The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-14
WHERE FARMERs ARE LACKING.


Dr. J. H. Weber, director Of the
laboratory of plant breeding OF the
United States Department of Agricul-
ture, is credited with having made re-
Gently this statement: our soil is
decreasing in fertility and our products
are decreasing in price. Agricultural
conditions are becoming more severe.
Where our best wheat lands produce
twenty-five bushels of wheat, England
produces thirty-five bushels. Where
our best cotton lands yield 100 pounds
to the acre, Egypt yields 500. Other
countries can raise more corn than
Illinois, the corn state. These statis-
tics show that America is far behind
other lands in farming"
DR.. Weber is in error when he
credits only 800 pounds per acre to our
best cotton lands" There are in Geor-
gia lands that are producing a bale
of 500 pounds to the acre. That is
not the rule, to be sure, but when one
is speaking about best" lands it is
well enough to take into considera-
AIpi lIE lAAEiESA DiOuuEllOtfo lOT d Civ
en- area. On the average it is prob
ably true that throughout the cotton
belt the output of cotton is about 1870
pounds to the acre-mueh lower than
it ought to be. Yet it is a fact that
there are many farmers who have
special plots on which they raise
bale of cotton or 100 bushels of corn
to the acre. We know of several such
in this state.
But it is an incontrovertible fact
that the production of the average
Southern farm is much lower than it
ought to be. Why is this so? The
truth probably is that in many in
stances our farmers are not progress
sive enough. and on others they try to
farm too much land. In both in
instances they lay too much store by
quantity and not enough by quality.
The farmer, more than anybody else,
is apt to endeavor to do things as his
father and his grandfather did them.
He dislikes to get out of the beaten
path. If his father farmed 100 acres
and used little or no fertilizer, the
present-day farmer is apt to think he
ought to do the same thing, paying no
attention. to the fact that the strength
Of the land has deteriorated in the in
tervening years. When the lands were
newer and more fertile there may have
been an excuse for extensive farming;
now the farmer who achieves best re-
suits is he who PRACTICES intensive
farming.
As we have stated, there are farms
in Georgia that produce a bale of cot
ton to the acre, and there are other
farms that produce a bale to three
acres. If the first mentioned farm can
be run at a cost per acre not very
much greater than the latter, manifest
ly 1t is economy to farm on the bale
to-the-aere plan; and we are assured
that an acre highly cultivated does not
cost more than three acres poorly
cultivated The idea of our farmers
then, should be, not to see how many
acres they can embody in their farms
or plantations, but to see to what a
state of high efficiency they can bring
d fewer number of acres. There should
be sustained effort to build up the
lands always, not to get all possible
out of them and give nothing in re-
turn. Farm lands in the South are
readily responsive to good treatment.
Given half chance" they will al
ways reward their tillers with good
crop. But when. year after year, they
are called upon to produce, without
assistance, they become worn out and
impoverished, and three or four acres
are required to do what one might do
under better treatment.