The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1914-05-16

taken advantage of these same eli
matte conditions which enable us to
grow a legume, restorative, forage crop
each year without displacing a money
crop.
My advice to the Mississippi farmer
goes farther than that usually given.
For a half century they have been
told to grow all the supplies possible
that are needed on their farms, but |
believe they should grow more of these
crops than merely to supply home
needs | believe they should make
money crops out of cattle, dairy prod
uc.s, hogs, peanuts, sweet potatoes,
oats, corn, hay, frcits and garden
crops. No one farmer should proba-
bly, make money crops of all these,
but of several of them at least. We
have had one money crop, cotton, and
we naturally want one single crop to
take it's place, but there is no other
crop that lends itself to a one crop
system as well as cotton, and if there
were such crop, we do not know
how to produce it we'll enough to put
our whole dependence in it.
! l have never known a man who
fenced in southern land, made any ef-
fort to start pasture grasses on it,
placed on this land native cows and
pure bred bull that failed to make it
profitable. have never known a man
who MIXED good dairy cows, grew the
! feed for these cows and used the COM
mon dairy knowledge available to all
In conducting his business who found
, it Improbable or who failed to in
crease his crop yield. / have never
on grade or native sows and raise the
, feeds for the pigs to Craze to find the
, business Improbable If he protected
them from cholera, which he can now
do. l never knew a man who grew
oats, either for hay or grain, and fol
lowed these with peanuts, soy beans or
cowpeas, for hay or seed, that did not
find the business profitable if he used
fertilizers wisely and cultivated we'll
I never knew a man who grew peanuts
as a money crop to find them unprof-
liable II he knew how to grow a good
crop. and put them Oh the market in
the condition demanded. l have never
known the man who grew a few acres
of potatoes, produced good crop and
put them on the market as the con-
sumner demands, to find it otherwise
than a profitable addition to his farm
ing. My advice is, if there be any
profitable crop of cotton, do not spend
all your time on cotton and end up in |
the fall with nothing. Nor do advise |
you to be satisfied with an effort to
make merely the corn, hay, oats, pea
nuts, potatoes, hogs, ETC., needed for
home consumption, but even before
and in preference to a diubtful cotton
,rop, make all these things for home
Use and considerable to sell. With the
,nly crop we know how to grow and
market made improbable by the boil
veevils, we cannot afford to put our
dependence on one crop, on one line of
arming, or on any particular Kind Of
took raising with which we are entire
Y unfamiliar.
But beyond all things, we must in
rease the productiveness of our soils.
we could grow so to go bushels of.
orn, or as many bushels of oats of
eanuts, per acre, these would be prof
table money crops and If grown in
rotation with legumes for stock !,
eeds would put our farming on prof
liable basis if we never grew another {
ound Of cotton.
The salvation of South Mississippi is I
D put her lands to work growing the
rops we know will do we'll. Not one
rop a year, but two or three crops /
year. keeping them busy every t
lonth. II we do this, and this alone, o
sing legumes as largely as possible
nd buying as much phosphoric acid :
, we need or can afford, there will be
D lack of food for our people and
Efficient money to meet our needs.
defy anyone to show me a man
the south who keeps his land grow 1
g crops all the time, care not
hat those crops may be, but especial
If they are grown in an intelligent
tation, who has suffered for lack Of :
cd or who failed to have money or
edit as he needed either. We have q
lffered because we tried to grow cot
n and failed, and in trying to grow
'tton had no time. energy or money