The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-02-14
GOING AT 1T RIGHT.

farmer, VINO WRITES d very nCdL
hand and evidently has no idea Of
cong back to the old way, writes that
cotton is grown around him, but he
has no grown any, and does not want
to grow it in the way his neighbOrs do.
In fact. he says that he does not farm
as they do, and car not afford to grow
cotton or any crop in the way most
IF them DO. Z ave been reading
vour writings and following your ad-
vice for a long time, and have never
once zone astraX. / break and har-
row my land we'll to make a good seed
bed. Use a three-horse disk pillow,
,Vo-llorse turn pillow, disk harrow and
cultivate shallow and level with a
riding cultlvator, while others here
are working as they did fifty years
ago. The sandy upland where 1 want
ia plant cotton, made So bushels OF
corn an acre last year with 400
mounds Of a mixture of acid phosphate
and potash
on land in that condition cotton
will make a strong weed" and [
would use the same mixture of acid
phosphate and potash, making the
mixture 1900 pounds of acid phOs-
phate and 200 pounds of the muriate
Of potash, and would make the rows
, Il to 4 feet apart, and thin to Is
inches, or perhaps more. But what
| want especially to note for the bene-
fit of our readers is hat here is q
man using the riding c~ultivator n
not failing to make a good corn crop,
while some time ago q man who said
thar none of his family took any in
terest in our paper. stopped the pa
per because he made a poor crop OF
corn after trying q riding c~ultiVatOr,
and he was going back to the old way.
Here is a farmer looking forward. He
is farming and using modern imple-
ments and is going 20 plant cotton
after getting his land up to making
q good corn crop. He should make,
under his conditions, a fine crop of
cotton. and ] will warrant that if he
does he Will not put the same Ian
in cotton again, as nine out of ten
farmers in the cotton belt do, after
they have made 4 good crop on d piece
of land. They want at once to run
it in cotton till it will not pay any
more.
He IS going at cotton growing in the
right way as part Of a rotation of
crops. Here and there, all over the
South. we find men OF intelligence who
are making fertile and productive
farms and using modern implements.
And Yet, we are e~verlaStingly told
that We nay no sympathy for the one
horse farmer. Now, in 1865 + was
poorer, [ suppose. than any tenant to-
day in the South. I rented a farm
and went in debt for two horses and
for everything else, and I made good,
too. and l do not believe that any
man with health and energy in the
South cannot get two horses II he
will. | Synapathize with the one
horse tenant, and want him to get
out of that class, but [ do not pity a
young healthy man who is content to
be q one-horse farmer and has no
ambition to get into a better shape.
My sympathy is with the man who is
struggling for better things and trying
20 climb into better class in farm
ing. Rather than struggling along as
a tenant crOpper, carried by some one,
l had far rather work for wages Tor
some one else and save money till ]
could farm in better shape. The crop
ping system in the cotton country is
ruinous to the owners of the land and
the tenants alike, and both should
strive for better things. No amount
OF sympathy with the one-horse farm
ers will get them more horses; that
is a matter each must work out for
himself, and while we are willing to
DO all that We can to help such men
the greatest help we can give them is
20 help them out Of the
class.
What One Man Has Done.
In a recent letter from Mr.. Claren-
don Davis, of Huntsville, Ala, he
says:
i am sending you n of my Cata-
logs, thinking you may be interested
IN the work l am doing: especially
as You know L hay been following
your teachings faithfully for years. ]
KNOW you see your instructions re-
uectsd in all my articles that have
oeeh published in the agricultural
press; and in my article in the circu
Jar, Growing Corn Profitably, YOU
can see that | am following Massey.
III is not the big yields to the acre,
put the low cost per Isl for which
L am striving. The big yields re
ported have cost as high as 70 cents
d pusnel. Compare this with my cost
OF 8 II cents a bushel. or of seed
Eofh crlbbed at 12.3 cents per bushel.