Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1915-04-02
FORWARD ON THE FARM.
(From tho independently

| (frOm inc independent
Dry farming means raising good
crops without rainfall. America re-
ports wheat grown on eight inch rain
fall; but South America sends word
that it grows good wheat without a
single drop of rain from seed time to
harvest. This is the new way they
get the Durum wheat which has be-
come so popular for bread making and
flesh producing.
Alfalfa is Il Moorish name; but the
plant was well known to the Romans.
Varro tells us carefully how to plant
1t, and how to make the most of it.
Professor Hansen has discovered yell
ow-fiered alfalfa in northern Asia,
many varieties of it, and he promises
us an alfalfa adapted to every climate
known in the United States, and far
Their north, up to the Arctic zone.
Forty varieties are under test inFlor-
ida.
America has lost one seventh of its
meat export during the past thirteen
years, but is still sending away annu-
ally more than S150,000,000 worth
Packers tell us that the decline will
go on, without a possibility of pre-
vention in the supply, both for home
use and for expectation. This cheer
less statement is Immediately met by
an announcement that the supply of
meat from our home ranches and
from Argentina will soon be more
than duplicated by importations from
Africa.
The average loss to our crops from
flood is figured out to be 100000, 900
year, not counting in the soil that
is washed away, or the wasted water
that ought to be used on every farm
as working power. Every farmer
should start out understanding that
! he needs for his own use every pound
of soil and every pailful of water that
Nature giveshim; his first problem
is to be prepared to prevent waste,
and utilize to the best advantage.
1t is not long before we shall see all
of our farms utilizing brooks, and
turning the wash into the brooks.
| or all the recent introductions by
the Department of Agriculture we
know of nothing to surpass velvet
beans, for their effect on farm life
in the South. These have been i'm
proved into the Lyon, the Yokohama,
and the Chinese. The Chinese bean
blooms earlier in the year than the
others, and natures its pods early in
October. These beans willclimb pine
trees forty to fifty feet, absolutely
loading them with strings of pods two
feet long. After careful testing the
velvet bean has been proved to be su-
perior to cottonseed meal for produc-
ton of milk.
The Department of Agriculture af-
ter organizing boys and girls clubs,
to raise crops, announce that the girls
had surpassed the boys in their zeal
and executive tact. That is saying a
good deal 70 rthe girls, for the boys
have beaten the old farmers all hol-
low. One Carolina boy two years
ago turned over two hundred bushels
of corn to the acre. A New York boy
now exhibits three hundred bushels
from singel acre of ground. This is
not only vastly ahead of what the av-
erage farmer gives us, but we do not
know of any experiment station that
approaches it.
If there is corner of the earth
not yet ransacked by our agricultural
department, in the interest of farm
life and production, we do not know
1t. The South is getting more advan-
tagc than the North, because more OF
the new plants come from semi-trop-
ical regions. Japanese cane is one
the most satisfactory of recent intro.
auctions. Altho it makes sugar, il
is not notable for its superb qualities
for stock feeding. Twenty seven tons
of green matter per acre are reported
where the very best yield of corr
nAt