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8 i wra rm A SEMI-MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL Formerly the ‘‘Georgia Stock and Agricultura Journal.” Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office in Atlanta, Ga. HENRY W. GRADY, I J. R. HOLLIDAY Founder, | Sec'y and Treas. C. C. NICHOLS, - - B usi nets Manager SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $1 A YEAR. In clubs of five, - - 75 cents each. ADDRSS ALL MAIL TO THE SOUTHERN FARM, onstitution Building, ATLANTA, GA APPLYING BULKY MANURE. I will have 60 tone of stable and oow manure and about 100 four horse loads of well retted oak leaves raked up. I want to put it all under 30 acres of cotton in ’94, with some commercial fertilizer. The haul will be short. I want you to tell me the cheapest way to handle it for the best results. Will running a two-horse sub-soil plow in drills add to the yield of cotton? The land is sandy with red clay sub-soil. Will make 800 to I,oo© lbs. cotton per acre, with 100 pounds of guano. Chester Co., S. C. H. T. The plan that we would advise you to pursue is as follows: Lay off the land at three feet after plowing, with a narrow but long turn-shovel, list on this first furrows; then haul out the manure during December or January in a wagon or cart, the latter is pref erable, and scatter the manure with big shovels or forks all along this list —the manure falling as evenly as pos sible in both the furrows &along the list. Sixty tons of such material will be very slight manuring for 30 acres of land. It will be more appropriate to put such a quantity on 15 or even 10 acres. From time to time as a section Is completed, threw two more furrows to the list, leaving the land almost com pletely bedded out. If it is light sandy land, all that will be necessary to do at planting time is to run a har row along these beds, open a furrow and plant. If grass and weeds spring up on the beds to any considerable ex tent before planting time, of course the beds will have to be re-plowed just before time to plant, but this re plowing will only insure a heavier and more easily cultivated crop. We should never put such manure as you describe in the one furrow right under the seeds. The double furrow plan is much the best and it involves but a little more labor than the common plan. If the sub-soil is heavy and lies close to the surface, running a sub soil plow in the first furrow will prob ably increase the crop somewhat above the cost. For cotton there is such a thing as having the soil too loose and porous, and one must be governed by the character of the soil. There is no profit in subsoiling flight sandy soil. This kind of soil generally needs the roller rather than the subsoiler THE DUTY OF SUBSCRIBERS— THE ARTICHOKE. It is the duty, and should be the pleasure, of every reader of The Southern Farm to do all he can con sistently to increase the circulation of the same. When a man causes his brother farmer to subscribe to a good agricultural paper like The Southern Farm he confers a great favor that will be duly appreciated by his broth er, and will probably do much in the course of time in promoting the pub lic good, which should be the chief consideration with every man. The amount of good that might thus be done,if every reader would do his duty, is very great indeed, and it can be done without loss or inconvenience to anyone. Now let every reader consider this matter in connection with the great scriptural injunction, “As you have opportunity do good unto all men,” and I have no doubt the circulation of The Southern Farm will be doubled in a short time, and an amount of good done that is incalculable. Every writer so far as I know prsises th* Artichoke. It ii one of our most valuable crops. An acre of Artichokes is worth at least two of corn. It can be planted in the Fall or Winter and made with one plowing. It will carry hogs from October to April, and is no doubt one of our best crops for enriching land when con sumed on the ground where it is grown. If seed is scarce the tubers may be out to a single eye like the Irish pota to. I have a crop now that was pro duced from single eyes planted early in March and never ploughed, that astonishes all who examine it. Now be sure to remember your duty in regard to getting new subscribers. Lincoln, Ala. A Farmer. No Apology for Asking Questions. ’An Alabama Correspondent makes the very great mistake of apologizing for sending us several interesting and suggestive questions. We beg to re peat what we have said several times before that next to a good sensible article upon some subject relative to the work of the Farm, Garden or Or chard, we like to receive a suggestive question or two relative thereto. We hope H. 8., will not apologize again for doing us a favor. We need to question one another just now as to plans and processes for the coming year. And we want all the encouraging helpful words from as many members of “The Southern Farm Club” as possible this winter. These long winter nights afford abundant time for writing out farm experiences, a statement of which will interest a fellow farmer. Draw your table up before the fire, take out your writing pad or tablet, sharpen your pencil and give us some of the useful facts you have gleamed in the past few years. Among our many thousands of subscribers and readers surely there are several hun dred who are willing to be active members of the Farm Club who will find much pleasure in asking and an swering to various questions sugges ted by their farm life and experiences. Let us number you as one of these. Among several subjects suggested for discussion in December is the one of Pork Raising. We would be glad to have your views upon this inter esting question. Have you made any money raising cotton this year? We doubt it, still prove it if you can. We trust you have, but are afraid you have not. Strike out boldly for better things another year. Sow plenty of oats be tween now and March. Make up your mind to have better pastures and meadows. Make arrangements now to plant sugar cane next year. It may be that a few acres of tobacco will be