The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1906-03-10
FARMER AND PLANTER.
FOR THE WINTER MONTHS
The Farmer Can Find Plenty to De
in Planning and Getting Ready
For Spring.

The farmer should devote q part Of
his winter leisure to mapping out his
farm and planning out suitable crop
rotations, which will enable him to
preserve and increase the amount Of
plant food in the soil. BY judicious
system of crop rotation fertility is con-
served because one crop supplements
another. A deep-rooting lesuminous
crop should follow the more exhaust
ing crops like corn, cotton and tobac-
CO. The land should be given . rest
by seeding it down to grass for at least
two out of every five years. The
legumes should be made to supply
humus and nitrogen to the soil at a
minimum cost,
The farmer, to be successful, must,
first of all, understand that business
principles have as definite a relation to
financial success on the farm as in any
other vocation. He hould therefore
study over his farm accounts carefully
during the year and see which crops
were the most profitable. 1t is not a
very difficult matter to keep an &C
count with each field, and it is safe to
say that II we realized more frequently
the cost of making a pound Of cotton
or tobacco, that different methods OF
culture would be pursued and an en-
tirely different system of crop rotation
and fertilization practiced. There are
some crops on the farm that pay q
larger profit than others, and the farm
er must keep books in order to elm
mate those which are Improbable and
change his practice SO as to increase
his profits from the desirable ones. A
study Of profit and loss is considered
essential In every business except that
Of farming. The great business houses
strike a trial balance every once in
while to see how they stand; yet farm
ing is admitted by all to be at best a
complex problem, and how can the
farmer hope to succeed who keeps no
record of his various transactions? The
fact that he does not accounts for the
large number of men who barely make
q living from the soil. In the long
winter months there is ample opportu-
nifty for those who are so minded to
study the financial problems involved
In their operations carefully and learn
wisdom from the failures and successes
of the year.
In the winter time, especially in the
south where snow rarely falls, the
fences should be repaired and any
necessary ditching and draining can be
done to advantage and the farm roads
improved. The gullys in the old fields
can be stopped up with trash and
waste material gathered from one
source and another. The wood-lot
should be cleaned up and fenced to ex-
clude cattle therefrom so the young
trees may have chance to grow. The
wood-lot is an important feature of
every farm, owing to the high price of
lumber, and the time is rapidly ap-
preaching when the farmer must grow
enough wood, not only for home con-
sumption, but for the repair of his
fences and buildings. There are COM
paratively few wood-lots which re-
ceive any attention on our farms at the
present time, yet it seldom happens
| that there is not some waste land on
every homestead better adapted for the
growth of trees than for any other
purpose. Reserve this section, plant
suitable varieties of trees therein, give
1t reasonable amount of care and at
tention, and 1t will prove a profitable
investment for all future time.-Pro-
| gressive Farmer.