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FARMERS SHOULD
NOT BE FOOL SD
Sudden Rise In Cotton Price
Is Only a Snare.
NESBITT’S WARNING NOTE
Commissioner of Agriculture Exposes
tbe Old Game That Is Being Played
to Induce Planting of a Big Crop.
An Appeal For Diversification and
Smaller Area.
Department or Agriculture,
Atlanta, March, 1,1898. ’ ‘
COTTON.
It is to be hoped that no sensible
fanner will be misled into the oft re
peated mistake of planting a ruinously
heavy cotton crop, by the recent expected
and predicted rise in the cotton market.
Surely that game has been played often
enough and we have learned its mean
’ ing!
Concentration should always be the
watchword among farmers, that is, the
aim should be to cultivate only so much
land as we can thoroughly manage, and
from which we can obtain the largest
yield at the smallest cost. But just now,
it is even more important than usual,
that we do not waste our time and
money and weaken our strength by
spreading out our farm operations over
a larger area than we can do justice to,
or than will pay expenses. Cotton plant
ing time is fast approaching, and the
price of cotton has advanced more than
half a cent! This is the usual pro
gram, and at this hopeful season of
the year, many an otherwise sensible
man, who has resolved on better plans,
sees in this improved price reason for
breaking his good resolutions. Instead of
apportioning a fair amount of his land
and time and labor to cotton and the re
mainder to the comforts and indepen
dences of farm life, he resolves to try the
all cotton plan again another year and
trust to luck, or his time accout with his
merchant, for the balance. By “all cot
ton” we do not mean that he will be so
foolish as to actually plant his whole
farm in cotton, but that he will give his
main energies and his best lands to this
v crop. How many a man is now taking
this step, thus preparing for a hand to
hand strugge against desperate odds
from start to finish? In his case the mi
nor crops, which mean so much to
family comfort, as well as to family in
come, must necessarily be reduced or al
together abandoned. The vegetable gar
den, the orchard, the dairy, the smoke
house, the poultry yard, all must suffer,
while the staple provision crops, corn,
wheat, oats, potatoes, cane, all must, in
a measure, give place to the predomi
nating, all absorbing, daily struggle for
an increased number of cotton bales.
This course is simply playing into the
hands of the spinners. The certainty of
a big cotton crop will not only prevent
any considerable rise in present prices,but
will tend to keep the market depressed
while any indication that the farmers
are determined on a reduced area would
at once send prices up. Cannot fanners
realize that they hold the key to their
own prosperity, and that success the
coming year lies only in a smaller cotton
crop and ample provisions for man and
beast? The little experience of the past
year, and the alarms now being sounded
from one end of the south to the other,
should surely warn him of his danger.
For his own sake, and for the prosperity
of the country at large, we trust the
warning will be heeded before it is too
late.
WHAT OUR CROPS NEED.
Our crops need three main elements,
nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash.
Different crops take up these elements
in different proportions, but there is no
crop that we grow which does not re
quire them in greater or less degree.
WHAT OUR LANDS NEED.
The crying need of most of our lands
is humus, that is, decaying vegetable
matter, by which we enable the crops to
appropriate the three needed chemical
elements to the best advantage.
HOW SHALL WE OBTAIN THESE?
The all important humus must be sup
plied from the farm itself in the form of
stable manures, composts, by plowing
under the various forms of vegetable and
animal matter, which accumulate from
year to year, and last but not least, by
leguminous crops. These, when prop
erly managed, perform three important
offices. They gather the unused nitro
gen from the air, deposit it in the soil,
and also help to unlock the stores of
potash and phosphoric acid lying dor
mant in most subsoils. They furnish a
crop rich in food constituents. When
this is taken off the land, what is left of
stubble and roots lays a foundation for
the humus, which every experienced
farmer knows, is the factor above ail
others which makes successful farming
possible. Having by such means ob
tained the necessary humus and nitro
gen it remains for us to secure needed
potash and phosphoric acid. These may
be supplied in part by deep fall plowing,
bringing up a little of the subsoil, going
deeper each year, and by the frequent
and fine pulverization of the soil during
cultivation, both of which enable it to
hold moisture and thus convert its ele
ments to the use of growing crops. If
when the leguminous crops are planted
they are given the necessary amount of
phosphoric acid and potash for their best
development, say 200 to 400 pounds to
the acre, not only will their nitrogen
powers be increased, but when the stub
ble and roots are plowed in, much of
these mineral elements will remain and
be just in right condition to be taken up
by the following crop. This is the most
economical and at the same time the
most profitable plan for our worn soils.
