The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-01-05
R FARMERS TALKS.
CXXXV.

CXXXV.
Editors of The Progressive Farmer:
What are your plans for the coming year? Have
you any definite course planed?
We want our farm to make the largest crops
of everything planted. We would like to excel in
yields of every crop, and we are determined to do
it. There is competition in every calling. The
merchant does his best to make more money than
his neighbor; the lawyer delights in winning more
cases than his brother; the school boy sits up late
at night porting over his books that he may win
the orator or debater's medal. And yet we farm
ers are satisfied to follow in the same old ruts,
make the same quantity of potatoes, the same
number of bushels of corn, oats, or of bales OF
cotton, some years, with good seasons, making
a little more, and if the seasons are unfavorable,
a little less.
How can we expect to meet our obligations,
school our children, prepare for old age, when we
barely make both ends meet and have nothing to
spare? A little thinking on our part may work
wonders.
We planned last season to make more corn to
the acre than we ever did, and we succeeded, our
crop being by far the largest for the land that we
ever have made. The seasons we're not heavy
for a heavy yield. We also made a good crop of
cowpeas, while the crop in this section is general
ly almost a complete failure, excepting in low
lands.
Now we will give you the reason for these sue
cesses. In the first place, we have been using
croDs like oats. cowpeas, etc., for putting vegeta-
bic matter in the soil. We kept the heavy corn
stalks on the land. With some crops, they gave
US a little trouble, but nevertheless everything
except wood was kept on the soil. When you
fill the soil full of such things, they act like a
sponge and retain large quantities of water to
supply the crop during dry weather. Do you
see the point! This is the reason why the pea
crop was good on the low lands.
Another reason for our crop being good was
that we had our land broken as deeply as possible
and the crop cultivated shallow and the land kept
level. Our plowman objected to blowing so deep
ly, but VIC had our way, and are well pleased with
the results.
We did not use any manure on this land except
ing some commercial fertilizer two years out OF
three.
What a revolution it would work among the
farmers if each one would plan for larger crops
and do his best to succeed! But, friends, only
comparatively few will read this article, and only
one here and there will try it this season; SO you
need not be afraid of overriding the thing. The
farmer who tries to succeed, and uses common
sense, is just as sure as his brother in other call
ings. The farmer who raises a horse that lowers
the record of speed will often have his name go
down III history as a successful man. We lived in
a neighborhood once where a farmer had raised
a very fine hog, and it was rare to hear his name
called without the hog being mentioned. He was
a good farmer, and what surprised us most was
that none of his neighbOrs tried to follow him.
Some of us have an idea that it is useless to try
to initiate the successful, when it is often the
case that by trying we could excel the leaders.
FARMER