The Prescott daily news., 1914-11-10
WEEKLY LETTER OF COM
 MISSIONER JOHN PAGE
Bureau of Mines, Manufactures, and Agriculture, Little Rock Arkansas Must Raise Cash Crops as
 Substitute for Cotton.

1 have been taken to task by some newspapers and some business men for the expressions in a letter two weeks ago in which I said the farm CTS needed more aid and less advice about what to do. The space so kind ly given to me by the papers, 1 must use for the proper purpose, and con Isequently cannot reply to attacks made upon me. However, insist that the farmers do know how to diversity and need aid to enable them to do so The question is what to raise for a cash crop to substitute for cotton. Some will try one thing and some an- other. The peanut is a fairly good crop, they make 40 to 50 bushels per acre and sell for 75 to $100 per bushel sweet potatoes are good also, making from 75 to 200 bushels per acre and selling at from 50 cents to $1.00. Irish potatoes make a good cash crop, but | the market is uncertain. Cabbage makes another pretty good crop, but the marketing feature presents a pro- blem. The watermelon is a good cash crop if the marketing conditions are favorable. Sunfowers do very well, selling from to cents per pound.
 Broom Corn is a good crop too. The most reliable is winter oats, or corn. l A crop of corn, oats hay, peas, pota toes, pumpkins. and wheat, with a milk cow, some chickens, a garden in the spring, and good brood SOW, will insure a living for any farm CT next year. Arkansas has more acres of corn than cotton every year, so Arkansas is more of a corn State | in acres than it is a cotton State. The yield is good too, where the corn is well cultivated 1t costs too much to raise corn in Arkansas, far more than it does in the corn belt. There, they use modern implements and methods They use more horse pow CT and less hand power. That is be- cause corn is their. money crop and they raise it extensively. and prepare | for it. If we give our attention to 1t we can produce corn more protitably than they do in the corn belt. We can produce hay cheaper, and more per acre. We can raise cattle and hogs and provide pasture easier and longer. Fat cattle and hogs will always sell just as we'll as cotton. If the corn and hay does not sell. the cattle and hogs will eat it, and thus it can be convert ed into meat at good profit.
 The first step toward making a good corn crop next year it to break the land this fall and get it in good con dition. Flow about an inch deeper than usual. Turn under the stalks weeds,or grass. Then select good seed corn. Get it all of the same var iety, nice uniform ears, & to 10 inches long, not too tapering, with rows well filled and straight. Keep 1t in dry place, and before planting time take four or five grains out of each ear and plant in some wet sawdust, and see If the seed will sprout. Keep track of the ears and throw the bad ones away.
 Get some farm bulletins and read this winter. They will help you. Write me what you want and l will ! send it to you.
 Remember the hog. If you haven't | a start get one at once. Breed the 1 brood sows this month, have some green pasturing for them at weaning l time in the spring, and you can make them weigh 150 pounds in the fall. l hope the merchants will help the farm CTS along these lines. l know num- Der of bankers that will lend money 1 to the farmers to buy grood sows.
 JOHN. H. PAGE,