Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1913-11-21

have ever seen on grass alone we're
on a japanese clover and johnson
grass pasture.
Corn grows well in this section
when given q fair show and it is
possible to grow larger crops than
in the Northern corn belt. Mis-.
sissippi az a whole averages only
twenty bushels per acre, but at
the same time we have fields that
yield over one hundred bushels
per acre. This land has been
robbed for seventy-five years or
more and l am surprised that it
will produce as we'll as it does.
l have had good sized fields make
an average of fifty five bushels per
acre and smaller areas make sew.
enty FIVE bushels.
We secure excellent water by
drilling through this selma chalk
rock for it and at a cost including
the pump of about $3.50 for a good
well. The stock is watered in
many cases from ponds made to
contain surface water and are re-
plenished at every heavy rain.
The cattle in this prairie belt
are mostly grade Jerseys, there
having been here in the past sew
eral first class Jersey breeders, one
of whom, Mr.. Mahorner, was at
one time president of the Ameri-
can Jersey Cattle Club. These pio-
neers should have a monument
erected to their memory for the
good they did by impregnating
this prairie section with Jersey
blood. We had a dairy of forty
COWS on one of our farms in 1912
which made us ten dollars per
month each for four months on
grass alone, the cream being sold
for four cents per pint.
| have a neighbor that owns 256
acres stocked with these Southern
Jerseys and Jersey grades who is
making his farm pay him 800 per
month fog h.s own lalSr sn.F fsn|
per cent interest on what the land
and improvements have cost him;
this is after all legitimat eexpenses
have been paid. He has owned
the land about five years and
could sell it for double what it has
cost him. All the dairymen here
are making well with their cows.
The negroes make good mixers
when properly taught. They are
good imitators and do most work
well when they have a good teach,
er. They are like children in a
way, and have great confidence III
a teacher that is able to instruct
them and when he cannot he loses
out with them.
Mr.. J. Il. Evans, of Muldon,
Miss, which is in the prairie belt
about forty miles north of Macon,
has a Jersey dairy which makes an
average of one and one. fourth
pounds of butter per COW per day.
He has a concrete silO and grows
alfalfa. All dalrymen know what
this combination means. Mr.. Ev-
ans lives on his farm where he has
an elegant home with modern con-
veniences and predicts that the
prairies of East Mississippi will be-
come the Jersey Isle of America
before many yeaLs.
This South country consumes
large quantities of Northern butter
and we have a good market. l
know that some Northern dairy
men think fine butter cannot be
made in the South, but we have
demonstrated that we can, as the
Macon Creamery is making butter
that commands above Elgin price
and we cannot supply the demand
for it. When we will feed a part
corn meal in place of the cotton
seed meal we now feed, we will
make as good butter as is made in
the North. And why should we
not9 We can grow everything
that can be grown in the North,
except timothy and we have some
thing better than it in Johnson
grass. We get excellent water
from below this lime rock with
wells at a cost of $3.50 atthe high
est and in many places at much
less cost. We need only to pro.
tect our stock from wind and water
and we do that with lumber that
we buy at eight to ten dollars per
thousand feet at the mills which
are a days trip from us. l built
a barn to hold 104 COWS and 200
tons of loose hay with steel stan
chions and concrete cutters at a
cost of 1850, my time as archi-
tect and supervisor not being
charged to the account. The work
was all done by negroes and most
of it at seventy five cents per day.
i bpilt a plank franc structure