The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1915-08-30
THE MARION FARMER
CAN LIVE AT HOME

Saturday a Star reporter visited
George Giles & Company's cotton gin
and grist mill and it looks like old
times to see a dozen farmers there
with their wagons, most Of them
bringing some cotton and each one
bringing a bag of that fine new corn
of which Marion county has a bum
per crop this summer, and this corn
was being ground into meal and
grits and it sure looked good and
made the Star man want some of it
made up into mullins or corn bread
with eggs in or just plain old "corn
dOdger" or ''hoecake."
This sight moves US to say that the
Marion county farmer is sure well
fixed as far as living goes and he is
not only independent of war condi-
tons but is mighty near independent
of the whole world.
These same men have on their
farms this year an abundance of
corn, and it can be made up into all
kinds of breadstuffs and fed to the
stock, and there is now to be cash
market in Ocala for this corn. For
two months in the summer we had de-
licious green corn for the table. This
farmer has chickens and eggs and
butter and milk and sells, as many
do, the surplus from both; he has the
best and most sweet potatoes that he
has ever raised, and there isn't many
things better to eat-this scribe likes
them three times a day. He has his
sugar cane patch and either he or
his neighbor cane mill for grinding
and a kettle for boiling the juice into
syrup, and he can make some fine
favored brown sugar from it, if he is
inclined. He has pumpkins and kerr
shaws, field peas and onions, and
there have been more onions raised
than ever before. He has a collard
patch, perhaps, and is now planting
or preparing to plant his fall garden
with all of the harder vegetables.
A little later on he will kill lot of
pork and put up his lard and cure a
number of hams and shoulders, all
three of which he will find a ready
market for the surplus. His pork
will be cured in the cold storage
plant of Taylor Bros. at Ocala, and
there is a ready sale for the meat.
He may have a number of beef
cattle to slaughter and there is never
day that he cannot sell the meat in
Ocala at fair price.
On his farm he has now almost
ready to harvest a field of peanuts
and in this as well as most other crops
the yield has been heavy. He car
sell these for cash and he can fatter
his hogs on what is left in the ground
and besides save lot of peavine hay
His velvet bean field is coming OF
and will be gathered later on. The
vines give promise of a record break
ing crop in this profitable product
He will fatten his cattle and hogs OF
what is left in the field and there i!
a ready cash demand for every bushe
that he can save.
Possibly he had a fair oat crop il
the spring and this is not yet all fee
up, but he supplemented it with f:
barn full of corn "fodder" and is nov
saving a few tons and some of then
many tons of crab grass, peavine o.
beggar weed hay, and the yield in al
of the hay or forage crops has beer
phenomenal, and the weather wa
ideal during the haying time.
Many of the farmers have, and al
should have, fields of cotton, SOM
large and some small, and this is be
ing picked now and brings cash 70
the necessary things that are no
raised on the farm.
Oh, yes; the Marion county farmer
are all right, and getting "more so
every year, and God speed the da.
when they will give more attention t,
the growing of staple crops, stock an,
poultry raising than to trucking 70
the northern markets and they vii
be far better off, take it year aftei
i wear and as indeuendent as a wood