The Marietta journal and courier. (Marietta, Ga.) 1909-1918, 1916-10-20

with your editorial of Saturday the
| goth, THE Demand for Food Ami
mails" there are three conditions
absolutely essential to the success
full and profitable breeding and fat
tening of live stock, viz, good food,
good water, good health. These ed
itorials on the live stock industry
in the south are as important as
they are interesting.
Having been reared upon a lit
tie dairy farm in Canada, and ON
| which | have lived the last two
years, and being associated with
Mr.. r. F. Sheldon in the Sheldon
farms, where are raised, at Ray
| mond, Ga, the world-renowned
breed of Shorthorn cattle and Duroc
hogs, and am also associated with
Mr.. Jeff d. sung in the Muclan
farms, in Marion County, Florida,
where we are featuring corn, cattle
and silos, my active interest in
these farms has given me the oppor-
tunity of becoming somewhat a stu
dent of agricultural conditions in
not only northern climate, but in
our southern one as we'll | am a
firm believer in the future growth
| and Development of the south's live
stock industry, and particularly
that portion of the south embraced
| within our state and the states of
| Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi,
now so deplorably infested by the
boil weevil pest, which is destroy
ing the value of our farm lands for
the profitable growing of cotton,
and wherein which states our farm
ers must turn to diversified crops
and the producing of cattle, hogs
and mules.
II would therefore like to show,
if possible, that the three necessary
conditions above referred to obtain
| in these three states.
First, in the question of good
food. In the variety, quality and
quantity of admittedly the best
stock foods now in use we challenge
comparison with any section of the
United States. Alfalfa, the king
of all forage plants, and the one
attracting so much attention among
| the stock growers everywhere, is
now successfully grown in many
| portions of the south. Your readers
will be thoroughly convinced of this
by visit to the Shedden and Mac
Ian farms. Indeed, it was one of
our southern s-Mssissippi-
! that carried off the gold medal prize
| for the best bale of alfalfa in COM
petition with Nebraska, Colorado
and California, at the great expo
sition held in the city of st. Louis
during the year 1904. Encouraged
| by the success of Mississippi in
growing alfalfa Georgia planters
today are producing from three to
five cuttings, is the report coming
to me direct from twenty-five farm
ers engaged in the growing of this
! forage crop in different sections Of,
our state. This of itself constitutes
| a good reason on which to base our
faith in the future live stock indus
| try in Georgia.
Cotton seed meal, another good
product, now regarded as indispens-
able even among the milk producers
of Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, nor
thern Illinois, and away up in the
great dairy sections of cold Canada,
is exclusively a southern produc-
ton. In some respects it has no
equal as an animal food, and no
where can it be produced so cheaply
as in the cotton states of the south
only few years since, corn, the
most valuable of all food products
in the United States, reaching in
value the enormous sum of $1,72O,-
600, 200 in 1909, was supposed to
be confined to a comparatively mar
row belt embracing a portion of
Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Me-
braska, but today, strange as it may
seem, the southern states are I'M
! der favorable conditions and intelli-
gent cultivation and fertilization
| producing more corn per acre than
the so-called northern corn states
This in large measure is due to
the long season and plenty of mois-
ture. This season we planted on
our Florida Muclan farms 1880
acres in corn. Our average yield we
estimate at ninety bushels per acre,
and we are offered from Florida
grain dealers S1.75 per hundred
pounds f. o. b. our shipping station
1t is our ambition that Florida farms
shall before many more years not
only supply every local demand for
corn, but export hundreds of thous-