The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1905-02-14
WHAT LEVEL TERRAcIEe WILL DO.
Dr.. Freeman Asserts that Crop Yields Could be In
creased 20 Per Cent.

through sections of three counties, and i have
never before seen so much destruction of farm
ing lands. This is my excuse for saying a few
words more to your readers about saving their
land. / saw the wave of prosperity in a place
here and there, and at other places all was going
backwards and lower down in prosperity and hap
piness.
In every case the true condition was shown by
the looks of things about the home. Where pros
perity showed itself most, / noticed the land was
In the best condition and not a gully to be seen
anywhere; and ON the other hand, where no signs
of prosperity could be seen, the land was in an
awful condition. Gullies and CALLED and white
places were seen all over the farm. All these
rundown farms had no terraces, but some of
them had bitches. No ditched farm, however
well ditched, seemed to look well, and but little
prosperity, or signs of it, could be seen. Every
farm that was well terraced showed the marks
of thrift, prosperity and happiness.
These observations were made in billy sections
and where terracing will do the work. 1t was
sickening to see some of these farms; nearly all
the soil washed down into the fence corners and
the crops which grew there did not pay for the
work done.
Why will men at this day go on farming in
such a fool way? Most of this fool farming comes
of Ignorance and the tenant system. Many men
who live on their own farms and cultivate them
are ignorant because they do not take and study
a good agricultural paner. Others (and there
are a great many of them) are ignorant because
they think they are wise and there is nothing
more for them to learn. These men are always
sorry farmers. If you speak to them about saving
their lands from washing, they smile and act as
If they knew everything and say they have tried
everything and found it a failure. These men
viii ALWAYS fail and be drones in the farming
world. 1t is the man who seeks to know and puts |
into practice the best suggestions of his neigh
bors and all the good ideas he can get from his
farm paper, that will, and is, succeeding.
I saw men who worked their own farms, in
some instances were blowing their crops up and
down the hills. They had a few bitches here and
there, a long ways apart, across which they had
plowed all the year. These farms all looked bad
and were failures. / saw no farm which looked
like an intelligent man, or a white man, had cul-
tivated it, except those that were terraced.
No man can save his land by giving his rows or
his water terrace one particle of fall. If every
farmer could realize this now and plow down his
bitches and all other water terraces which have
any fall at all, and terrace their lands ON a per-
feet level and run all the rows on the same per-
feet level, the crops In this State would increase
so per cent in three years.
If any man doesn't believe this, just let him
try one field and make this field a test field for
the next three years, and the results viii prove
what / have said to be true.
Now don't you begin in your mind to argue
with me in order to satisfy your lazy conscience,
but just take my word for it this time and you
viii be. convinced.
The tenant system is big enough and important
enough for another paper. !