The farmer and mechanic., 1911-11-07

winter cover is losing time In getting
this humuS material
Whenever a farmer has given his
first attention to the increase of the
humus- making material in his SOIL he
has invariably found his land grow
ing more productive, and one or the
most important crops for this pur-
pose is the crop that keeps green all
winter, preferably of the crimson clo-
but in lack of that, even rye will be OF
great help.
Remove the vines from the sweet
potatoes as soon as the frost nlps
them, and dig the potatoes, if posi-
bic, en- a warm and sunny day, ana
let them lie along the rows to sun.
Then gather them carefully and haul
in baskets or rates and not piled IN
wagon body.
The later crop of Irish potatoes
can be stored in heaps in the field
covered we'll with soil. Carrots. pars-
nips and 50 lsify are all better left in
the rows where they grew, and Will
be all the better for the frost. Col
lards and cabbages will be all right
till December, and then the heads
should be turned to the north and
the soil mounded over the stem and
the lower part of the head.
If you have peas that you do not
want to save as hay, turn them un-
der and SOW the land in rye as a win
ter cover. Do not let the peas stand
and blow away, but bury them, and
then in spring turn the rye under and
the decayed pea vines will ue brought
up where they will do good.
Something to Take the Place OF
Cotton
1 am still getting letters from farm
ers in the Gulf States where the boil
weevil has recently invaded, asking
me about growing black-eye peas and
lima beans as a substitute for cotton.
Doubtless these can be grown to some
extent, but the are products that are
more limited in demand than great
staple like cotton. California pretty
we'll supplies the demand for lima
beans, and it would not take a great
supply to overstock the market with
b1ack-eye peas.
Then for some reason or other Of a
climatic character, all the class of
Southern peas do not make as large
crops in the lower Gulf States as in
the Upper South, and the large lima
beans are unproductive from Mary
land southwark as compared with the
Middle and Northern States and Cali
fornia. The most productive of the
large limas is the thick-seeded potato
lima known as Dreer's lima. A new
dwarf form of this bean, Burpee's
Fordhook, is the best l have ever
grown, and may succeed in the South
The small lima or Sieva bean has al
ways been more successful in the
South than the large lima But, as I
have suggested, these are trucking
crops rather than farm crops. and
cannot be produced profitably on a
large scale.
Then l do not think that it is wise
to throw up the sponge and say that
we can not grow cotton, for in the
older infested regions Of Texas and
Louisiana they are overcoming the
difficulty and getting fair crops Of cot
ton with early maturing varieties, a
rotation of crops and burning infested
bolls.
But admitting that in the more
Northern-infected region the farmers
! will have to abandon cotton. why rush
I to speculative crops Of uncertain char
acter? Why not go to farming as
people in other sections do where they
/ can not grow cotton? There are other
farm crops Of general demand that
| can be grown with success. Men are
/ farming with success with these crops
all over the country outside the Cot
! ton Belt, and the mere fact that the
farmers of the Lower South may be
compelled to quit cotton does not
mean that they should pick up this
or that crop of limited demand as a
substitute, but that they can go to
| farming with what they have always
/ called supplies crops that are
j planted in all sections Of the country.
/ There is no section ofthe country
where corn can be grown more sue
| cessfully than in the South.
There is no section that can COM
pete with the South in the production
of winter oats.
/ There is no section Of the country
! that can compete with the in the pro-
duction of crops for hogs to gather for
themselves and thus to raise cheap
pork.
/ There is no section Of the country
! that can compete with the South in
] the production Of forage from 1egume
crops and grasses, and there is more
| future in hogs and cattle and dairy
| products than in black-eye peas and
lima beans as field crops.
If you are really compelled to drop
the cotton crop, simply go to farm
e. l.