The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-10-27
Clemson Extension Work.

In farm value per acre South Caro-
lima corn has increased from 4.4S to
1903 in a like period as against
11.S4 and 1857 for like period in
Illinois. In farm value per bushel
the Carolina has increased from ga
cents in 1900 to 81 cents in 1909 as
against 80 and 50 cents in Illinois. If
the Illinois farmer can raise corn and
grow rich at these values how much
better opportunity have the farmers
of the South to do even better.
In addition to the corn we raised
last year we spent six million dollars
for corn and corn products, great
deal of which was of very question
able feed value. The man who sold us
this corn and the railroads together
cleared 80 cents bushel or nearly
three and half million dollars. We
can produce corn as cheap or cheaper
per Dushel than this same corn cost to
produce; so we not only paid out this
profit, but lost the additional profit
from growing Then too had this
corn been grown here all of that six
million dollars would have remained
here as a permanent asset.
That these facts are being realized
by the farmers of the South is evil
denced by the steady increased aver
age planted to corn and the increas-
ed yield per acre. We are learning
that it not only pays to plant more
corn, but also to give that crop bet
ter cultivation and attention than we
have heretofore done. We are also
beginning to realize that while cul-
tivation and fertilization are import
ant factors in determining our yield,
yet the factor of blood and inherit
ance also play no small part. With
this knowledge has come a closer at
tention to the detail of corn raising
and breeding. But while in the South
a number of men have been giving
these points thought and work, yet
to a large extent each has worked
along Independent lines. Each man
has tried to hew an Independent road
to success for himself, forgetting that
much more rapid progress could be
made if he joined with his neighbors
and all pulled together. The worst
fault that the average farmer has is
this very thing of going it alone. He
breaks his land with a single horse,
does all of his cultivation with the
single horse and one furrow and pulls
his crop to market with his one horse.
He has become so accustomed to the
one horse :dea that he himself has
never learned to work in double har-
ness. AS it will pay him in breaking
his land to combine with his neigh
Dor and plow double, so it will pay to
combine with some neighbor in his
effort to increase his corn production.
It was with the idea Of afford
ing an opportunity of this doubling
up process that the South At
lantic Corn Exposition, to be held
in Columbia, S. c., December 6
to inclusive has been planned.
Steps were taken to this end last
spring at the time of the Corn Breed
ers' Association, when the State legis-
lature was asekd to assist such an
enterprise and responded literally by
an appropriation of one thousand dol
lars.
In making this appropriation there
was but one string tied to it and that
was that four thousand more should
be raised by other means. This same
act placed this fund under the con-
troll of a board, consisting of the
State commissioner of agriculture, the
president of the Corn Breeders AS
sociation, the director of the agricul-
tural department OF and the superln-
tendent of the extension division OF
Clemson College: This board, organ
lied by the election of Mr.. A. D..
Hudson, president of the Corn Breed
ers' Association, as president. Pub
lic-spirited men both at home and
abroad were appealed to for help and
nobly have they responded. The one
thousand dollars with which the ex-
position was started has grown until
now there is the magnificent sum OF
ten thousand dollars offered in prizes.
Not content with helping South Caro-