The Prescott daily news., 1914-03-03
WEEKLY LETTER OF
 JOHN II. PAGE
Commissioner of Mines, Manufacture
 and Agriculture.

Commissioner of Mines. Manufacture
 and Agriculture.
 Planting season is almost at hand. The farmers have not had the advan- tage of much cold and freezing wealth CT, that is so helpful in killing out in- sect life and loosening the soil but the recent cold snap helped some. A good freeze about inches deep is fine for the soil. It is almost equal to fall blowing. We do not have this natural advantage like they do in Hi nois and Iowa. We need more deep fall blowing than they, and get less of. It is always wise course to prepare the land we'll before planting. Pull verize the soil thoroughly, where it is of such character as to admit it. Prepare the land for level planting and level cultivation, where your soil and surface conditions are favorable. Conditions sometimes are such as to require bedding to some extent. That is all right, where necessary: other wise not.
 Corn should be planted by the first of April or sooner, and not later than the middle of April. Your corn land should be we'll drained. If it is. the wet weather will not hurt it much. By planting in March your corn will have the benefit of plenty of rain. The drouth seldom hurts if it comes before the first to the middle of July. If your corn has ninety days the start of the dry weather, it is safe. No man should raise corn on land that will produce less than fifty bushels to the acre, under favorable conditions. If your soil is not good enough to do this begin to doctor it. You can make it so it will yield that much or more, if it is adapted to corn at all Re member that it takes just as much la bor to cultivate ten bushel- -the-acr land, as it does the eighty acre kind. Put some of your labor and capital in building up the soil for your corn. Do not plant corn among the stumps, where you have to cultivate by runn- ing around it with a single blow. Se- lect corn land where you can use the harrow when it is coming up, and the two-horse cultivator later on. Select your land and prepare it for corn so you can use altogether improved ma chinery and improved methods in cul- tivating Otherwise it is not going to pay you to raise corn, yet corn should be your foundation crop. First corn, then hay and forage. Have plenty of corn for all purposes, and propor- tion all other crops accordingly.
 Raise corn to feed stock. Raise pastures to save corn. Raise hay, peas, etc, to go with corn to make a balanced ration. Then get good males and raise plenty of good grade stock to eat it all, and if you have any land or time to spare you might put it in raising cotton as surplus and money crop. Do not plant cot ton on land that will not make 1000 pounds to the acre in good season. It will not pay. If the land won't yield that much, go to work to build up the soil. Put it to pasture, clover, vetch peas, etc, and turn under a green crop or two before you waste time trying it with cotton. The average yield of corn per acre in Arkansas is about 16 bushels, and the average of cotton is about 800 pounds in the seed At this rate the average farm CT with forty acres of corn and cotton would make about bales of cotton and about 250 bushels of corn. That is not enough for cultivating forty acres. By keeping stock and using plenty of manure he could make the same amount on thirteen acres, s in cotton and in corn, and have 27 acre for pasture, where the stock would be daily enriching the soil. A field put to clover and pastured all summer and turned under in the fall, will have to be poor land if it does not make a good crop the following year. If clover is not available use Bermuda or something else for pasture.
 JOuN IT PAGE