The Marietta journal and courier. (Marietta, Ga.) 1909-1918, 1911-09-22
AN HOUR AT BELMONT FARM.

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! dropped off the car at Belmon
Farm Friday and went over to look at
Uncle Gid Morris brag cotton patch,
and what do you think / saw?
Saw 'em picking cotton seed.
| Yes, sir. Four men were going
ahead OF the pickers and carefully
gathering the cotton from only the
best stalks in the field, and following
them came the regular pickers culling
what was left
Mr.. Morris believes in seed selection
as we'll as in deep blowing and proper
fertilization and cultivation, and he
has his own ideas about what a good
stalk OF cotton is. He does not want
limbs-he wants cotton, and l saw one
stalk on which the bolls were so
clustered that with his hand, which is
unusually email, he covered an even
dozen bolls that were white with the
staple. AS to the results of his seed
selection and intensive farming the
fact stands out that he will produce
this year exactly three times as much
cotton per acre as he produced ten
years ago and he has been known as
an unusually good farmer ever since
the war.
When | stepped off the car at
Belmont everything seemed unusually
quiet. No sign OF anybody. A Guinea
hen was 'potracking" over somewhere
toward the garden but that was the
only sound. Ny steps on the big
porch with its great round columns
attracted no attention and my knock
on the door brought no response. l
tried the side porch where great fine
ears OF corn were hanging, tied like
the strings of pepper that our mothers
used to hang up. Still, no Gid. /
felt that he was in there somewhere
and asleep 1t was a warm afternoon
and old men need sleep. / would be
brute to disturb him, so | started back
to the car.
"Take that road" said man in a
farm wagon, "go over back of the
house and you will find him"
And / did.
No, he was not asleep. He was out
there in the field, and so was every
chick and child on the place, as proud
OF that cotton as il the white bolls we're
flowers adjoining the lawn OF some
rich mans palace, and fair hands were
gathering it as a lovely woman would
gather roses from her garden. And
really, what is any prettier than a
snowy field of cotton, especially when
the price is going up, as believe it is
bound to do before Christmas.
\, x
Uncle Gid had Just finished going
over his brag acre for the first picking
That is the acre he planted for the
State Fair and he had gathered from
the first picking two thousand and
seven pounds.
81 have not gotten over half of it,"
he said, land shall get four thousand
pounds from that acre"
From another measured acre he
would get, he said, thirteen hundred
and fifty pounds at the first picking.
1t was in these brag patches that four
men we're picking for the seed OF
course they were picking cotton, too
but they were skipping all the stalks
that did not come up to Uncle Gid's
idea of good stalk OF cotton.
~ want cotton, not limbs,' is what
he says.
When Mr.. Morris goes through one
of his corn fields and sees poor stalk
he cuts off the tassle-stops the breed
right there,
Ten years ago we were proud to
produce a thousand pounds of seed
cotton on an acre." he said "but this
is the fifteenth Of September and
have gathered two thousand and seven
pounds from an acre and will get that
much more"
Mr. Morris has patch in which he
is growing cotton which he will enter
for the best ten stalks prize at the
State Fair 1t is very fine cotton de-
spite the bad weather that has been
encountered.
x !; \;
Uncle Gid is not what you would
call book farmer. He knows things,
but he has read the lesson in the soil,
and in the air, in watching results
and in the sweat OF bis face he has
learned what other farmers ought to
know. Once a distinguished book
farmer, who held a high State office
intimated to Uncle Gid that he didn't