The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-07-11

crops, tn.
these lands
greater than II g.. a.. nave - "a
done at the proper time. Now the wealth.
er is hot and teams cannot be rushed in
breaking land now as they could earlier
In the season. Then again, at this late
season, land wherever broken the least
bit wet Is almost sure to bake and become
SO hard as to be unfit for producing crops
| The farmer has all these problems before
him, and even many more. Feed and
seed are both expensive, and many farm
ers are short on both and on the money
for buying, for they have had unusual
feed and seed bills both to meet this sea-
| son.
Summing up the whole situation It looks
as If the time for planting summer crops
Is almost past, and now the best thing to
| do In many cases Is for the farmer to
try and save all the crops he has In sight
that give any promise, and as fast as he
can spare time from these plow up the
vacant land and such lands as have crops
that are too far lost In weeds to pay for
work and try and prepare this land for
seeding In the fall to some of the many
grain crops, as well as for the planting
Of fall gardens, grasses and clovers. The
vacant lands can all be used to a good
advantage this way.
There is another matter that the south
ern farmers should look after, which is
the planting of a large acreage of the
late or second crop OF irish potatoes. Now
many OF the rich lands, where other crops
have failed. or where weather has pre-
vented the planting of other crops, will
II prepared produce fine crop of late po-
tatoes; and this crop will pay, for the
indications are that potatoes will be In
great demand next winter. The floods
have destroyed thousands of acres of po-
tatoes In the great potato growing states,
and then the weather prevented the plant
Ing of many fields and many that were
planted the seed rotted, so that we have
now have a very short potato crop. We
estimate clear loss of 5000 cars of pota-
toes in the Kansas valley alone. and many
other sections have also suffered a great
loss. Then, 1t Is now too late for the
west or north to plant potatoes, and the
only hope of supplying the great demand
which we are sure to have for potatoes
lies In the growing of a big crop of pota-
toes in the south this fall So that every
effort should be put forth now for the
growing Of this crop. We have the spare
land for the purpose, and all that is need
ed Is the preparation of this land and
the Seed the cultivation and attention
needed and we can yet grow a fine crop
of potatoes.
l notice that there is a potato crop fail
land Whether this will effect our market
here Is a question. but 1t means lots of suf-
fering among the poor of that country
Our readers will remember that potatoes
sold higher In many of the northern cities
last winter than they did in the south,
and this same thing Is very likely to oc-
cur again next winter.
have given in my crop reports an ac-
count of the general shortage of the potato
1ranTa
l give this timely advice so that our
readers may avail themselves of this
chance OF growing a big paying crop of
fall potatoes. Then again vegetables of
all kinds are likely to be in good de-
mand this fall and 1t will pay to prepare
and plant good line of these crops also.
This Is season when there will be but
little idle time on the farm. for there is
work all the time and plenty of It, Crops
to harvest and crops to plant land to
break and the fall crops all to be looked
after In fact, the southern farmer has
a great advantage He can and should
be whole year round farmer, as he can
use his time to good advantage winter or
summer.
On the last four days of June I made a
daylight trip over more than 800 miles of
some of the best farming country In the
south, this trip being in the states of
Alabama Mississippi and Louisiana. 1
made the trip In the day time so as to see
what the crops ware like. This trip covers
a vast empire of itself-a country larger
than many of the petty empires of Eu-
rope. A trip of over 800 miles right
through fields of corn, cotton, cane and
rice. for these are the main crops grown
along this route just passed I find that
the general condition of the crops vary
little from my June crop report, except
however, that weather conditions have i'm
proved vastly and crops that have been
well cultivated have made wonderful i'm
provement in the last few days Passing
from Memphis down through the great
delta, valley as rich as the Nile and
some day will be made as fertile. I find
the crops all late and very irregular
Some fine fields of cotton are now making
fine growth, while there are hundreds of
acres small, late, and which has not yet
been chopped out to a stand There are
some fine crops. These are the exception
and not the general condition, and there
are not near enough of these good crops.
On Sunday. June 2S. saw the first cot
ton blooms of the season. Blooms were
quite common in the great Yazoo delta.
but the acreage of these best crops is
small when compared with the great
acreage of poor crops, bad stands, late
crops and crops almost, yes hopelessly
lost in grass But as stated; weather
conditions have changed for the better.
The weather is now hot, cotton-g growing
weather in this section, and farmers ev-
erywhere along the line are working like |
beavers to save their crops.
The corn crop &c like that of the cotton |
very irregular, late and generally poor |
stand and badly cultivated. Night closes |
on us at the old historic city OF Viclks-
burg, and so here we stop and spend the
night, and start out from here again
early Monday morning for points further
south. AS we advance south we find still
greater improvement in the crops that |
is the acreage of crops that have been |
well cultivated and that give good prom
ise for good returns grow larger. saw /
some as fine fields of corn and cotton in |
Louisiana as one could wish for or expect |
The goods fields here are larger and all |
seem better cultivated. But 1t is here as
elsewhere, the acreage of crops Is too |
small in comparison with the poor crops
and the general acreage
We will see field of perhaps 100 acres, |
or fields ranging from one acre up to !
100. that are fine. almost in roasting ears
with deep rich, dark green color, with
fine stand, all laid by clean and in fine
condition. But passing these we come to
hundreds of acres where the corn is
small yellow, weedy, poor stand, and
carries but little promise. The same may
also be said of the cotton crop we see
some fine crops, full of blooms and all
worked out clean. a good stand and full
of promise. But, as stated. these crops are
few and far between. The interest in
he ind