The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-06-03
Agricultural Department
CONDUCTED BY FULTON 8. WHITE.

tain extent, yet as a rule it is far easier to procure help to save crop than 1t IS to get help to produce one After the crop is made and in sight the farmer can the better tell what he can pay in wages for having the crop saved, and often rather than. to see a fine crop go to waste after 1t has been made the farmer will pay to the laborer the Hons share of the profits of the crop to have it saved, and in this way he is often able tJ secure help to harvest that he could not get to produce. Then again there are many crops where labor that is too light to be used for producers may be used as harvesters Many women and children can be secured, if proper inducements are offered, to gather the lighter crops
 But economy in labor must be exercised on the farm as well as elsewhere' II costs lust as much to keep, pay and feed a poor hand or poor horse or mule on a farm as it does to keep god one So that none but the best help should be employed The man who puts in his time not only faithfully. but thoughtfuliy, and performs his work in thorough, systematic way, is the only man who earns his wages on a farm Eye servants on a farm are no longer profitable. The man who has the interest In his work and who is anxious to see everything he
  that 1t will pay to keep on a farm. Such a man is worth more than ten eye ser wants and 1t costs no more to feed him (his wages may be higher) than it does to feed poor hand. This Is why we see the man who owns his home and has his help in his own family, where everyone Is interested and shares in all that Is made, the most prosperous of all farm- CTS.
 The Happy Farmer.
 I have often said and it cannot be said too often, and I repeat 1t again here. that the American farmer who owns his home, lives on same, and has his help within his own family, and who is free from debt, Is the happiest and richest man In all this great country. The time has come in this country when 1t Is all most impossible for a farmer to make anything out of another mans labor on the farm. Our farm readers fully under stand this. They are experiencing this every day.
 But 1t Is not only necessary to use strict economy in the selection of farm hands, but also economy should be used in the selection of farm animals. The day of the usefulness of our little tow head cotton mule, with his coffee-sack back band, has passed in this country, and a better class of farm mules or horses must be used.
 Only few days ago my attention was called to this over in Ellis county, Texas. An old friend of mine who had moved out there from Tennessee said to me when driving out in the country: T want you to take notice of the mules-nn the farms here and see how much better and larger they are than the ones used on the Tennessee and Alabama rarms.' He went on to say: we farmers of Ten nessee sold off all our good mules and kept the scrubs for our own use. No wonder these Texas farmers can do such good farming.
 But there are many farms in Texas, as well as in Tennessee and Alabama, where better farms animals are needed. l spoke of the good work that is being done At the A. & M. college of Mississippi in the way of improved methods of pre- pairing soil, and I found them using four big mules on one blow. going down and loosening up the soil to the proper depth. It will not pay to keep poor work horse or mule on the farm. They cost almost as much to feed as a. good one.
 Railroads Practice Economy. The railroads. which are always pion-