The leader., 1903-09-19
FARMER AND PLANTER.
DIVERSIFIED FARMING.
pared with Businesslike DE-
versiflcation.

Realizing the evils which nave come
in all sections of the country, from the
wheat fields of Minnesota to the cot
ton fields Of the south, from single
cropping year after year on the same
land, writer's have urged farmers to
practice more diversified agriculture.
ans is all right, If it is proper and
systematic Investigation designed
primarily for the improvement OF the
soil, and the increased production of
the staple crop But there seems to
nave grown up, in the south at least,
class of newspaper writer's who urge
that the farmer should grow something
of everything that his soil and climate
will produce, and that he should buy
nothing that can be grown on his land.
his would be Investigation with
vengeance. But would it be business
like farming? The adaptability of soil
and climate to certain crops has made
them the staple money crops of various
sections. In the beautiful valleys of
southeastern Tennessee and north Ala
bama men are growing cotton on
lands and under conditions which point
to wheat, grass and cattle. They can
grow cotton, 1t is true, but could do
better by making wheat and cattle
their specialities, as here and there
some are doing. Then in the true cot
ton belt, the warm, sandy soils of the
South Atlantic and the gulf, we find
men scattering their energies in grow
ing some cotton, some tobacco and
some market garden crop, and yet no
one of them sufficiently specialized to
get the best that can be made from
them. What we need in every part of
the country is not to produce some
thing Of everything we can grow, but
specialized farming, in which the whole
rotation is devised for the purpose of
increasing the production of whatever
may be the best money crop in that
section If this is wheat, then farm for
wheat, not sowing vast areas year after
year in wheat until the land will no
longer produce paying crop, but farm
Systematically, and make the land pay
it's way to the production of increased
yields of wheat. In like manner, II
the money crop is tobacco, do not fall
into the old notion, common in some
sections, that you can get your land too
rich for the production of the best to-
bacco, but farm for an increased pro-
duction of tobacco, and you will find
that increased production per acre will
go hand in hand with improved quail
ty. 1t is seldom wise to have two hoed
sale crops on the same farm in addition
to the corn crop which we all must
have in this country. If in addition to
the corn we also try to grow cotton and
tobacco, one or the other will be apt
to be neglected and the improvement
of the soil interfered with. The tobac-
CO growers of the middle and northern
states will naturally be wheat grow
err since there is no hoed crop that
prepares such fallow for wheat as to-
bacco. But he will be unwise il he
adds another hoed sale crop to his to-
bacco. Corn and tobacco can readily
form the 'hoed crop shift in his rota-
ton, alternating each other on the land
in each round of the rotation. But
third hoed crop, as a sale crop, will
require the frightening of the rota-
ton, and a longer time between the
humus-making crops of 1egumes, and
hence smaller yields of both money
crops. Local conditions here and there
may make it profitable, as in the long
seasons of the South Atlantic states,
to vary somewhat from this rule, as
the growers of early vegetables there
that find that on their highly MANFRED
lands they can grow large crops of cot
ton after their early vegetables have
been shipped north, and can multiply
crops on lands through the long grow
ing season. But it is not of the mar
ket gardner and his intensive methods
we write, but of the farmer whose in
terests lies in selling wheat of other
grain, cotton or tobacco. Each should
be a specialist with his money crop,
and yet not a single cropper He
should feed cattle, of course, as much
for the aid they will give in the in
creased production of his sale crop as
for the profit direct from the cattle.
II he neglects stock feeding he will In
variably fail to get the best results
from his wheat, tobacco or cotton. In
short, he should make a profession OF
farming, study his crops, study his
land and farm in business-like way.
Practical Farmer.