Commercial fertilizers, when used alone
on such lands, act only as a temporary
stimulous. The rotation, which legu
minous crops require, will gradually lead
to the diversified farming so much to be
desired. D versified, intensive, rotating
and economical farming is what Geor
gia and the south so sorely need.
R. T. Nesbitt, Commissioner.
INQUIRIES AND ANSWERS.
State Agricultural Department Fur
nish ea Information.
Question.—l notice what you say in
the February report about making use
of the corn stalks, which have been
wasted heretofore. Please give us a lit
tle more information on thia subject.
After the stalks are shredded how is the
fodder kept, and what is its feeding
value? Can it be fed to farm stock
without using any other “roughage,”
and is there any trouble in getting them
to oat it?
Answer.—After the stalks are shred
ded the fodder may be kept in the barn
or any dry place, until needed for use,
taking care not to disturb the mass,
for no matter how dry it may
seem, there is at first sufficient moisture
to cause a slight fermentation, and if
the fodder is disturbed during this fer
mentation monld is apt to appear. The
feeding value of this fodder has been
shown by analysis to be greater than
cottonseed hulls and nearly equal to the
best quality of timothy hay. At the.
Experiment Station farm in this state
this forage has been thoroughly tested.
It has been used there- for weeks at *
time as the only ’‘roughage” to the,
manifest benefit of the farm animals,
and they eat it readily. On the subject
of “Corn Stalk Hay,” we copy the fol
lowing from Bulletin No. 36 of the Geor
gia Experiment Station. These bul
letins are sent free to every fariner who
applies for them, and we would advise
you to address a card to Director R. J.
Redding, Experiment, Ga., requesting
that your name be put on their mailing
list. You will then receive all the lit
erature of the station, as it is issued.
Bulletin No. 34 says:
In Bulletin No. 30, containing the re
sults of Experiments in Corn Culture
made in 1895, the attention of farmers
was espacially called to the advantages
of the method of utilizing the corn stalks
for stock food. It is the almost univer
sol practice in the south to gather and
cure the blades, and harvest the ears of
corn, leaving the entire stalks in the
field to prove an almost unmitigated
nuisance and obstruction in the prepara
tion and cultivation of the land in the
succeeding crop; and winter homes and
hibernating retreats for insects that will
be ready to attack such crops, especially
if it shall be another crop of corn. Farm
ers have habitually considered this large
part of the crop as of no practical value.
Indeed, com stalks, especially of the
large types of com planted in the south,
are of little available food value because
of the mechanical condition. Even in
the north the old method of feeding the
stalks (“stover”) without any mechani
cal preparation was but little less waste
ful and slovenly than leaving them in
the fields. But the use of machinery
for preparing the the com stalks, shred
ding them into a coarse hay, is rapidly
extending. A number of very effective
machines may now be had at moderate
prices, that will convert the hard, flinty
stalks into a soft, easily masticated sub
stance, very similar in mechanical con
dition to coarse hay, that is readily—
even greedily—eaten by horses, mules
and cattie.
In Bulletin No. 30, already referred
to, the whole subject was discussed at
some length, showing by experiments
made, and by analysis that the value of
the naked stalks that are generally left
in the field, after harvesting the ears,
shucks and blades, amounts to fully one
sixth of total value of the crop.
Bulletin No. 36, published last fall,
says further on this subject:
The station has just finished shred
ding the com stalks from five acres of
com. The crop was very much injured
by the extreme heat and drouth, and
the yield of grain was cut off at least 25
per cent. The com was cut down just
above the surface of the ground Aug.
23, and immediately shocked, placing
about 150 stalks in each shock, and
tying the top of each shock with twine.
No rain fell on the shocks and the ears
were husked out Oct. 3, and the stalks
immediately run through the shredding
machine, being apparently perfectly dry.
The yield of the five acres was as follows:
Shelled corn 155 bushels.
Shredded stalks, or stover. 14,000 pounds.