a good thing. Anyway sow plenty of oats. It matters not how much a man makes at farming or anything else if he does not properly economize what be makes. There never was a time when economy was more imperatively demanded than it is now. Waste nothing. Put every dollar you can in bank. Save every ear of corn; every blade of grass; everything you possi bly can. We are not out of the woods yet by a good deal. Keep up a good heart and do the very best you can. ALFALFA OB LUCERNE ON FINE LANDS. I would like to know of some one who is growing Alfalfa on pine lands. Abbeville, Ga. A. K. F. If any of our readers hhve .estab lished a Lucerne meadow we should be glad to have him report his experi ence for the benefit of A. K. F. If the land has a good subsoil per miable, and the upper soil is fairly rich there is no reason why Alfalfa should not prove a success on “pine land.” If the soil is put in a fine state of preparation in the fall, plow ing in a liberal quantity of softie good fertilizer that contains no grass or weed seeds and using at least 25 pounds of good seeds that are rolled in. Then do not be in too great a hurry to take the first crop, but let it get well established, even waiting ten months before making the first cutting. If one could wait fifteen months it would be all the better. THE SOUTHERN FARM AN APPEAL TO OUR FRIENDS. You are a subscriber to the South ern Farm, and you know by expe rience that its teachings are to be re lied on, and its general matter far ahead of that of other papers of its class. It is a semi-monthly, and its pages are fu” to the brim of useful and in teresting matter. The price is exceed ingly low compared with the value of the paper. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if our subscription list is increasing rapidly even during these hard times. Every mail brings us hundreds of new subscribers and renewals, and it looks now as if we will have no trouble in getting 50,000 subscribers on our list this winter. We can do this easily if you will only help us. This is not intended for our other subscribers; it is a directap peal to YOU. Ten minutes work any day in the week will enable you to get us one new subscriber. You have on ly to say a good word for the Farm, show a copy, and the work is done. If you will only do this, you cannot imagine how grateful we will be. It costs you nothing and it benefits us immeasurably, and will not only enable us to make a bet ter paper, but will increase our facili ties for doing good by enlarging our audiance. The Southern Farm is a farmer’s paper. It is a paper for the fathers, the mothers, the small children, and the grown up boys and girls. Eight pages of each issue are devoted ex clusively to farm news. The balance is given up to household matters, literary features, stories of adventure and topics of general interest. Every department of The Farm is carefully edited by experts in their particular lines, and no better paper is publish ed anywhere. It was founded by tlenry W. Grady and is published by Southerners who know what the Southern readers demand. From the first to the last page of each issue the paper is one of which any section may well be proud. It remains for the Southern people to show their appre ciation of such a venture by patro nizing it, which they can do at a smaller expense than similar papers in others sections will cost them. In this issue we start “Between Midnight and Dawn,” a continued story of absorbing interest. No bet ter serial has ever been written. It charms the attention of the reader at the outset, and holds it completely throughout. As we do not keep back numbers, it will be well to get your friends to subscribe at once so as to get the first chapters of this magnificent serial. You should also be careful to send in your own re newals in time, so as not to miss a single number. Our club rate with the Weekly Constitution of $1.25 for both Southern Farm and Constitu tion one year should assist you great ly in getting us a new subscriber. All you have got to do is to find a man who takes the Constitution. Tell him to add twenty-five cents extra and let you send the amount to us and he can get both the Southern Farm and The Constitution. Almost any man you meet who wants the Con stitution for a year will not hesitate to pay twenty-five cents extra for the Southern Farm, and in addition to receiving both papers he will be entitled to one guess at our green coffee contest. If you can use sample copies to advantage, let us know and we will send them to you. If you will get us up a club of five sub scribers we will send you The South ern Farm one year free. Our price for The Farm alone in clubs of five is 75 cents each. There is no reduction on the clubbing price of $1.25 for the Constitution and Southern Farm, no matter how many subscribers are sent at one time, as this price is less than the actual cost of the papers. We will be exceedingly grateful to you if you will get us up a club of five, but we only ask you for one new sub scriber. Won’t you get it for us? We will allow you one guess at our green coffee contest for every new subscriber sent in, and will also allow the subscriber one guess. In Cuba, etiquette requires that a re quest from one smoker to another for a light must always be honored. SPINACH AS A SOUTHERN UROP. 1 see mention of spinach as a good crop for “greens.” Will you please tell me if it would probably pay to grow it in Chatham county to supply a local market and ship any surplus. A. B. M. Spinach stands at the bead of the list of salad plants —those used for greens. All cultivated tastes demand it in the early spring. It is easily grown in the South, but whether you could mar ket it to advantage we cannot say. For the early spring crop it is sown like turnips in October and as late as November. On rich land it yields cutting very soon after the cold weather has past. Get fresh seed and sow in 2or 2% feet drills and push the crop by frequent shallow cultiva tion. There is nothing superior to it as a boiled dish in spring. PECAN PLANTING. PJease answer through your col umns when would be the best time to plant