By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Charlotte Observer on Jan. 10, 1949
While most folks boast of much corn stored in their cribs as a future food and feed supply, growers of Moore (County) say that their acre yields were not so good in 1948. The reason is that the sunny sandhills, so beautiful in winter and so attractive to tourists, are not noted for their ability to hold soil moisture. When a long dry spell hits that section in the middle of the corn growing season, acre yields suffer. And that’s what happened in the Sandhills this past season. The quality of the corn is good and there is perhaps more total corn than usual, but there are not those high acre yields that have been reported from other parts of the state. The same thing happened to the peach crop. Clyde Auman and his fellow peach growers made perhaps the best quality crop that they ever produced but they just didn’t pick as many total peaches as they would like to have sold. But the folks of Moore are doing a better farming job than in the past. The dry spell in the heart of the growing season did not affect them so disastrously as it would have done a few years ago.
County agent E.H. Garrison checked around early last fall trying to find some man who would really compete in the 100-bushel corn contest for the year, but he found only two growers who had made over 100 bushels an acre. G.H. Purvis of High Falls harvested 118.5 bushels an acre and Wesley Dalrymple of Cameron harvested 111.1 bushels. J.L. Boyte of Glendon says this summer drouth cut his average yield to about half of what he has been making in recent years, and W.C. Nall reported his crop to be one-third less.
Incidentally, Gilbert Purvis, son of G.H. Purvis, won the junior corn growing contest for the clay section of Moore County with a yield of 114.3 bushels while Paul Cole of the West End Club was highest in the Sandhills. Each boy was awarded a $100 U.S. savings bond. Billy Flinchum was another champion for Moore County this year but he started in the role of beekeeper and was given a complete bee hive as a prize for handling the little sugar gathering insects.
Mr. Garrison said that one of the very interesting happenings in the Sandhill country last year was the adding of cows as more men planted alfalfa and new pastures. Homer Johnson and Blue Monroe, who live in the Springfield section near Cameron, are tobacco growers. It’s an excellent cash crop for them and they grow good tobacco, but they believe also that they can add to their income by growing some other cash crops, and so they are building milking barns and will milk four to six cows each and sell fluid milk.
Why? Well, Mr. Johnson puts it this way. “My tobacco just doesn’t provide all the cash that I need to have. Better still—keeping the cows will build up this land.” Probably Mr. Blue Monroe started the whole idea because he has been milking two cows and selling his extra butter and buttermilk for quite a while now. Just this little extra work adds about $20 a week to the family income—not so much, he says, but it figures right at $1,000 a year.
W.A. Tyson of the Haw Branch section will argue with you that his pasture is about the best paying crop on the Tyson farm. He seeded white clover and orchard grass in the fall of 1947 and kept his brood sows and his sheep in excellent condition all year from the grazing they secured there during this past year. Marvin Davis planted his first field of alfalfa four years ago when he seeded two and one-half acres. Since then he has planted another two acres. In addition, he seeded a test pasture of Ladino clover and orchard grass to which he added five additional acres this fall—just past. He has milked a few cows right along and grows some tobacco. But in 1948, he turned the tobacco acreage over to a tenant and is milking eight cows and selling milk, pigs and pork. He keeps four nice brood sows and has sold over $700 worth of pigs from the farm. His land is improving right along and, this season, he began to grow hybrid corn for seed. Since he produces about 96 bushels an acre on his sandy soil, he figures that he is doing very well. He says that the Sandhills of Moore are adapted to something other than tobacco, peaches, long-leaf pine, and tourists.
M.J. Davis, Fletcher Ritter, and Austin Wilcox, all of the Carthage section, are growing excellent crops of alfalfa, Ladino clover, and other livestock feeds. Fletcher Ritter built a new barn for his cows this past year largely as a result of the successful pasture now established. Quite a few men mixed rye grass with small grain last fall as a winter grazing crop. E.J. Austin of the Pinebluff section seeded 20 acres which he says is making some mighty profitable milk for him right now. W.C. Nalls of Putnam and Robert Williams of near Robbins are two other newcomers to the milk-selling business in 1948. They have land suited to alfalfa and pasture and plan to get additional cash income from cows.
Mr. Garrison says that about 5,000 acres of cultivated land in Moore County were put to winter cover crops for soil improvement and hay this past fall. Over 300 other acres were put to temporary winter grazing crops and about 22 men will topdress their winter grazing with nitrogen applications.
Other Crops
Many Sandhill farmers have found that poultry pays them well. Eli E. Phillips of the Putnam section has been growing and selling about 8,000 broilers a year for quite a few years and last year he added 500 paying hens. The eggs sold in the early fall have already paid his expenses with the pullets and he says he will double his laying flock next season.
N.F. Bertram of Pinehurst is trying out the production of sunflower seed. He produced 15 bushels of a small one-fourth acre plot without fertilizer this season and believes he can produce 100 bushels an acre without great expense or difficulty. If he finds a ready market for the seed, he will put in about 10 acres next year.
Dewey Troutman of Addor believes that Milo grain sorghum might be a good grain crop for tat sandy section. He harvested about 70 bushels an acre, from five acres, this past season and will plant more of the milo and less of corn another year.
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