This represents a yield per acre of 81
bushels of shelled corn and 2,800 pounds
of dry corn hay, which is believed to be
very nearly equal in feeding value to
good timothy hay. In the above total
yield of corn hay is included the blades
and shucks, which are almost univer
sally saved and utilized by Georgia
farmers. But there are also included in
the 2,800 pounds of corn hay about 1,300
pounds of the stalks, which are usually
permitted to remain on the grpund and
nonutilized as food. This 1,800 pounds
represents the food loss for every 81
bushels of shelled corn. The corn crop
of Georgia, for convenience, may be
stated at 31,000,000 bushels—sometimes
less, often more. Then, at 1,300 pounds
of corn hay, heretofore not saved, for
every 31 bushels of corn, the total loss in
the state would be 1,300 pounds by 1,-
000,000 = 1,300 million pounds, or 660,-
000 tons of com hay, a very good foed,
and worth at least flO a ton, or a total
of 16,500,000, or about enough to pay fat
all the commercial fertilizers used in
Georgia in one ysar! This may be con
sidered a remarkable statement, and it
will no doubt surprise many a fanner
•who has not thought about it.
I have replied to ytmr question thus
at lenghth, because there to scarcely a
•object of move importance to the fann
ers just now. The universe t practice of
shredding the corn stalks n ans a sav
ing of millions of dollars.- State Agri
cultural Department.
Fertilizer For Corn.
Question.—What are the best propor
tions in a commercial fertilizer for corn,
and how, at what time, and what
amount would you apply it?
Answer.—All things considered tbe
best fertilizer on our ordinary lands for
coni should be in about the following
proportion. Cottonseed meal 1,000 lbs.,
acid phosphate 1,000 lbs. muriate pot
ash 50 lbs., or 200 lbs, of koinit may be
substituted for the muriate of potash.
On lands almost destitute of humus,
that is, which have cultivated and re
cultivated in clean crops, we would not
venture to use more than two or three
hundred pounds to the acre, applied just
before or at planting time. The com
crop, more perhaps than any other, is
dependent on a supply of moisture for
its best development, and it has been
found that the direct application of com
mercial fertilizers does not result as well
as where these have been applied to a
previous crop, and provided the applica
tion be sufficiently heavy. If the ferti
lizer has been broadcast, as for oats or
peas, the succeeding com crop is usually
very satisfactory, although fine crops of
corn arc often made after a heavily fer
tilized cotton crop. As a rule, any for
mula, Which will analyze 7.00 per cent
phosphoric acid 1.30 per cent potash
and 3.40 per cent nitrogen, is suited to
com. —State Agricultural Department.
Hate Spring Oats.
Question.—l have a piece of land
which I think will make a good crop of
oats, tut lam in doubt about planting
it so late. Would the first of March be
too late to sow it down? And what
kind of seed would you advise me to
Use?
Answer.—ln southern Georgia the
first of March is rather late to sow oats,
but in your section, North Georgia, if a
quickly maturing variety, like the Burt,
is planted on rich or well fertilized
land, the chances for a satisfactory crop
are good. The great, drawback to our
oat crop is want of care in preparation
and seeding, coupled with the fact that
we generally plant our oats on our
poorest land. In sowing oats at this
season, our object should be to force the
crop forward to a quick maturity. To
do this plant the "Ninety Day” or
"Burt” seed, on land naturally rich, or
made so by rotation and manure. If
the land has been previously well broken
and the oats are harrowed in, so much
the better. But if time is too pressing
for this, then clear off the land, sow the
oats, about a bushel to the acre, and
plow the seed in, running the furrows
close and deep.—State Agricultural De
partment.
Fertilizing Cotton. .
Question.—Please tell me how the
elements in a commercial fertilizer af
fect cotton ? I mean what influence do
the separate elements, nitrogen, phos
phoric acid and pdtash, have on the
growth of the plant. Os course every
man who plants cotton would rather
have bolls than stalks or leaves. I know
the probable effects of certain qualities
es soil on the cotton plant. What I
want to know is the Separate effect of
each ingredient in the fertilizer, so that
I may more clearly understand how to
apportion my fertilizer to suit my differ
ent kinds of land—in other words to in
duce the development of well formed
and well filled bolls.
Answer. —Nitrogen makes weed or
stalk, it also has a tendency to prolong
the period of growth. If there is an ex
cess of nitrogen it often causes the plant
to form stalk and leaves late in the sea
son, when it should be developing fruit.
Phosporic acid tends to force maturity
and develop fruit. Potash will give
strength and vigor to the stalk. It en
ters hugely into the lint, and if in the
form of kainit, tends to lessen liability
to rust. The fruit forming element to
phosphoric, acid. Nitrogen makes stalk
and foliage. Potash gives strength to
the plant and develops the lint.—State
Agricultural Department.
