The Savannah morning news., 1902-02-05
FARMING AS A BUSINESS.
DIR. J. NJ. SPENCE OF WAREsBORO
ANR HIS SUCCESS.

Begun with Only His Bare Hand
and Is Now Ware COunty's LnrSest
Tarmer-Owns LOO Acres and
CuItivates sixteen Places, with
Twenty-Five PIOwS-How He Made
Money Out of Piney Woods Root
ers nnd Grew Big Crops of Corn
and Hay-ahgar Cane, velvet
Beams and CnssaVa Will RevOiu-
tionize Farming in the south, He
Says.
Waycross, Ga, Feb. 4.-Dr. ]. M.
Spence of /Waresboro, has made
successful farmer. Less than twenty
years ago he came to Waresboro with
out penny, and to-day he is one of
the largest taxpayers in Ware coun-
ty, outside of Waycross. He came to
this county from Appling in 1885, and
when he reached Waycross he had only
5 cents left. This amount he invested
in hard lacks and pulled out for
Waresboro.
The past ten years he has devoted
considerable attention to the cultiva-
ton of the soil, and his experiments
have been more than satisfactory. He
runs % plows on the sixteen places
which he cultivates. The combined
acreage of his farm is in the neigh
borhood of LOO acres, including 300
acres being cleared at the present time.
He has three one hundred acre farms,
the others being smaller, ranging from
twenty-five to seventy-five acres. All
of his farming interests are within a
radius of three and one half miles of
Waresboro.
DR.. Spence has made some expert
ments with velvet beans and casava.
He says that crop of velvet beans
is worth as much to the land as 400
pounds of the best fertilizer to the
acre. He put out two thousand casava
plants, and his experiments with that
is very satisfactory. He says that If
the farmers of this country will raise
plenty of casava and velvets beans to
feed their razor-back hogs and scrub
cows, we will turn out some of the
finest Jersey cattle and Berkshire pigs
right here in Ware county.
Money i'm Piney Woods Roots.
DR.. Spence has made some practical
tests of the piney raZor-backs.
He took two of the worst type of this
specimen of hogs which he says had
SHOUTS so long that they could easily
eat out of a Jug" After, feeding them
eight months he killed them. The
two pigs netted 600 pounds of pork
and 400 pounds of lard, which brought
him 121a cents a pound or $125.00. for
the two pigs. The cost of raising the
hogs was not exceeding $25 giving
him a net profit of 500.
DR.. Spence ships from 500 to 1000
bales of hay every year. In 1896 he
shipped seven carloads, probably the
first carload of hay ever shipped by a
Ware county farmer. Five years ago,
according to his statement, the whole
grass crop of this section was allowed
to go to waste, but now our farmers
are waking up to the Importance of
saving their hay, and that crop will
average at least $4,000 year in Ware
county.
His Success With Corn.
The Doctor gives an interesting ac-
count of his experience with corn last
year. He took a field of six acres,
which he prepared for planting by first
broadcasting the ground with stable
manure. Three men were kept busy
with three two-horse wagons two
weeks hauling the manure. He then
plowed it in, blowing very shallow
this was followed by another covering
as his pillow could go into the earth. He
then added 600 pounds of KANT and 40C
pounds of acid phosphate per acre. He
planted Shaw big white corn in double
rows five feet apart, the inside rows
being two feet apart When his corn
was about waist high the Doctor added
100 ponds nitrate of soda per acre and
plowed it over. That was the last
blowing the corn received. The Doctor
says it grew so rapidly and soon be-
came so rank it was impossible for him
to get into it again with his pillow.
Many of the ears were fourteen inches
in length, and most of them so high
from the ground that the tallest map
in Ware county could not reach them
From the six acres he realized a yield
of $50 bushels of corn after supplying
his family and his neighbors all the
roasting ears they could consume dur
ing the season, and 400 bales of shred
ded stover eighty pounds to the bale.
The corn was worth dollar a. bush
ell or $3.50, the stover $12 a ton. or
S220.56, the cost of the, crop was 1887
All told, giving a clear profit OF
$2S3.56. That was not all, however
for with the same horse and one man,
he realized a yield of 10000 pounds OF
cats, 40 bushels of peas, in addition
to saving all the seed peas needed
125 bales of hay, $50 worth velvet
beans, two and one half barrels OF
syrup. S25 worth of casava, and all
the vegetables that he and his neigh
bors could use. He figures that the
negro boy who did the work easily
netted him $500. On a half acre OF
sugar cane, the doctor made 1872 gal
Ions of syrup. which he sold at 4C
cents per gallon, and in addition put
aside enough seed cane to plant an
acre.
DR.. Spence says that sugar cane
casava and velvet beans are sure to
Tevolutionize the farming interests in
the South. Talk about your gold
mines, wheat fields, coal deposits, on
any other interests, they could never
compare with this country, if we had
a good system of paved roads and dry
swamps. The doctor advocates tbs
cutting of a canal or ditch from Ket-
tie creek to Mcdonald bay, a distance
of about seven miles, which he claims
would drain thoroughly four hundred
lots of land, now practically worthless
because of the ponds He says Il
properly drained, this land would in
crease in value from 800 to 81 200 pei
lot. Or. Spence is building one o.
the finest homes in Ware county
which will cost when completed abou1
$4,000. About 1900 feet of lumber =.
being used in the building.