The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-05-23

| CaS6 and IccQ you tHeIe, telling ..,
lust how much OF each bite goes
make muscle and how much is
waste.
Il have recently tested the matt
| of cheese. / have always had tho sgr.
that green cheese is not rood for -ra
stomach and that old and sharp che,
is better. We fed a man upon the ss-
ferent kinds and tested il, and .a
now know which is right
Fighting the Bugs.
Are you interested in bugs Wa
have a department devoted to them
which is studying all sorts Of ans,
for the good Of the people. W..
other things it is working ON .-a
Gypsy moth and the browntail mot.
which are now r~avaging the trees
of a large part Of New England. Tho.
moths were brought in from abroad .-
a scientist for the purpos of stuU..
He allowed a pair or so 70 get zoos.
and the result is they have ma|r-
piled by millions and are destrogIr-
the trees over an area of 10000
square miles. We heard that t.--.
were parasites which would EXTERN
nate this pest, and DR.. l.. @. Howar..
the chief of the Bureau of EntomoIoe.
has been sen to Europe three times
to find them. One of his trips WAS
to the Crimea, and it was there n.
discovered the moths greatest newE
We have imported it. Congress has
given US an ppropflauon 10 A-l.
out that pest"
Another interesting investieat5ur 70
continued Secretary Wilson. "|reEar,e
to the fever tick which has ruined tt.
cattle in parts of the South to the
extent of something like forty million
dollars a year. We looked everywhere
to get something to fight it, but failed.
At last we discovered that the ti.E
bred on the ground and that tne
young fastened themselves II tae
plants and crawling up them were au..
to get on such cattle as fed in tha
pastures. We found that they had
to reach the cattle Very soon or they
died. With this knowledge We gt
the farmers to divide their fields F..
the middle and put the stock on ONE
side. In a short time the ticks which
had crawled up the grass died Of star
walton. We now had all the cattle
dipped in a bath which destroyed th"
ticks on them, and moved them acro-r
to the other side Of the field. Within
a few days all the ticks in the now
vacant pasture had died the same
way, and that land was clear. Iy
these means we V already driven
this pest out of between ninety and
one hundred million acres of pasture
lands. The total area is about $4,000
square miles. 1t is equal to three and
one-half States the size of Ohio
Teaching the Boys to Farm.
Tell me something about the work
YOU are doing for the farmers' boy,
Mr.. Secretary" | said.
That is a big story" replied Mr.
Wilson. With the assistance Of the
States we are establishing schools for
the teaching of farming. and inn
proved agriculture is being taught in
the public schools. We are also do
ing a great deal Of practical work with
the boys on the farms.
You may have heard something of
the boy corn raiSers of the United
states. They are numbered by the
tens of thousands. The movement be
gan in the great cOrn patch Of the
Mississippi valley, and at the St. Louis
separate exhibits of corn raised in the
Older corn regions by as many thou
individual boys. These boys had
each one acre of land, which he plant
ed and cultivated after rules laid down
by this Department. Prizes were given
IN each district to the boy who pro
duced the most and best corn, and
the results were a yield which was
double. treble and in some cases even
i've or SIX times that which was got
before"
That was some years ago con
tlnued the Secretary. 1T was before
the boil weevil had begun to bite deep
INTO the cotton crop of the South
AS YOU know, cotton has long been
the one crop of hat section. The
planters have raised almost nothing
else. They have imported their hogs
and their hOminy, have bought mules
and other live stock of the North and
nave even brought in the stuff To feed
them- We wanted to make the South
seiI-SuppOrtlng, to diversity the crops
and to show what corn would do for
land. This has been accomplished
iafsely through the boys. We snail
soon nave loo, 900 boy farmers who
Viii each have an acre or more to cul-
1Nate after our methods. We had
more than 10000 last year, and we
rave already doubled tina number. We
nave thousands of Southern farme~s
mo are experimenting with corn and
thousands who are already raising il
OF the money they can make from
ne crop As a result of a few years