The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-01-10
CONDUCTED BY b w. KILGoRE,
WHAT COTTON FARMERS SHOULD DO.
Grow Other Money Crops Besides Cotton-Pro6ts In
Stock Raising-Possibilities In Leguminous Crops.

STOCK Hale1DR-F0Se1Du1ueo IN IeRum1n0u9 CrOpS.
Messrs. Editors:-The report sent out by the
Department of Agriculture estimating the cot
ton crop for 1904 gave the spectators the
chance they wanted to run down the price and
scare the farmers into selling what cotton they
still had on hand. We believe and hope that this
effort will fail, and that the farmers will hold
their cotton till a fair price is paid for it, for
if the crop was really over twelve million bales,
the world needs all of it.
But what makes one very tired is the stereo-
typed advice that the newspapers give the farm
ers to decrease the area and "grow their sup
plies" To one accustomed to systematic farm
ing, this idea that nothing is considered saleable
in the Cotton Belt but cotton, and that every
thing else is merely supplies" to enable the
farmer to grow cotton seems perfectly ludicrous.
OF course a farmer should grow the grain and
hay needed by his stock and the meat and vege-
tables for his family.
FARMING VS.. PLANTING.
But is there not something in all these greater
than mere home supplies? In other words, if a
farmer farms instead of merely planting cotton
on the same land year after year. would there
not be money enough in the subsidiary crops that
enable him to grow cotton more cheaply to pay all
the expenses of his farming, so that the cotton
crop, Whatever may DC It's price,, VII " IHC Aoh
of the years work. Let us realize that there Is
money in some other crops besides cotton if we
farm right.
And this is the very point i would emphasize
farming instead of planting. Year after year
our farmers spend their money for fertilizers to
be dribbled in a niggardly way on the same land
that was in cotton the year before till all the
moisture retaining humus is burnt out of the
soil and a droughty season makes a failure of the
crop and the eggs being all in the one basket. are
broken like the farmer.
A BALE PER ACRE.
/ would not say a word against commercial
fertilizers, for if properly used, they are among
the most efficient and economical means for the
building ur of our soil. What we need to learn
is to grow more cotton per acre and plant fewer
acres. If but ten million acres were PLANTED
annually, and every acre made to produce a bale
of cotton, the farmers of the South would soon
be the richest people in the world, while with
thirty-fve or forty million acres In cotton, and
twelve or thirteen million bales made, they would
soon be dead-broke if they depend on cotton
alone.
What then is the remedy? Not merely a de-
crease in the acreage and a bare effort to grow
supplies" but an all-round farming, a carefully
devised rotation of crops intended for 1.-The de
v%elopment of the capacity of the soil for the pro
duction of cotton, and a more liberal use of the
right sort of fertilizers to bring about this de
velopment. This means systematic farming, anC
until the Southern farmer does get to farming IL
a more systemati way. he will continue to b.
in debt for the complete fertilizers at a higl
price.
MONEY IN LEGUMEs.
We have been trying for years to impress tn
farmers of the South with the true value O