The Newport plain talk. (Newport, Tenn.) 1909-1939, 1912-04-25
DOLLAR CORN

In carload lots, corn is selling at
Memphis for So cents a bushel, This
means that those who buy corn for
consumption will pay rot less than
dollar a buehei. Southern planters
who grow cotton can not get along
without some corn with which TO feed
their mules and horses. These animals
cannot do effective work unless they
are, properly fed,
The high price Of corn is something
very unusual, and it may be that it
will teach the people of the South
valuable lesson. 1t is that they should
use their own soil for The production
Of things they cannot do without.
There are many hundreds of thous-
ands OF acres of land in the Southern
States that nnder proper cultivation,
will produce great crops of corn. The
people of the South have had their eyes
opened ITO tie possibility of raising
great corn crops. They are encourag-
ing the production of this most cereal.
Boys cora cubs in large numbers
have been organized and the minds of
the young are being stimulated in the
direction of corn growing. What has
been ccomplished by the boys in some
places in this regard has opened the
eyes CT their fathers. The yield of corn
per acre has been revelation TO those
who imagine that what has been done
was impossible.
Unless some are mistaken, the time
is near at hand when many of the cot
ton States will, while producing no less
cotton at the same time grow all the
corn they need in their business,
Those who grow cotton and pay
dollar bushel for corn will, of course
find tie high price of corn producing,
if it doesn't wipe out, the profit of
growing the cotton.
There are some yet living who are
able to recall time when Tennessee
was the leading corn producing State
in the Union.
There is much land under cultiva-
ton in the State on which it would not
be advisable for its owners TO make
anything like speciality of growing
corn. But there is much land in
Tennessee upon which corn is grown
and which produces perhaps not over
twenty-five bushels per acre, which if
properly cultiveted, would in a very
short time produce double that many
bushels, and do it with no greater out
lay of labor than is now necessary in
the production Of twenty-five bushels.
v hen land thus capable is thus Gull
tivated, producing only that number
of bushels, it is sure waste. 1t is a
waste Of time, a waste of labor, and a
waste ofthat which nature has given
man out of which he produces subsiS-
tence. 1t IS a part of the waste that is
adding year after year to the cost OF
| living.
It costs nothing like dollar BUSH
ell to grow corn it if cost half that
amount it shows something wrong
with the producer. 1t shows that he
is starving his soil, or that he permits
the grass ana the weeds to share the ell
ements in the soil placed there for the
promotion IF the growth of vegetation.
1t takes as much of this element of
growth to keep the weeds and the
grass growing as it does to keep the
corn growing, and there is not enough
of it for both.
Let it be repeated dollar corn is
not something that brings gladness
and encouragement to the hearts ofthe
farmers of the South who msy have to
bny corn; but it carries with it sug-
gestion which if acted upon without
delay, will end in the general good.
Southern planters and farmers, ii they
have not already done so, must know
that in successfully cultivating the
soil they must use their heads as wei
as their hands, their brains as we'll as
their muscles.-knoXville Journal
and Tribune.