Watson's weekly Jeffersonian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1907, July 18, 1907, Page PAGE SIX, Image 6

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE SIX Os Interest to the Wealth Creators THE FARMER DECLARING HIS INDEPENDENCE. A (From the Weekly News, Denver, Colorado.) The American farmer is about to declare his independence of the spec ulator of Wall Street, and the move ment has not been initiated a day too soon. - The farmer has worked and wor ried, and his profit has been small. The bad crop worries were all for him. He stood the loss alone. The speculator in life’s necessities can do as well on a bad crop as on a good one. We are glad to be able to tell our readers that the farmers have made up their minds to put an end to this system, and that they have gone- to work intelligently. Hitherto the farmer alone has had notliing whatever to say about the price to be paid for what he ac tually produced. Some man in Liverpool, some m il owner in the North, might settle t b e price that the Southern cotton grow er must take per bale of cotton. Some other man, thousands of mibs away, could settle the price that the Western farmer should have for his grain. The farmer alone had nothing to say about it. The railroads decided w r hat they should charge him. Banks decided what they should charge for the use of the money. Trusts decid ed on their extortions. Tariff build ers decided what tax the farmer’s wife and daughter should pay on their dresses. But the farmer was forbidden to have any say in fixing the price of his goods. This is to end, the work has been already begun in the farmers’ organ izations. This newspaper congratu lates the farmers, and greets as pub lic benefactors the moving spirits if the gr<at farmers’ organizations. The farmers of the country are the backbone of the country. They de velop the nation’s real wealth, which is the wealth of the soil. They are entitled to a full share of that wealth and of the national prosperity. By combination, by insisting on fair prices for their cotton, their wheat and their other crops, and by re fusing to sell the non-perishable pro ducts except for a fair price, they have already added tens of millions to the annual returns from the farms. They add tens and hundreds of mil lions more annually as their unions increase in power. The isolated human being, whether he be farmer or mechanic, is at the mercy of every form of greed and cunning. The farmer has too long plowed, harrowed, sown, reaped, sweated an ! fretted to build up bank accoun's for others, and pay interest on mort gages. We are glad that he has de cided, by union, to keep for himself and family, which means for the peo ple of America, that to which they are entitled. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. HELP YOURSELF. Don’t quarrel with others abo >t not helping the farmer when you are not trying to help yourself. Some farmers do a lot of howling and no work because they are to-j poor —they think —to do anything else but howl the calamity howL „ The man with manhood and plenty of grit and energy in his make-up, need never ask others to give him room; about all this roan needs is Io put his natural talents to work wrh a. vim and the world will give him plenty of room. Why all this talk about organizing the farmers of today when our dad dies and granddaddies lived better than we do without any organiza tion among themselves! Because, ou daddies and granddaddies produced almost everything they needed to eat and wear, upon their own farms ex cepting salt, sugar, iron and what little money, they needed then to pay faxes which, for these small item;, was not very hard to get out of h’s surplus cotton and other crops and stock. And now we fool cotton growers have, for 10, these many years, been trying to get rich buying all these things at the other fellow’s prices, and paying for them with our cotton also at the other fellow’s prices. We are compelled to organ ize before we can price our own cot ton. —Seneca Journal. SUGGESTIONS TO FARMERS. It pays to be amiable in the cow stable. Never strike a cow. Never speak roughly to her. Anything irregular affects the per centage of butter fats. Pet the cows; pet the heifers; give them a little sugar with the salt. Sugar will help to gentle any cow that is inclined to be nervous and wild. Try it. A new milker will at first get less milk from a cow that one to whom the animal is accustomed. In no section of the country should a poultry house be so constructed that fowls in it will be subjected to draughts. In buying a horse reject one with scraggy hips. They never do credit to feeding, particularly if also in the loins. The larger the animal the larger must be the sustenance ration, which must be deducted from the feed be fore the profit begins. In order to keep poultry it is not necessary that they be allowed to run around the kitchen door. The? will do just as well if the table scraps are carried to them elsewhere. Reject a hoi-se with forelegs not straight. They will not stand won,". Stand behind the horse as he walks away from you and you will be ah’e to notice -these defects if they exist. Good profit can be made on poul try raising as an independent enter