The Tupelo journal., 1904-01-29

YOU MIGHT 70 LIKEWISE.
How One southern Land Owner Met
the Contingency of Having
idle Farms.

AS I have beer a silent reader OF
your most valuable paper for many
years and lave often thought | would
give its many readers a little bit OF
my short experience as a tiller OF the
soil, though something always pre-
vented me from doing to until now,
and if this does not find its way to the
back door | may try again in the neal
future. | have been living in a little
town for q years, and all the time
have never plowed a day in the field.
Have always rented my farms out to
tenants until this year, and as last
year was almost a complete failure
with farmers through this section,
forcing many good tenants to go to
public works for a livelihood, unless
the landlord would furnish them from
the start. This many Of us refused to
do, as we were already in the hole,
and many as well as myself were
forced to move out on our farms or
let them lay idle, and as taxes were
high and many other expenses accu-
mulating, this we could not afford to
do. | for one made the move and so
far | am not sorry | returned. Yes, |
moved. | found a house with three
rooms, II fireplace, not a porch, win
dow. doorstep, door lock II loft in the
house. nor a surplus piece of plank
around. as all had been burned. Every
thing looked alike to me. 1t was but a
short time until | had taken in the
whole situation and 500 realized that
| had the hardest JOB on my hands l
had ever undertake.. Well, acted up
on the presumption that where there
is a will there is always a way, so |
rolled up my sleeves and waded in up
to my neck. | began to look to see
what was most needed. | got lumber,
built two rooms, ceiled overhead. built
hall, veranda, put in new windows,
doors, doorstepS, cleaned up the yard,
extended my garden. planted out my
fall onions, got up a lot of good Ii
ter wood. of which l had plenty. built
myself a big fire, walked up and kissed
my better half. one of the best little
women in the world, and said: "Old
gal, | can now see what | can do, lave
done all this with my own hands, not
hiring one cents worth" My wife's re-
marks were: You have done exceed
inGly we'll, though here we are with $50
acres of land in this place and it is
almost Christmas and not one foot
rented. Also our other plantation IN
CoCsa river laying idle. l can hardly
see what we are to do" Never mind,
old gal. We are not the only one with
idle lands. The woods are full of EN-.
| am going to work what | can and
let the balance lay out" "Yes, but idle
lands do not pay taxes. etc" well, We
will get through o. K. Let's not cross
the bridge until we get to it."
Well, after Christmas | began to
make preparations to make a crop. |
bought a set of blacksmith's tools and
my better half laughed at me and said,
Why my dear, o 10 not know any
thing about this kird of work" NJ
answer was, "One lever gets too old
to learn" and l have done all my farm
work, such as wagon, buggies, plows,
shoeing horses, etc, and have saved
about $50.
| took the "~Cultivator's" advice. l
planted lots of corn, planted Is acres
in cotton and in June plowed it all up
and planted corn and peas, and my
prospects were fine for a good corn and
pea crop until the five weeks drought
we had the latter part of August and
September. This cut me short of
about 400 bushels of corn and 600 or
800 bushels of peas, though while l
failed on one hand kept good time on
the other. | have saved about 40 tons
of as fine hay as ever was cut. Will
make plenty of corn to do me, lots of
fine peas, sorghum, etc, all lone By
myself, had no experience in the farm.
myself and three little boys, who, like
Cor. Southern Cultivator.