Proper Distance For Planting Corn.
Question. —Would not a larger yield
be realized from the same land if the
com crop was planted in double rows on
wide beds, instead of single rows on nar
row beds?
Answer. Experiments have been
carefully conducted to settle this ques
tion, and the conclusion arrived at is,
that the more nearly each plant occu
pies the center of a square area of soil,
the greater the yield—that is, all condi
tions being equal, single rows 4x3, will
yield more than double rows, fix 6. One
plant in each hill, the hills equidistant,
gave better results than two planted to the
hill separated by longer distances.—
State Agricultural Department.
Hens Laying Soft or Thin Shelled Eggs.
Question.—Some of my hens are lay
ing eggs with soft or very thin Shells.
I cannot account for this, as they have
plenty of lime and grit in reach and are
in splendid condition. Please tell me if
there to any remedy for this.
Answer.—Perhaps the trouble is that
your hens are in too fine condition.
Hens, which are too fat, often lay such
eggs. Try shorter rations and * little
Epsom salts every other day. This may
be given in the drinking water. Let
them have green food, and plenty of
lime.—-State Agricultural Department.
*• Ctattta* rmt First Bam.
Manchester, in Adams county, has a
colored baasbal ulna that has been beat
ing everything- iu aoothern Ohio. Not
long since they sent word to West Union,
the oounty sent of that county, that they
wished to ami for a game with tfceeol
ored boys at that place. Although West
Union had no regularly organised nine,
the challenge was accepted. A team was
got together and put to practice.
The day for the game arrived, and tbe
two teams met on the fair ground* The
West Union boys had several players in
their team who had never been in a match
game and knew aa little about tbe rules
as they did about playing, one of them
waa Pete Johnson, a tall, rawboned darky,
who waa assigned to hold down first base.
Pete’s hands were as big as a barn door,
and when he opened them out it looked
aa if it were impossible for a ball to pass
him.
The game waa railed, and the visitors
took the bat. Tho first man up hit an
easy little pop up to first base. Pete got
under it. It fell plumb into bis open
hands, but bounced out and rolled to one
•ide. The batter reached his base. Pete
picked up tho ball, and, stepping up to
tho base, hit tho runner in the book with
the hand containing the ball and almost
knocked the breath out of him.
He stood holding tbe ball, apparently
waiting for the runner to vacate tbe base.
Presentlyhesaid:
“You’seout, niggah.”
"Naw, I isn’t out, nuther,” replied the
runner.
“ Mlstah niggah, I soz you're out,” re
peated tbe burly first base man.
“Naw, I isn’t out,” protested the run
ner. "I wuz on my base When you
touched me.”
“An you ses you isn’t out?”
“Course I isn’t out, man. You fro’ de
ball to de pitoher. ”
The umpire called out that tbe man
was safe, but Pete took no heed. He ran
bis band down into hie panto pockets and
drew out an ugly looking razor. Strik
ing a menacing attitude, he again directed
his attention to the runner and said:
“Mlstah niggah, I ses once mo’ you’ae
out. Now, isn’t you out?” and be opened
the blade of the razor.
“Yessir, yessir!” replied the now thor
oughly frightened runner. “I’m out—l’ze
out I” and he hurried off tbe base.
That ended the game. The visitors saw
clearly that they had no possible show of
getting past first base.—Ohio State Jour
nal.
The Political Secrets of Dr. Hers.
An opinion on the Dr. Cornelius Hers
affair has been submitted tome. It to that
It has been revived to alarm some illustri
ous Italians. King Humbert to to visit
Berlin on tbe marrow of the anniversary
of Sedan. Dr. Hers was charged in this
decade to negotiate the desertion by Italy
of the triple alliance. About £1,000,000
was to have been spent, £600,000 of which
was to go into Italian pockets. If he were
now to “reveal” what he knows, to would
be extremely awkward for some upper
most personages in Rome and for a few
living French statesmen. M. Spuller was
favorable to tbe plan of buying Italy out
of the triplice. He was such a plain, hon
est man and so well satisfied to live like a
struggling student that Ido not believe he
had personally any reason to be afraid of
Dr. Herz opening his mouth, but there
were colleagues of his who trembled.
