Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1915-02-12
Pigs Rooted Him Out of Debt.
(FrOm the Kosciusko courier.)

| have sold from two hundred
to three hundred dollars worth of
pork every year since 1894.
l have been asked lots of times
If | raised any cotton and my
every answer was ''yes." l raise
from six to ten bales every year.
In 1904 we raised eleven bales
and sold our usual amount of pork,
and run only one plough after the
crop was planted and a child thir.
teen years old did the ploughing.
| thought at the beginning of this
year | could plow through crop
time, but my health failed.
In 1911 it occurred to me by
what / had read in the Progressive
Farmer that could SOW peas foR
my hogs and improve my land at
the same time. l had a field OF
six acres that was too poor to make
paying crops but l had planted it |
to oats and peanuts for my hogs
for years. That year (1911) II
sowed it to cow peas, applying |
three hundred pounds of sixteen |
per cent phosphate per acre, max.
ing three different sowings of peas
the first On May 18th and the rest |
when the land was too wet to plow |
in other crops, finishing July 1st,
l sowed one oushel Of peas to the
acre. When the pods on the first
sowing began to turn yellow, l
turned IA head of hogs in this
field, this being on or about the
twelfth day of August.
On the twelfth day of October
our county agent, Mr.. Bailey, was
at my home and was telling him
about them. He wanted to see
them. They had just about clean
ed up the peas. When / first turn
ed them on the pea field I think
they would have averaged fifty
pounds each, and when taken off
the peas their average weight was
one hundred and fifty pounds.
/ then turned them on some pea.
nuts with other hogs and began
killing and selling. The last ones
weighed three hun6.>d and three
pounds. That yearo1 sold three
hundred dollars rrcr'h Of por..;; g..
kept fifteen hundred or two thou
sand pounds on the place.
In 1912 l planted that same six
acre field in peas again for my hogs,
giving it the same treatment as be-
fore. This being wet year | was {
able to SOW in addition ten or fif- :
teen acres more at different times,
30 my hogs had plenty and some !
to spare. | cut enough pea vine i
nay to winter twenty head of cat I
5le. Nearly all the plowing for I
jhese crops was done when too wet I
20 plow ordinary crops. :
In 1913 | planted the six acres
n cotton, applying the same ferti, I
izer as for peas. In spite of the r
)oll weevil we made four bales on r
his field and one acre is too wet 7
or cotton. This land was Flowed +
With a two horse pillow, going nine y
inches deep. All these years, be. i
ides hogs, l have grown as much i
otton as any one to the force. 9
This is how got out of debt b
md stayed out. Hogs have en- i
'bled me to pay for four hundred i,
'cres of land, rear thirteen chill, il
Iren and build me very good i,
lome. / placed in the bank at o
ethel, Miss. in 1913 money n
nough to last me two years and e
f | had what others owe me | +
ould 60 on for five or six years G
yithout cotton.
What I have said along this line G.
J not done in a boasting spirit, o
ut think it might be a help to i
ONE one who is in debt and wants "
D get out. Yours truly, o.