The Marlboro democrat. [volume] (Bennettsville, S.C.) 1882-1908, 1905-04-21
SOIL SUICIDE.
The South's Golden Opportunity
Neglected Says a Michigander.
Welded TO COTTON.
He Calls Attention to Our Advantages
for Stock Raising as Compared With
Western Farmers Who Must
Feed With a Fork Six
Months fn the Year

Feed With q Fork Six
Months fn the Year
We reproduce below from the Pro
gresstve Farmer and Cotton Plant
an excellent agricultural journal pub
lished at Raleigh, N. c., a highl,
suggestive letter from Michigan
farmer on the golden opportunity 70
stock raising In the South. Our peo
Pile have really ''had cotton pulled
over their eyes," as he says. or the,
would not have oeen Sd blind to the
opportunities about them. ''Soil. sui
eide" Is a good word that he gives us
To describe any system Of farming
which leaves out stock raising. Reac
the letter, which follows:
Prof. B. w. Kilgore, Raleigh, N. @.
Dear Sir:-I find The Progressive
Farmer very interesting. So many
things are vastly different from oul
methods. 1t SENS as though you
ars greatly favored. To day (MIarct
l2th) the sun is shining on fields glis
tcning with snow. Here and there
the earth breaks through and look.
appealingly upward TO the sun. No,
two hundred feet away are drifts all
OF four feet deep. There are few
bare spots in the roads, but runner
vechiclcs are all in use still, and this
Is the scventy-seventh day Of contin
uous, unbroAen sleighing. There were
q few days Of sleighing previous te
that, but there was an interval of
bare ground. For seventy. seven days
the snow has not boen wholly melted
fran my houae roof.
DO the planters sell their cotton
seed to oil mills and buy back the fer.
til!zer meal? Isn't this meal of more
value to feed farm animals than fol
fertilizer? Certainly with your Der.
muda and crab grasses and vast store
OF cottonseed 1t does seem as though
you might ruin the beef trust by grow,
Ing beeves and mutton for the great
city trade OF our Eastern markets.
Feeding lambs is followed to some
extent here; farmers with 80 to l6C
acres of land feed twenty to fifty
lambs, whore so situated as to pasture
the ewes, protltably. The industry is
at low ebb this seoson as to mum bel
fed, and the price to farmers Is close
to 8 per cent Give weight all thi,
winter. You may be assured there is
good proh5 in that.
The United States consumed 461,.
600, pounds Of wool in 1903; three.
eights of IL foreign grown-say 90.
OOO tons. What ails the South with
its widespread hills and mountain
lands clad in perennial grass-idea
home for shccp-to go on making cot.
ton and tobacco, all hard work and
soil suicide, when sheep are soil con.
scrvators, easily tended, and pay large
proh5 as mutton, quite independent OF
WOOL?
You are nearer New York than is
iowa, and l just read in an Iowa farm
paper Of one farmer who is feeding
200 sheep, IN ire handful 10 what
ne usually feeds. The BEEF trust dis
couraged him and he sold largely o.
his earn crop, rather than feed oeeve!
and sheep as he has heretofore done
Bu6 you zee he Is at the mercy OF tht
beef ami railroad trusts, while yol
people are mere step to the sea aboard
and thence to market, independent O
the trusts.
Ii l we're physically we'll I'd like tt
try the South. 1t does seem as though
your blessings are Infinite as compar
ed with us, feeding farm animals witt
a fork six months in year.
The South appears TO be in tht
grasp CT the tobacco trust and cottol
sharks. S.ill, It's people 20 on i'm
lov2rishing their soils gro wing thes,
crops; still trying to keep up fertility
with pnoS onate rock and imported
fnrt!iiz r. to the exhaustion OF thei
pocket books, while vast market 70
food stLtfs, meat particularly, lies IL
the hello" Of her hand-unhecded!
Argentina and Australasia sold u
about 22o O00,0 pounds Of wool II
ten years. Most or The time the South
lay fac down across the knees OF th
trusts sQualiing under the meritet
blows OF the trusts price slipper
Think OF Argentina, 10000 mile
away at the south end or creation, sell
ing us wool at seven cents, and tn,
South, with all the Blessing or a ro
bust wool tariff, burning cotton t,
keep up the price! II that isn't (;
spec acLe for gods and men!
VITA iliimitable resources In th,
rest pasture On earth, vast stores o
cottonseei, inexhaustible possibilltie
In corn, cowpeas, alfalfa, rape, pea
nuts, cane and sorghum syrups, tn
South should have millions OF hea,
OF muttouS and beeyes, thousands O
packing houses and fleets OF ocaal
liners bearing refrigerator meats t.
other lands. If New ZEALAND can shil
loads OF frozen rabbits to England
what ails your pc pie? Must they al
ways hold a pound Of cotton SO nea
their eyes they can't see dollar les
than arms length away?
Perennial swine plague will max
pork growing on extensive scale diff
licult in the South, but what Is wron,
with mutton growing? IT'S a clean
er meat and healthy always. Tn
sheep isn't scavenger. Nor h Caro-
lima could we'll afford to grant
bounty on every we'll bred sheep lin
ported for breeding into the State
on every pound Of wool grown AM
every sheep carcass exported form
the State in ten years.
TO aid sheep breeders, England lay
once compelled all her dead to b
buried Ia woolen shrouds- Sc
what an immense commerce In woo
she built up and holds to this day
But the South-oh, she has the cot