The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-04-29
MOORE COUNTY FARM NOTES.

As you request short articles from
the various sections of the country,
I know of no good reason why 1
may not accommodate you from this
one.
CROP CONDITIONS AND ACREAGE.
The wheat and oats not killed by
the winter freezes are growing nicely
now, also the early sown spring oats
are looking we'll. Corn planting is
all the go as this is written and every
fellow seems to have gotten in a
hurry. Some fear have become a
little too smart and plowed their
land wet, and will thereby have more
sun dried bricks by the harvest than
corn. suoh is strange yet true, but
they won't take THE PROGRESSIVE
FARMER and learn better, as we'll as
many other valuable lessons. The
cotton acreage to be planted soon
will be about equal to that of last
year. Just here want to say few
things
ABOUT PLANTING CORN.
Not about the preparation of the
land, for every intelligent reader of
THE PROGRESSIVE FARMER has been
fully advised along that line. Why
is it most farmers use so little COM
mon sense in planting corn? They
as q rule have more of that oommod-
ity than of corn, oats or wheat, yet
it is the first thing they lay by.
Seemingly they have only one object
in view, and that one is TO get the
corn in the ground and then proceed
(as their daddies did fifty years ago)
TO run off their rows about four feet
apart with hills planted about the
same distance in rows on the poor
and the better alike, regardless of
fertility.
Certainly they do not think, for
they must know that each and every
plot of land has it's capacity and con.
tains a certain amount of plant food.
Then if his acres capacity is TO pro
duce only ten bushels what is the
sense in planting on it nearly or
quite three thousand hills or enough
80 produce nearly thirty bushels
shelled corn?
Every farmer knows that hun
dred earslof good corn will make a
bushel of sheIled corn. He also
knows that every stalk properly
planted, fertilized and cultivated will
produce a good ear of corn. Then
why not plant the number of hills
that equals the fertility of the land
If it's capacity is only ten bushels,
why plant more than a thousand
hillsP Where is the sensible man
who would pen up and undertake to
fatten thirty head of hogs when he
had only the means of getting food
sufficient to fatten ten of them? And
yet the man who plants three thou
sand hills of corn on an acre of land
whose plant food is only sufficient TO
produce ten bushels of corn is prao-
ticing identically the same folly.
CHANGE YOUR SYSTEM.
want TO ask those of you who are
guilty of this common error TO
change your mode just a little, not
radically. Lay off your rows as
usual four feet apart, but plant only
every other row in corn four feet
apart in the row and you will then
have a little more than enough hills
on the acre than is necessary TO pro-
duoe the ten bushels of corn. At a
proper time plant COW peas or soy
bsans in rows left implanted in corn.
By this arrangement you will not
only be the more apt to get your ten
bushels of corn, but in addition
thereto a crop more valuable than
the corn, and the land greatly i'm
proved. Just little advice now TO
THE FARMERS BOYS
Don't learn our daddies too much, ,
as l did mine. He was an old fogy
farmer, you know, and practloed
very much the same mode as have
advised When was boy, prom
ieed myself that as boon as became
manager of the farm, would learn
the old gent how to make corn,
wheat, oats, eto., ss 1 verify believed
he was wasting land and labor by
his mode of thinly seeding his land.
So after getting in command l pro-
ceeded the fret opportunity to teach
the promised lesson. First by taking
the best piece of land on the farm