The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-06-04
r AND M MATTER kf$nml!rPS-1
A Happy Story From Union County
Farm.

A Happy Story From a Union County
Farm
The United States Farmer offered
prize of gold watch for the best ar
ticle on How / made or saved more
money than usual last year, and the
following article war written by Rev.
] J. McLendon, of this county, and
published in the Farmer for April. The
story, after a few changes by the au
thor, is as follows:
Twice at the foot of the hill-First
When we weather. beaten, half
starved young men, in obedience to
orders, reluctantly stacked our mus
kets at AppomattOX, and, with crushed
hearts, silently wendell our way home
ward for hundreds of miles amid
scenes OF desolation, marching forty
miles in a day in our eagerness to
know whether or not the homes of
our childhood in North Carolina had
gone uD in smoke, and our mothers
| and sisters, for whose protection we
| for four years suffered the pfivations,
| endured the hardships and braved the
storms of war, had gone down in the
| general wreck.
Second-When, after several years
at school, and many more spent in
an educational moral and religious
campaign for the betterment of my
! kind i'm the land of my birth, but be-
| fore the tidal wave of interest in edu-
cation set in, before the ground-sWell
| in temperance sentiment shook off the
saloons; and although the enemy had
come in like a flood, the hour seemed
not to have struck for 1.-The Spirit OF
the Lord to put him to flight was
forced to the wall, and became land
tenant paying high rents and higher
prices
slavery.
Rising a second time from the
ground. Ten years ago a friend con-
scented to help me buy a poor clay
farm. 1t was considered "a dry bone,
but, being we'll located, at the cross
ing of two public highways, was at
last good dumping ground" A
friend, well Informed, said TO me, at
is the hardest place | know" Another
said "F'lint rocks! White oak ridges!
My Lord. man, you don't know this
country" Nevertheless, l faced the
situation. In other days friends had
throngcd around me, but now there
was ample leisure for work.
During these ten years l have re-
paired the dwelling and built to 1t.
looked after the grove and old fruit
trees; set out a large orchard: built
large garden and made it rich; built
good hen-house; built a large cow
and hog pasture, in each of which
runs neVer-failing water; straighten-
ed out the fields and cut them loose
from the woods; taken up stumps;
gathered uD rocks and hauled them
out; terraced the hill-sides and leveled
tho rows; cleaned off and ditched the
meadow lands: increased the fertility
of the soil by diversified farming,
coupled with stock raising, by deep
blowing in preparing the land, but
never deeper than thoroughly dry; by
manuring literally with home made
and commercial fertilizers, judiciousY
combined to suit the CROP and the
land by practicing a modified SYSTEM
of rotation of crops, and by raising
leguminous crops.
We live in the cotton belt, and cot
ton is our main money crop; but there
are four kinds of land on the place,
and one or another of these is adapt
ed to every plant that grows in this
latitude; hence we ~~1ise many things
to sell and to use. If any finer wheat
ever grew out of the ground than /
have raised here, then it would be
worth going a long journey to see.
In 1900 Leander Secret and J. /.
Orr walked out into some of my heavy
headed wheat, which averaged 5 " feet
high and stood so thick that if a, rab-
bit tried to run through he would
have to follow the drill
The secret of making fine wheat
lies in the seed, the seasons, the quail
ty of the soil, the fertilizing and most
of all in the preparation of the seed
bed j. c., crushing to dust every inch
of the surface two or three inches
deep and no more; and of making
corn dry, deep, thorough preparation
and frequent shallow cultivation.
Last year we run three-horse
farm. Two of my sons and / followed
the pillow. The other children did the
rest. | held the fort. as usual, until
April; attended TO the stock, prepared
the years supply of Fireplace and
stove wood, pruned the fruit trees,
grapevines, fig bushes, raspberry
bushes, etc. We had good stock, good
tools kept in good order-knew how
and were able and willing to handle
them. We broke all of the stubble
and bottom lands with a No. 3 two
horse oliver Chilled pillow, cut it twice
with disk harrow, and then ran a
heavy smoothing harrow over it. From
the LIST of April to the goth of July
we kept the horses stepping and the
hoe hands going early and late. Some
of our neighbors waited for rain but
we knew that while the drought pre-
vailed was the time to bestr our
selves. During these nearly four
months of ideal weather all of the
land had been we'll prepared, manure
put out, crops planted at the right
time, and in good order, thoroughly |
cultivated and laid by.
From the 25th of July to the 25th
of September rain was plenteous, and |
the land did its best Then followed |
two months of very dry weather and
a late frost.
All crops were harvested as they |
matured-wheat, oats, hay, peavines. |
tops and fodder cured perfectly and |
stored away in a large and excellent |
barn; corn cribbed. cotton picked as
1T opened, dry and free from trash, |
and put into a cotton house, then |
ginned and sold or nut into another |
mouse; cane cut, some fed to the stock, !
some made into sorghum than which |.
there is nothing better this side of |
the hnest honey-but Journal readers |
know the quality; sweet potatoes care
fully dug out of dry earth and hilledl
under shelter, wrapped ia pine tags
and dry sand
| moved the meadows and pea fields |
with q Deering machine, and reaped |