The Forrest City times., 1911-12-22
The Near Ends.

The harvest Is passed All crops. with the exception of cotton, are gathered and housed Winter with it's rain and chill has come, and fifty per cent of the cotton yet in the patch will remain there Winter days are short. Cotton must be picked out with the bare fingers, and work as you may from the time frost is of in the morning until evenings cold, during the few bright days that will follow. but little cotton now unpicked will be gathered. This is true of any year. and because of the present bankrupt ing price of this great staple of the South, it is especially true of this good year of l9ll
 The years work is closed. Starting out on the new year, ditehing the wet land is job for this time of the year. In summer the ground Is hard and the heat intense; now the soil Is easily spaded and scraped and the air is cool and bracing for this work. Some water is present by which you can grade your work and know IL Is effec- tive, in the absence of an engineer. Much money is lost in trying to work semi-wet land. Late plantings must always be made, and after that our rainfalls make it impossible 10 grow good crop. You have patches of small CT or greater acreage of these wet places in the farm that you should take out now. Tiling is best, but under ground board ditches will do the work until they rot and open. Ditching is far better than none and can be rapidly done with mules and scraper in open fields where tree roots do not interfere. Ditching applies to the bottom lands, but the work of leyeling or terracing hill land is just as important, to prevent its washing, and this is the time to do it. Our hill lands will all be gone under our present plan of farming them, unless change is made. Grasses and winter cover crops of rye, etc., will help to hold them, but they must be terraced if we continue their cultivation, otherwise they will become grinning gullies, to be turned into the abandoned field section, which stands as monument to our ignorance or want of energy.
 Take out the stumpS now. The l ground is easier spaded, the stump puller moves them easier from the soft earth and dynamite is of greater efficiency than when the ground is dry. It will cost you something, to be sure, but it costs you to break l tools on them, drive around them, and hoe the grass from around their spur roots. Besides, you cannot use cultivatofs in stamps, nor ten foot harrows, nor mowers, nor reapers, nor any of the improved farm implements, and that is the farming of the future We do not disparage the importance now attaching 10 the per acre yield and the putting on of compost, Of tree leaves carried in from the woods, but the per man income for the labor and the per cent income for the capital invested, is the real test of success for a business, and fertilization by fall breaking, with winter cover crops and legumes, and all turned under and cultivated with broader tools, pulled by bigger horses and less hands to drive, is, as l conceive it, the proper plan for spreading prosperity over the broad acres of the South. We can't run the machinery required to do this work in stumpy ground. Take them out.
 Repair up the barn. Board over the cracks, so that the wind can't whistle through. It will cut like knife the horse that stands next to it. Don't let "Pide" stand humpbacked under the drip of the barn. with strip of ice along her spinal column, and ex- pect her to fill the milk pail at night Give her shed.
 Fix up the fences while the frozen timber splits easily, and the soft ground makes the digging of holes a lighter task.
 Kill the hogs before the sultry, damp days set in. and have backbones and sausage for Christmas. Killings later than the first of the year are always in danger of loss of the meat The bright cool days of early winter are best