Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-12-19
THIS FARMER
ONE Who RIDES
IN MOTOR CAR
uses BRAINS TO GOOD EFFECT
Keeps Eyes Open and Diver
sites His Crop

Clarence Poe, in Worlds Work.)
He took to his home in motor
car (and he has a right to run one,
for his net income in 1910 was $10,-
000), we got out and went into a
hall lighted by electricity; when l
fitted with an up-to-date system of
water works; and there was a type
writer on my friends desk, and a
telephone hung beside it.
had made his money farming! His
name is w. S. Cobb, county of Robe
son, state of North Carolina; age 80.
Eighteen years ago Nhe was an ordi-
nary-looking Southern farm boy with
eighty acre of land, two mules, one
horse and some one-horse plows and
just one thing else-plenty of pluck
Now he crops 900 acres or land
has twenty-seven horses and mules,
besides gasoline engines, a shredder,
a hay press, manure spreader,
gra n drill, a corn binder, a wheat
and the like; his ne1ghbors call him
Senator Cobb" for he is a member
of the upper house OF the general as
sembly) and he expects to sell $780,
900 worth of stuff this year.
Kept His Eyes Open. -.
The explanation is, of course, that
Mr.. Cobb had his eyes open tobegin'
ever since. He was not content to do
things merely as his neighbors did,
had done them.
Some of his land was very hard,
and he decided that he needed heavy
two horse plows to tear up the I'M
manageable soil. my neighbors told
me that | would ruin my land" Mr.
Cobb told ME the other day They
thought him set in his ways" when
he disregarded their warning; he was
but his ways" were ways of prog
as are those of so many people who
ploy and the local merchant who
helped him introduce his innovation
into the community seventeen years
ago now sells 5000 worth of such
plows a season.
and SO Mr. Cobb went on. He be-
gan to get the stumps out of his
land. Stumps use land and pay not
a copper in rent, and Cobb decided
that they had to go He also began
to ship truck crops to Northern mar
kets Deeper blowing, cowpeas, two
crops year-all sorts of progressive
ideas found favor with him He be-
gan to make money after ten Or
twelve years and he felt able to erect
a beautiful $4,000 residence, having,
of course, married in the meantime
And now, with his land cleared of
stumps and put in the best condition,
which was his first great expense,
with his house built and another
tract of land purchased, he is plan
ming to put up some thoroughly mod
ern barns, and to take up hog-raising
and cattle-raising is too long
headed not to realize that there is
no permanently profitable farming to
be carried on without stock raising
in addition to his ample supply OF
work stock and milk cows.
Watching The MarEet Carefully.
Mr.. Cobb is a fine type of the new
business farmer. Freight rates, mar
ket conditions, crop conditions in
other sections-he has all this infor-
nation at his fingers ends. Wells
make good profits on that CROP" he
said at one place as he rode through
his trucking lands, for our Jersey
competitors are ten days late" He is
as busy in spring with potatoes and
beans as he is in summer with can
teloupes and watermelons, and Swhen
the frost is on the pumpkin" Cobb's
corn is in the shock--several thous-
and bushels of it--and no other rarr:
in the community is more musical
with the songs of dusky cotton pick
ers.
um ~ Vwusmn ~ms