prise, but up to a certain limit poul try, meat and eggs can be produced more cheaply on the farm than any place else. Oatmeal, boiled and made into 3 gruel and added to the sweet skim med milk is one of the best foods for calves. Add a little flaxseed jelly and your calves will grow like weeds. The draft horse has been in de mand in our market for many years, and will continue to bring good prices when other breeds are down in price. The amateur horseman will do well to bear this point in mind in starting in the business of horse breeding. According to a California prefes sor, fowls can be fal tened rapidly through the agency of electric light. Every three hours during the night the light is turned on, causing the misguided fowls to come off their perches and eat a hearty breakfast. This seems to be forcing matters a little too strong. Thorough drainage is something that all first-class gardeners and nur serymen put a high value upon. The crops they grow are often more than the first cost of the land itself. Hence, it is not uncommon to make drains on lands leased for five or six years, as the loss from excessive water is greater tha*i the cost of draining it off. —Southern Tobac conist. THE FARMERS’ CREED. More than 60 years ago Hentv Ward Beecher, the great pulpit ora tor, gave voice to the following farmer’s creed which possesses last ing qualities: We believe in small farms and thorough cultivation. We believe that the soil loves Io eat, as well as its owner and ought, therefore, to be liberally fed. We believe in large crops which leave the land better than tfiey found it —making the farmer and the farm both glad at once. We believe in going to the bottom of things, and, therefore, in deep plowing and enough of it. All the better with a subsoil plow. We believe that every farmer should own a farm. We believe that the best fertili zer for any soil is a spirit of indus try, enterprise and- intelligence. Without this lime, and gympsum bone and green manure marl and guana will be of little use. We believe in good fences, good barns, good farmhouses, good stock, good orchards and children enough to gather the fruit. We believe in a clean kitchen, a neat wife in it, a spinning wheel, a clean cupboard, a clean conscience. ROTATION OF CROPS. Tn rotating crops the idea is tc so vary the crop that the demandr on the soil will he different, it be ing now fully established that one kind of growth makes one demand on the soil and another something very different. Tt is very interest ing and useful to notice the way in which the various crops occupy the soil. The power of the root deserves consideration. A plant, like clover, for example, has great ability in gathering nitrogen, and another, like wheat, no power. The weight of roots varies largely in different growths. Clover has sev eral times as much roots as wheat, and the roots of clover are much richer in nitrogen than are those of wheat. On this account wheat fol lows clover advantageously. We have known this to be a fact so striking that twice the ordinary yield for the neighborhood was so produced year after year. In this way the yield steadily averaged forty bushels per acre. There are other advantages. By a good sys tem of rotating crops, the insect and fungoid enemies that prey upon the paiticular growths get starved out or seriously interfered with. This is based on the fact that each sort of plant has its own particular enemies. Such is especially true of the .plant that is above ground. We will be more impressed with the importance of the rotation of crops if it is remembered how much call each crop makes upon the soil. Thus, while wheat, say, takes 1 1-4 pounds of potash for every pound of phosphoric acid, potatoes take 3 1-4 pounds of potash for each pound of phosphoric acid. Potatoes grown continuously would exhaust the potash of the soil or of that supplied by manure, long before that of phosphoric acid would give out. The character of the leafage is so be taken into account also. The leaves vary in their season of active growth, and are both broad arid nar row. The labor element plays a part in rotation. Also the system is best suited for home consumption of crops and the return of the fertili zation to the farm. The practices of thousands of years all point to its importance.—Home and Farm. **• GETTING SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. Getting good, practical farmers to quit their work to go out and work for the Farmers’ Union for nothing is all that is in the way of spread ing the Farmers’ Union Organization all over our Southland in a very short while. This prevailing idea among farm ers to get something for nothing, or get cheap men to do cheap work in stead of getting good men at good prices to do good work is the big gest stumbling-block in the way of the progress of the farmers’ organi zation. It takes a big hook and a big bait to catch big fish and hold the game—and a small fly-hook for minnows. "V on cannot control the price of cotton unless you can control the men who hold the cotton. The cotton grower cannot prosper while others price all he sells an.l buys any more than he could pull himself out of mire by lifting at the straps of his boot legs.—Seneca Journal.