields where skill counts for more-not stop rails
ing cotton entirely, but combine it with other
crops in the right proportion for profit.
Diversity crops; raise more live stock-thls
is the hope and salvation of Southern agrlcuI-
tdre. This will restore and maintain the fer
tilitv of our soils; this will call forth and pay
for the farmers skill and intelligence; this will
bring him the work and the prosperity of his
Northern and Western brothers. In studying
the different breeds of animals, in learning the
uses of different types of cows, In planning the
rotation of crops, in managing the improved
farm machinery and equipment required, IN
handling his products and dealing with distant
buyers-in all these things the farmer will find
his brain and his skill in constant use, earning
money for him.. He will get out of competition
with the cheap and poor grade labor that has
learned only how to pillow cotton and do other
unskilled work, and will begin to realize that
a man must use both hand and head to make a
profit; that brain and Drawn are his capital,
and that with the crude labor of the one-crop
system, one-half this capital lies largely unpro-
dGctive.
But can this branch of farming, this branch
that calls for business ability as well as for big
muscles, be made to pay in the South? Very
surely it can. Live stock and dairying can be
made profitable here. There is nothing more
absurd than the idea that the South, where the
cost of wintering cattle is smaller than in the
colder West, and where the longer growing sea-
son enables us to raise most of the needed feed
as cheaply as in the West, should get her meat
and much of her dairy produce from the prairie.
Not only have we a great advantage in the
cow pea and cotton-seed which we raise so
cheaply, but stock-raising would soon bring such
new fertility to our soils as to enable us greatly
to increase our yield of corn, cotton and all
ether farm products. Our so-called exhausted
soils are lacking chiefly in humus, and this de-
fc,tncy would be quickly supplied by stock
raising and crop Investigation. The rotation
den anded would stop the soil depletion caused
b5 the one-crop system. Cattle-feeding would
mean more animal manures, greater fertility to
be- applied. Cow peas, ETC., would be grown,
and the supply of humus further increased as a
result. Instead of robbing the soil of fertility
by shipping cotton-seed away, it would be fed
to stock on the farm and the fertilizer content
put back on the fields. The fertility of the soil
is the foundation-stone in agriculture, and
stock-raising and crop Investigation (and these
only) will put the foundation right in the cotton
hnl4