The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-22
Diversified Farming.

Realizing the evils which have come in
all sections of the country. from the
wheat fields of Minnesota to the cotton
fields of the South, from single cropping
year after year on the same land. writers
have urged farmers to practice more
diversified agriculture. This is all right
If 1T Is proper and systematic diversified
ton designed primarily for the improve
ment of the soil, and the increased pro-
ductlon of the staple crop. But there
seems to have grown up, in the South at
least, class of newspaper writers who
urge that the farmer should grow some
thing of everything that his soil and
climate will produce, and that he should
buy nothing that can be grown on his land
This would be Investigation with a ven
geance 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 Alabama men arc
growing cotton on lands and under con.
dltlons which point to wheat, grass and
cattle. They can grow cotton, it is true
but could do better by making wheat and
cattle their specialties, as here and there
some are doing. Then in the true cotton
belt the warm, sandy soils of the South
Atlantic and the Gulf we find men scat
| tering their energies in growing some cot
ton, some tobacco and some market garden
crops 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
something of everything we can grow, but
specialized farming, in which the whole
| rotation Is devised for the purpose of in
creasing the production of whatever may
be the best money crop of that section.
| Ii this is wheat, then farm for wheat, not
sowing vast areas year after year in wheat
until the land will no longer produce a
paying crop, but farm systematically, and
make the land pay its way to the produc-
| ton of increased yields of wheat. In like
manner, if the money crop is tobacco co
not fall into the old notion common in
some sections, that you can get your land
too rich for the production of the best
tobacco, but farm for and in
creased production of tobacco,
and you will find that increased
production per acre will go hand in hand
with improved quality. 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 improve
ment of the soil interfered with The
tobacco grower of the Middle and North
ern States will naturally be wheat grow
er, since there is no hoed crop that pre-
pares such a fallow for wheat as tobacco
But he will be unwise if he adds another
hoed sale crop to his tobacco. Corn and
tobacco can readily form the hoed crop
shift In his rotation, alternating each oth-
er on the land In each round of the ro-
tation. But third hoed crop, as a sale
crop, will require the lengthening of the
rotation, and longer time between the
humus making crops Of legumes, 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 find that on their highly
manured lands they can grow large crops
of cotton after their early vegetables have
been shipped North( and can multiply
crops on their lands through the long
growing season. But it is not of the
market gardener and his intensive meth
DDS we write, but of the farmer whose in
terest lies in selling wheat or other grain
cotton or tobacco. Each should be a spe-
cialist 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 increased production of his
sale crop as for tie profit direct from
he cattle. If he neglects stock feeding
re will invariably fail to get the best re-
suits from his wheat, tobacco or cotton.
In short, he should make a profession Of
farming, study his crops, study his land
and farm in businesslike way.