Pocahontas star herald., 1927-02-24
Winter Farming In No Mans
Land

/ - @NC ~A-NAA -
Land
The scorching sun may parch the
earth and wither our crops before ma.
turlty Torrents way descend and
wash them away or leave them rot.
tlhg IN the field. But So long as "hope
springs eternal in the human breast
there Is no way of beating us out Of
good winter crop.
We are not affected by the icy biz
yards of the north nor the blistering
heat of the south. We can snap our
fingers in the face Of the banker and
the credit merchant, for we need no
backing nor supplies nor expensive
equipment.
All we need Is an empty nail keg by
the stove in Simpkins' store. just
lean back against the counter, allow the
muscles to completely relax, let the
imagination run riot The tongue will
act as safety valve and prevent any
damage to the grey matter.
| We had crop session a few days
ago that would make the Minneapolis
Board OF Trade sound like a Quaker
Injecting.
1t opened bout Q o'clock, a. m, a quo.
rum being present, we disposed of the
World Court, the Income Tax, Mexico
Nicaragua Henry Ford, the Charleston
prohibition, evolution, bobbed hair and
the Nebular Hypothesis.
After settling all those questions SO
satisfactorily that they need never
come up to trouble us any more we
started farming.
The first thing was to reduce the
cotton acreage 80 per cent. In less
than 10 minutes, by fertilizing and In
tensive cultivation, we had this land
producing bales per acre.
As this left us with more cotton on
hand than we had before, we decided
to cut the acreage in two again.
This left us with three fourths Of
our. land for raising feed, truck, fruit,
and live stock.
BY 10 30 we were shipping straw
berries to Florida and undersellins
her on her local markets. We wert
getting orders from Denmark for tur
nips and rutabagas. A radiogran
from Greely, Colo, said if we didn'
go out of the potato business at once
they would be compelled to do so. w
had erected gigantic silos and flleC
them with sauer kraut for the Mil
waukee trade, but the most stupendou'
thing we had to cope with was tht
hay crop.
Peas, oats, soy beans, cane, millet
sweet clover, alsyke, timothy, sudan
alfalfa and red tOp-the lightest yielC
was three tons per acre and much o
it doubled that.
! BY IL O'Clock hay had dropped Il
S1.50 per ton and no buyers. This
caused stampede for live stock t
eat the feed. A few went in for hogs
sheep and work stock. but the majority
jumped right into the dairy business
and by II 80. Jerseys, Guernseys, Hol
stems and milch goats were pouring
in by train loads.
a creamery was hastily erected on
the banks of Current river just below
the cotton seed oil mill, but having
no idea as to the vast quantity of milk
they would have to handle, the cream
was soon OverfiOwing into the river
and from this little oversight a queer
incident occurred
A bootlegger, in making his regular
trips up Current river, noticed the
ivory colored water and also that his
motor was labOring very hard and los
ing speed. Upon investigation he found
that the PROV was pushing heavy
scum of cream in front while his pro-
peller was churning up great balls of
butter behind. He dropped back down
to headquarters, anchored his boat a
little up stream and left the motor
running. Then statiOning himself be-
low with dipnet, he gathers the gold
en- harvest and loads il in barges as
II FLOATS to him.
All went well until a pipe bursted
in the oil mill and allowed the cotton
seed oil to mingle with the cream in
the river. So until the pipe is repair
ed he will have to market his product
as oleomargarine, but even at that, he
says, "it beats bOotlegging."
Hogs. having access to the water
between us and the gulf, are fattening
on buttermilk. captain on a fruit
steamer off the Florida Keys says the
Gulf Stream will now assay 10 per
cent butterfat, but some of those old
sailors are such abOminable liars that
we will not risk our own reputation
& for truth and veracity by voIchlng
for this statement.
Everybody is well pleased with the
situation except Simpkins. He says
that so much cash in the community
will just ruin his credit business.
Now, If some meddling legislature
doesn't pass law to stop farming in
futures, No Mans Land can soon feed
the world. Bill Jinkins.