The Tupelo journal., 1906-08-24
FARMER AND PLANTER
THE VALUE OF ROTATION.
Opinion Of a MissIssippian Who Has
Travelled In the "Cotton Belt"

Having travelled owe the entire Cot
ton Belt, from Virginia to Texas. and
from Kentucky to the gulf OF Mexico,
and having been actively engaged In
the raising Of the fieecy staple as a
cash crop for the last 81 years, we
hope we will be pardoned for our
seeming assumption and egotism in at
tempting to do our mite toward max
ing 'the wilderness to blossom as the
rose" We would not have undertak-
en- this task were It not for the fact
that, after man. years of close obser-
walton. we have become satisfied in
our own mind that the n thing and
the only thing that that ails the south
ern farmer to-day Is lack of system.
It is lack of system that has depict
ed southern soils, brought into exist
ence our "old sedge fields" serrated
our lands with impossible gullies,
glutted the market with cotton, caused
the cotton planter to lose that spirit
of independence that should charac-
terize every American farmer, and In
stead Of encouraging self-reliance has
gradually brought him to the place
where he depends upon the merchant
to furnish him with the veriest neces-
saries of life, such necessaries. too, as
could be produced on any and every
well-ordered southern farm.
The soil is the source Of all our
wealth, but through lack of a judicious
system of farming, or rotation, of fer
tilization and of culture, and business
methods, it is unfortunately true that
much of this wealth is not to the farm
or, the state and. the nation that might
have been attained had a judicious sys-
tenn of rotation been p~ersistently fol-
lowed from the early settlement of
this coutry until the present. But the
mischief is done, and there Is no use
crying over split milk" (lost fertility,
but as 1T is never too late to mend
or, to do good-there Is still a chance
for every farmer who will properly d.
versify his crop to the extent of rails
ing plenty of provision crops for him.
self and family, together with plenty
of forage for his live stock of all
kinds; who will s~crupulously save all
his manure and persistently practice a
judicious rotation of crops-a rotation
that shall not only make poor land
rich and rich land richer, but one that
shall be so pre-eminently satisfactory
that he who puts it in practice will
never wish to return to the old ruin
ously wasteful practice of his forefa-
theirs, and SO profitable that his peck
etbook shall stand out with fatness"
the whole year through, instead of be-
ing filed but once a year and suffering
from "sweeny" the balance of the year.
System means order, regularity,
and method in everything we do, and
no farm can be the grand success 1t
could and should be that is not planned
so that ALI of it's parts made a complete
and efficient system, where each part
dovetails, as it were, into the other,
adding strength and completeness to
the whole.
No system of farming is complete
that does not embrace soil improve
ment and renovation by judicious rota-
ton and plant fertilization, neither can
any system be considered complete
that is not as readily accessible to the
one-horse farmer or man of limited
means, who cultivates his thousands
of acres. In fact, it Is the poor man,
the one or two-horse farmers we desire
to reach and. possibly, influence, for
the reason that the poor man, of all
others, positively cannot afford to cul-
tivate poor soil; and, second, because
they (the poor mem are unfortunately
largely in the majority. A three or
f%our-year rotation is what our farmers
need and must have to be prosperous.
Even a two-year rotation is better than
none, and with the large cotton grow
err may be made to answer very well,
but in order to make any system OF
rotation really effective, it must be
adhered to persistently and systemat-
ically, regardless of the price of cotton
or the increasing fertility of the land.
C. H. Turner, of Mississippi, in
Southern prip,,lturict