The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1910-09-22
sTUMps, BRUSH, WEEDS, GRASS.

We pay a larger tax every year for
stumps, weeds and grass than is required
to support our municipal, county, state
and federal government to endower. all
the colleges and educate all the youth
of the land; and we get no return. A
stump not only occupies valuable space
but it prevents the use of improved inn
plements for better and more rapid til
lage of the soil. The cost of farm la
Dor is on the incross Sc with the certainty
that this will continue till the equation
of wages on the farms and in the town
or city is more equal. The remedy for
higher priced labor on the farm is the
use of more sand better teams and inple-
ments. If the day wage on the farms
of the south advances from $7s to $I.so
then each farm hand must plow, plant,
and cultivate twice as manv acres in
day as he did before and this is an easy
problem. But the stumps must go, and
the farmer who does not try to get rid
of them will soon be back number. The
stump farmer pays about $500 an acre
every year for the privilege of having
stumps in his fields. In addition, there
are generally few feet of untitled soil
around every field stump which produce
foul, weeds and glasses to seed the land.
What has been charged against stumps
applies with still more force to trees
shrubs and brush patches in the field; dig;
burn, destroy; they are natural enemies
of the farmer. Straighten out the sides
of the field, square up the corners and
avoid the short rows as much as possible !;
they increase the work of tillage.
Farmers have become so accustomed to
| fighting weeds and grass in the cultivated
fields that they regard it as matter of
necessity. They think the land is full
OF foul seeds and of course they germi-
nate when it rains.
When virgin soils are first placed in
cultivation they are comparatively free
from weeds and grass, and that they be-
come foul is due to faulty management on
the part of the farmer. 1t is not difficult
to discover the real causes First, careless
| cultivation, which allows weeds and grass
| to mature seed in the cultivated fields.
Second-little attention is paid to the
highways, the brush patches, the fence cor
ners and the pastures, and they are al
most universally breeding grounds for
foul weeds and grass 1t has been charg-
| ed that the southern farmer is careless.
| 1t may be true in some things, but in one
thing too mahy of them stand first among
the farmers of the world they never fail
to raise crop of weed and grass seed
large enough to seed their own fields and
| their neighbors'.
| The cost of this universal weed and
| grass seeding amounts annually TO more
than FIVE dollars for each acre in corn,
| and ten dollars for each acre in cotton.
| In 1909 in the states of Alabama, Ar
kansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mis-
siSsippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia,
there were 4o,965 900 acres in corn and
| so,693 900 acres in cotton, which would
show yearly loss of over s11 million
of dollars. This loss can be greatly re-
duced by intensive cultivation continued
as late in the season as possible and by
moving the roadsides, the fence corners.
| the borders of the fields and the pastures
in June and in August. At first it seems
like waste of labor, but its beneficial
| effects soon become apparent.
A persistent war on weeds and grass,
stumps and brush, in the fields is one of
the great progressive movements necessary
to progress in agriculture.
S. A. KNAPP,
Special agent in charge.