Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1919-05-06
"BIe" PERCY GEORGE.
Dillon County Farmer Who Is Making
Good. =

Dillon County Farmer Who Is Making
Good.
The following from a recent issue
of the Country Gentleman, published
by the Curtis Publishing Co., Of Phil
adelphia, will be Of interest to the
many friends Of Percy George, a we'll
known and progressive Dillon county
farmer, says the Dillon Herald Of last
week.
when he was in school at the
state agricultural college at Clemson
they called him Big George, for he
was a 200 FOUNDER and was power
on famous champion football team
He gets his mail addressed to P. A
George, and he lives near Latta, which
happens to be in Dillon county, South
Carolina, which in turn happens to be
in the Great Pee Dee cotton section
a region Of big fertilizer bills and big
ger cotton yields. But this same P. A
George plays his farming game just
as enthusiastically with the velvet
bean as his center Of interest as he
used to play football with his all GEN.
tered in the pigskin sphere.
Mr.. George was born with a fond
ness for cattle and other living things;
he achieved cotton farm which had
a big thirst for fertilizers; and he had
velvet beans thrust upon him as the
best means to making more fertility
to grow more cotton, to make more
money, to buy more cattle. Hence his
nickname, and hence this story.
When we asked Mr.. George about
his velvet beans and his cattle, he
smiled quietly and led up straight to
a big lot where stood six great stacks
Of hay.
"See that? he said. That's milk
and butter and beef contraption. II
beats your silo. When have gather
ed the corn I cut the velvet bean hay
cornstalks, beans and all, and haul 1t
to these stacks. Each one contains
twelve to fifteen tons, and the six will
feed my sixty Hereford cattle at least
sixty days in the winter time.
I, Feed it to them? No; this is self
feeding proposition. The cattle eat
round and round these stacks. two and
a half hours a day by the watch, un-
til they eat them up early In the
spring. Then they go to my Pee Dee
river swamp pasture.
Mr.. George and his brother-in-law
T. E. Berry, have large river swamp
pasture leased for a long term oi
wears. and together they keep more
than a hundred head Of cattle. They
own Jointly five pure bred Hereford
bulls, and they are rapidly grading up
fine herds with a high class OF grade
heifers.
AS we walked among the pretty anil
mails grazing in yelvet-bean corn
fields, Velvet Bean George told us
some interesting yarns about profits
made on buying milch cows and hef-
ers and selling fresh cows and the
calves from the breeding with MS
pure bred bulls. But as Rpling says
that is another story. This is meant
to be a story of velvet beans and Here
ford cattle, and some cotton for good
measure.
Mr.! George plants his corn in i've
and half foot rows, twenty-three
inches apart on the row, with velvet
beans in between the corn on the
corn row. Then he plants two rows
of COW peas between each two rows
of corn, and you ought to see that
Jungle of growth in late summer OF
early fall. He uses the Osceola peah
because it sheds its foliage early and
Gives him a better chance to gather
the corn before he Is ready to turn
cattle and hogs into Craze.
The livestock, which has been In
the river swamp pasture SINCE early
March, are put on the cornfields TO
craze about the middle Of October.
They get their sole feed there until
Christmas, when. as sort of Chris
mas dinner favor they. are put into
the lots where the self-feeder stacks
have been made ready by cutting the
velvet bean hay from some OF the
cornfields. Coming from the pasture
in fair condition, the stock pick up
flesh decidedly during the two and a
half months of grazing on the fields
So you see, they feed : themselves
cafeteria style the year round. viewer
beans are one thing that a cow will
pick up off the ground and eat even
after they have lain there for weeks
and months. Great labor-savin5
scheme, eh?
Rut what about manure and the cot
ton, you ask. Well, no need to say
much, for, of course. there are tons
of manure in the stables and lots, and
other tons on the grazing fields, and
equally, Of course, cotton gets the
benefits. But George isn't cotton
crazy.
Blame cotton!" he said to me. III
I had a little more money I wouldn't
plant any cotton at all. AS 1t is, !
never plant more than ten or twelve
acres to the plow.
ION one field of twenty acres gath
cred last year twenty-one and a half
'bales-say, old man, you are not one
of these income tax fellows, are you!
i put three tons of manure per acre
on the land and just a little nitrate as
a top dressing. 1t beats your high
priced commercial fertilizer, to say
nothing of what make on my sales
Of livestock"
Labor Gets Great Uplift.-President