In the present state of Europe Italy
might help to make the scale tilt over one
way or another. It would be more pleas
ant for Russia to hold her by revelation
made through Dr. Herz than by heavy
subventions. There can be no sort of
doubt that Herz was engaged in a mission
to Borne by a syndicate of French parlia
mentarians that included M. Spoiler. If
there were not a colossal motive for seeing
him, a committee of 80 of the chamber of
deputies would not have first sent two
members to Bournemouth and then pro
posed, because Dr. Herz required it, to go
there en masse. A most eminent diplo
mat—l shall not say what power ho repre
sented in Rome—when Hen was pulling
wires there onoe said to me that hie could
only account for different things which
came to his knowledge by assuming that
Herz had nearly detached Italy from the
triple alliance.—Paris Cor. London Truth.
Japanese Newspapers and “Devils.”
The Japanese newspaper, as described in
a letter from Tokyo to the Rew York Poet,
is a curious product of the borrowed civi
lization of the mikado’s empire.
Practically there is in it no telegraphic
news, and tho editorial articles are ingen
ious studies In tbe art of saying certain
things without saying them in away to
warrant the censor’s suppression of them,
for tbe minister of state for the interior
has power to suspend any paper when in
his opinion it says anything prejudicial to
order, authority or morality.
Not infrequently tbe censor has occasion,
to write an order for the suppression of a
newspaper, and when he does ft he is brief,
but wonderfully polite.
He puts tbe honorifics “o” or “go” be
fore all tbe nouns and verbs. Prefixed to
a noun “o” means honorable and ton verb
it means honorably. Similarly “go”
means august, augustly. So tho order to
the editor of the offending newspaper
when it arrives will read like this:
“Deign honorably to cease honorably
publishing august paper. Honorable edi
tor, honorable publisher, honorable chief
printer, deign honorably to enter august
JaiL"
Tbe honorable editor with his honorable
coworkers bows low before tbe messenger
and then accompanies him to the august
jail, chatting meanwhile of tbe weather,
of the flower shows or of the effect of the
floods on the rice crop. Centuries of breed
ing under Japanese etiquette have made it
Impossible for any one to show annoyance.
True to Bis Bringing Up.
A writer in The Indepsnent has discov
ered something rare—a donkey boy in
Cairo with a sense of the ideal. Most boys
of his’ profession are a good natursd lot,
but few are the vices they cannot teach.
Little Hassan, on tho contrary, seems to
have principles and is quietly stanch tn
his adherence to them.
Once he refused a cigarette, says tbe
traveler, and in my surprise I almost lost
my balance.
“Whatl Not smoke, Haman?” said L
"I thought all the donkey boys smoked. ”
“I don’t,” said Hassan, who looked
about 11, was short, very brown, very
scantily dressed, quite dirty, had only one
eye and trotted behind the donkey with
rounded shoulders and bead craned for
ward. “I don’t If I did, my family,
would beat me, and quite right too.”
“But who are you and who are your
family?" J asked.
“Ah!” be said proudly. “We ara Su
danese. In the Sudan we are rtriot To
smoke, to use wine, to drink coffee, nkt to
pray—these are shameful things, and if •
man does anything impure they hang him
to a tree with bis faee toward tho sun.”
AN OPEN LETTER
• To MOTHERS.
WE ARE ASSERTING IN THE COURTS OUR RIGHT TO THE
EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE WORD *CASTORIA,” AND
“PITCHER’S CABTORIA,” as our trade mark.
I t DR. SAMUEL PITCHER, Hyannis, Massachusetts,
90S the originator of “PITCHERS CASTORIA,” Me same
that has borne and does now ~~ on every
bear the facsimile signature of wrapper.
This is the original • PITCHERS CASTORIA, ’ which has been |
used in the homes of the Mothers of America for over thirty
years. LOOK CAREFULLY at the wrapper and see that it is
the kind you have always bought on
and has the signature of wrap-
per. No one has authority from me to use my name ex
cepf The Centaur Company of. which Chas. H. Fletcher is
President. a
March 8,1897.
Do Not Be Deceived. j
Do not endanger the life qf your child by accepting
a cheap substitute which some druggist may offer yo”
(because he makes a few more pennies on it), the in
gradients of which even he docs not know. . ?
“The Kind You Have Always Bought”
BEARS THE FAC-SIMILE SIGNATURE OF
f Jr n Jb f
Insist on Having
The Kind That Never Failed 7ou.
the cottaum qompamv. vs atwniMv •tmeet. mew ywmk drtSu ,
. ....
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Dally. Daily. Daily. stawows. Dally. Dally. Daily.
Tlopts 4«pm team Atlanta. ...A> 7»pm 11 team T«s»
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