The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-05-31
FORAGE FOR THE R
An Address by c. G. Moore, Before Dixie Farmers,
Club, Mecklenburg County, N. c May I3, 1904.

The president of your farmers club has as
signed to me the subject, Forage for the
Farmer" In my opinion, he has named the most
important, yet the most neglected, source of profit
on the average Southern farm.
Here and there on our Southern farms will be
found a large barn for storage of forage; there,
however, are few. The average barn is so small
that even if the farmer were so disposed he could
not shelter provender sufficient for winter feeding
of his few head of stock. How many one and
two-horse farmers can you now recall who had
rough food in abundance the past winter for all
their stock?
Farmers who provide plenty of rough forage
have walking advertisers telling the fact to all
persons who pass or go onto his farm; his stock
tell the tale. He may be short of corn and oats,
but if the barn loft is full, his horses and cattle
are full, and do not feel the need of a full crib or
granary.
A farmer buys corn only when he is forced to
do SO, and feeds bought corn miserably. He will
not buy forage for his horses hardly when forced
to do it, and of all misery feeders you ever saw.
the hay buyer takes the lead. So it seems to me
that the first consideration with laying plans for
crops to be produced, the most important is to
provide for forage, and give this crop precedence
over the money crop, let that be cotton, tobacco
or grain.
Forage in abundance is the backbone of good
farming, and no farmer is living up to his rights
and privileges if he is dependent on some other
farmer for his roughness. Can you show me a
farmer who can afford to buy hay? Look at the
prices-best hay, 1922; mixed, $40; prairie, $16;
pea, 500; oat straw, $12; wheat straw, So; shred
-@ed slower, So; cottonseed hulls, SO. To buy feed
at these prices will bankrupt any farmer. Raise
and sell all you cannot feed. I think the price
of cottonseed hulls is a great blessing. I will be
glad to hear that next season the price will be
800 per ton. / anticipate an advance over the
present prices, and if 500 is the mark, the ad-
vantage to our farmers cannot be estimated
What hulls is fed in our county has no effect
on the price, the demand elsewhere regulates the
price; SO if every farmer and dairyman abandons
bulls as a feed, the mills will not feel the loss.
And that is just what we should do. Let the
mills pay the cotton farmer $40 per ton for seed,
then sell the bulls for a big price away from
home; you get the money.
Far too many farmers have depended ON cotton
seed hulls for rough feed for their cattle, and by
so doing their farms are poorer to-day than would
be if all the cattle forage had been grown on their
own land. Let us resolve to cut out hulls here
after and feed our homegrown forage.
What will a farmer raise as a forage crop?
Ih1s L Will not answer, but can tell you what
I think are the cheapest and best crops to raise.
I head the list with corn, the great king of the
grass family. Do you want forage, lots of it, and
good quality? Well, just take one acre of your
best cotton land, prepare exactly as you do for
cotton planting, using just as much guano and
manure, plant just as thick as your cottonseed
are planted, give the same cultivation that you
would to cotton. The yield will astonish you, and
;f cron is ont when lowest blades begin to brown.
and all is put in good shocks to cure, there will