The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1911-09-28

Touching Lake Osceola, where muir
dered Myrtle Hawkins was found
three Sundays ago, is the far-flung
arm of a Henderson county model
farm whose transformation from a
waste place has been almost marvel
Gus.
Two. years ago not even weeds
would grow on a great part of the
sixty acres now yielding an abundant
harvest of four thousand bushels Of
corn valued at between three and
four thousand of dollars. Two
wears ago spindly, need-like corn
grew timidIy in the bottoms reach
ing to Lake Osceola, and the corn
gathered averaged one nubbin TO
every twenty stalks. This yeal
these same bottoms yielded eighty
five bushels of almost perfect, twelve
to fourteen-inch ears to the acre.
The sturdy stalks were so tall, over
twelve feet, so stout, so dense, that
it all resembled more the vegetation
of some tropical country than a
Western North Carolina farm.
Mr.. Henry Jordan, the owner of
this fine sixtyacres and the worker
of the miracle which has SO won
derfully changed waste place into
a model farm, believes firmly in farm
machinery. 1t was a sight worth
seeing to watch one very Intelligent
machine, drawn by two stout horses,
go crashing along the edge of the
corn field cutting the long stalks a
few inches from the ground, binding
them firmly together and then hur1-
ing them to one side later to be pick
ed up by the laborers and placed IN
great tent-like stacks which reached
from one end of the field to the other
Mr.. Jordan, in shirt sleeves, hat
pushed far back from prespiring
brow, was asked the secret of it all.
Being a man of few words. more Civ
en- to doing things than to talking
about them, he answered briefly
"Sub-soiling and stable manure.
And that is all. Outside of intelli-,
gent direction and a business-1ike
rotation of crops, that is all there is
to it. The loney, straight burrows
are plougA eight inches deep and
a sub-s@ gF follows and goes
fourteen 1nche deeper-atotal of
twenty-five Inches :, Which is some
different from the usual currying of
the land practised the Average TAR.
an1er Ass
One eight-acEe frae of upland,
this year made bred bushels
of corn. desDft Exceptionally
dry season Three 10 ago this
same eight acres produced exactly
and precisely a gran daggregate and
total c. twenty-five bushelsaf diff
erence of four hundred and seventy
five bushels of corn-which is some
marked difference, you must admit.
Standing in the centre of this re-
claimed field, where the corn has been
cut and shocked, the picture present.
ed to you magnificent one. Below
are the bottoms, rich, black, fertile,
covered thick with laughing stretches
of the prettiest crop that grows. Ycu
see the corn cutting machine laying
low the tossing heads OF the great
stalks. You see the crowd of labor
ers STOPPING, picking up the bound
bundles, staggering with them to a
monstrous stack which already COW
ers ground space occupied by an aveTE
age living room. Your eye follows
these exactly straight rows of tent
like structures, rows almost halfa
mile long and close together and you
are inclined tc think that surely here
alone must be enought corn and
fodder to feed all the cattle and hogs
III Western North Carolina. The
personal abjurations of the driver to
his patient horses, the melody of the
negro field hands singing as they
work, are borne to you ears by a
wind which whispers of coming fast,
and the wagon loads and wagon loads
OF golden sphere, sometimes called
pumpkins, which catch your eye as
the sun glints on their great, dis