pecans, and would you plant seeds or small plants. I want to plant 100 acres and want all the information I can get. W. T. U. Coldwater, Miss. During the past twelve months we have had much to say about pecans, but our correspondent may be a new subscriber. Our advice to W. T. U. is to buy fresh seeds of the Thin Shell variety and ofter soaking the seeds 12 or 15 days, plant three or four in a hill 40x 40 feet apart and a year later thin to one plant, leaving the strongest plants. Put stakes about the plants and con tinue to 4 plant some crop on the land. Cotton, peas or clover, and let the land accumulate all the vegetable matter it can during the next 10 years. Another Interesting Question That will come before the Farmers’ Club for discussion this winter will be the one of How To Maintain, if not increase, the fertility of our soils while taking one money crop from them an nually. A farmers’capital consists primarily of his land. Just in proportion to its condition of fertility may he expect to orosper. His land is his bank. If there is no deposit in it he cannot ex pect to draw on it. It will be ad mitted by every one who has consid ered the matter that no people in the world have been more reckless and regardless of the well-being of their soil than our Southern farmers have been. How few of them have exhib ited anything like a reasonable regard for preventing its deterioration from year to year. Its humus was allowed to become exhausted and much of it was allowed to remain bare and un protected a good part of the year. It became gullied and worn out with very little effort to protect it. Most of this land ceased long ago to pro duce well-paying crops of corn, or cot ton, or oats. It is late to call a halt to the de structive methods that have been fol lowed in this respect, but it is better late than never. It will be harder to bring back the land to a good state of fertility than it would have been some years ago before it had run down so low. A few good crops of vegetable mat ter converted into humus will soon put the land in condition to make more profitable crops. Peas, clover, of several kinds, grass along with a fair amount of stock must he the means employed to do this. What have you to say in regard to it? WEED FOR NAME. Editor Southern Farm : I enclose a specimen of a plant that I would like to know the name of. It came up in my pasture of Bermuda and now covers the ground pretty freely. Does it injure the pasture and if so how can I destroy it? * * * The weed you send is what is known as “Horse Weed,” (Erigeron Cana densis.) It will not do much damage to the Bermuda, but it does not look nice— that is all. Editor Southern Farm: I enclose a sample of grass that I would be glad to know the name of. It has appeared in my pine woods and I notice it in some places in the Ber- muda pasture. Will you be so kind as to tell me the name of the grass or weed. Is it valuable at all? The plant you send is Japan clover (or Lespedeza as it is commonly call ed). It is a genuine clover and a very nutritious food, in fact it will improve your land and furnish excellent pas ture. AN ACRE OF COTTON BROAD CAST. A correspondent at Seguin, Texas, expresses his intention of making an experiment with broadcast sown cot ton after the plan suggested in our issue of October 15th (Ist and 2nd col umn, Ist page). C. F. asks for further suggestions in reference to such a venture. As we intimated in our editorial of that date, we had an additional sug gestion to make to anyone who would undertake an expt riment in that di rection, and it is this: At the first harrowing of the cotton, just preceding the harrowing apply 100 pounds of nitrate of soda mixed with 200 pounds of fine bone dust. The increased crop of cotton will probably pay for this the first year, but if it does not, a full return will be gotten for it the following year, it matters not what may be planted on the land, but especially so if sweet potatoes are grown on it. With the above fertilizing even me dium land will probably give surpris ing results. Try it next spring. WEED FOR NAME—SID A BHOM BIFOLIA. I enclose a sample of weed growing here. It is relished by all stock and looks when growing like small plum bushes. I want to know what it is and all you can tell about it. C. D. H. Mcßean, Ga. The plants sent is known botanical ly as Sida Rhom Difolia. It has no common name. We should be glad to have you say whether it can be made into hay with profit, and how dense a sward does it make. We shall be glad to receive speci mens of grains that are being used in the several sections of the South. TEN OCTOBERS (RAINFALL). For the past 10 years the rainfall for October was as follows (at Milledge ville, Ga.) 1884 >69 inches. 1885 480 “ 1886 .00 “ 1887 533 “ 1888 616 “ 1889 165 “ 1890 559 “ 1891 .31 “ 1892 .29 “ 1893 110 “ Total. 25 92 “ Average for 10 years. 2.59 “ October usually is dry but now and then we have a wet October. Rid Clover In November. Sowing Red Clover in Ware county. A correspondent asks if Red clover sown on oats the last of November in Ware county would be likely to suc ceed. If the winter should be severe it is quite likely the clover plants would be heaved out in January. If the clover is not sown on the oats or by itself in September or early October, it is safer to wait until February, though November sowings do now and then succeed, but only rarely. Members of the Southern Farm Club are reminded that the work of the year is about closed up and they have plenty of time to write us about the experiences of the year. We have a number of practical, intelligent readers who have given us suggestions of value during the past twelve months. We hope they will put us under further obligations. We would be glad if every subscriber to the Farm who is engaged in farming would become a member of the club. It costs nothing. Dr. Nansen, who has sailed from Chris tiana for the purpose of finding the north pole, has with him a phonograph, into which his wife has sung all his favorite songs, and in whieh the little baby he has left as her only comfort has also uplifted his voice in a less musical manner.