The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-06-20

| the fields should know that it could not be my
own country. The attention given to grass, 1--we
stock. and farm machinery would indicate this un-
mistakably bly-and am speaking now especially OF
Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. l don't
know which is the more impressive-the large
numbers of live stock or the almost utter absence
of the one-horse plow. Nine-tenths of the men L
saw with plows harrows, cultivators etc., had two
or three horses hitched. Nearly all the corn is
check planted-not in rows, but level-and worked
both ways with cultivators that straddle the rows
The Man with the Hoe is not much in evidence
out here: the fields are so cultivated that little
hoe work is required. The curse of the ignorant
negro tenant, Judge, keeps us in the South from
great many improved methods that should
otherwise adopt, and the increase in cost of labor
may be blessing in disguise in forcing to con-
slider this question. We have more and cheaper
labor, told, than any of these great agricul-
tural States of the West. Even in cotton farm
ing we might do great deal better Some of the
best cotton I saw last year was plot Mrs.
R. S. fuckers Method farm which had never
been hoed at all, but cultivated chiefly with
smoothing harrows, etc.
We have too many men doing brute work.
Say that one mans time is worth the time of two
horses-say too that you have and two
each representing two units and each horse
one unit, this means units for your work. But
your neighbor two each with horse
one row at time-6 units for his work This
means a saving of 33 1-3 per cent to you and this
is big margin in any business-in most cases
such a margin as to mean the difference between
profit and losses, between poverty and competen-
cy. The railroad makes the whole world neigh
bors, and our Southern farmers are in everyday
competition with these wide-awake Westerners.
We not dullard, but we can't give them 33 1-3
per cent advantage and then win the race. u
How Oklahoma Was Settled
In my letter last week quoted Richard Hard
ing Davis's account of the opening up Of Okla
homa. great nsany of the original settlers are
still here yesterday a man whose sister
came tlere to Guthrie the day the Territory was
C-tened up-April %, 1889. But she was not lone
some for $4,000 others we're here, and at night
beneath the stars city of thousands of tents
where before the wilderness had remained invio-
late since the days of Eden. There were great
many claimants than there were lots for
claimants, and for years the courts were kept
busy settin0 matters straight. [ North
Caroinian this morning who had long and ex-
penslve litigation of this sort. also took drive
this morning with a citizen of Guthrie who came
here at the opening of the Cherokee strip in 1898
The same horse which we drove Ca finely bred
Kentucky horse, by the way) took my friend we'll
| in advance of the bowling mob-carts buggies
wagons, horses, ponies, mules, bronchos- until
with last desperate fve-mile dash, he jumped
from her back and staked off fine claim near
Perry. But within Is minutes he had to fight for
| his rights against two claimants who tried to
throw him off. One of these struck him-my
friend-heaYilY with a Winchester and the hlom