The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1904-11-15
Suggestions and Inquiries About Corn Fodder and
Sweet Potatoes.

S"SSS
Messrs. Editors: As there are yet quite a mum
Der of farmers who follow the old custom of
stripping fodder allow an old farmer to give an
experiment made with a few rows of corn.
The fodder was pulled and weighed when dry
from a select plat, and the same sized plat left till
corn was dry; the corn from each plat was gath
cred and weighed separately, and the corn from
the plat not stripped, weighed as much as the corn
and fodder both from the Plat that was stripped.
Now as a pound of corn is worth more than a
pound of fodder we can see readily that the labor
of stripping fodder is lost, and it is surely not
such fun as to do it merely for the fun of it.
Of course if the fodder stays on the stalks till
about dry, there would be no such loss of the
corn, but the fodder would then not be worth the
pulling. So we may safely conclude that as long
as cowpeas and crabgrass will grow on our soils
the time used in pulling fodder" is entirely lost.
Us down-easters here have generally housed
our sweet potatoes, and we have fair crops. I
would like to know from some more experienced
potato raiser Give been at it fifty years. why we
sometimes find such changes in contiguous hills
of potatoes. Last week we took out half an acre
IF Patasaw yams, getting one hundred bushels of
good potatoes. l noticed one hill with eight po-
tatoes that averaged a pound each, while the next
hill had only four potatoes averaging about q
pound each, and the next hill had only one potato
and it was barely a pound in weight. I put out
the fertilizer in person and know it was evenly
distributed. Now what I wish to know is, How
to get the other hills up to that eight pound hill ?
AS my rows were three feet apart, and hills one
and a half feet apart, a little calculation will show
us that distance gives us $3.50 hills on an acre,
and with eight pounds to the hill we would get
Il, 40 pounds, or more than 1.2OO bushels to the
acre. Now, I think the average potato crop is
about one hundred bushels to the acre around
here, and although mine doubled that average,
yet 1T was only one-sixth of what might be made
on an acre, if we only knew how to make all
the hills grow eight pounds to the hill. There is |
more for some of us to learn than we have learned.
My hogs have been on sweet potatoes since the
middle of August, and on cowpeas one month of |
this time, as well as on potatoes, so a few weeks
feeding of corn will make twelve porkers greasy
enough for a family of eight persons for one
year, and perhaps a little extra.
The cotton crop is doing fairly well here in
Craven, and, with a few exceptions, the picking
is well up, for the weather has ben very favorable.
Our hay is the finest for years in quality, and |
up in quantity.
We would like to live constantly in a state of |
thanksgiving, and the man whose very soul does |
not go up in thankfulness of another bountiful
crop, and such fine weather to save it, might as
well quit farming in this beautiful Southland
and go to Manila, Or some other foreign port.
A few frosts and a litcle ice have checked ~vegeta-
ton, and nature is robed in her most gorgeous
autumnal apparel. D. LANE.
Craven Co., N. G.