From the Editorial Page of The Southern Planter Magazine, 1938

From the Editorial Page of the December 1938 issue of The Southern Planter

The advantages of cooperation, the value of winter legumes and the necessity of crop control are all being demonstrated on a gigantic scale by 400 Bertie County farmers this winter under the excellent leadership of county Agent B.E. Grant.

Under a special compensation from the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, farmers in four eastern North Carolina counties—Pender, Duplin, Hertford, and Bertie—were allowed to purchase winter legume seed and pay for them out of their benefit checks earned by cooperating in the agricultural conservation program. Farmers in the first three counties secured 28,000 pounds of vetch seed and 12,000 Austrian winter peas. But in Bertie, meetings at which the program was thoroughly explained were held in every community, leading famers urged their neighbors to fall in line and as a result of the campaign, 88,000 pounds of vetch and 62,000 of Austrian winter peas were bought in Bertie. Thus 5,000 acres of winter legumes are growing luxuriantly in that one county whit winter form seed that did not cost the growers one penny in cash.

What this will mean in terms of soil fertility saved and nitrogen added when turned under next spring can best be illustrated by remembering that a rank growing winter crop prevents the equivalent of 300 pounds of nitrate of soda from washing out of each acre of soil from September to April, and if a legume, it adds the equivalent of 500 pounds of nitrate of soda when turned under.

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16-YEAR-OLD TAKES OVER FARM

Fathers, are you giving the boy a fair chance on the farm? Are you affording him an opportunity to earn some cash and acquire personal property? Are his ideas and suggestions on production problems given due consideration?

These are questions that every parent should ask himself, especially those whose sons are studying agriculture at the high school or are engaged in 4-H Club work. When given a chance to put their agricultural training to work on the farm, boys very frequently put the place on a paying basis. Hunter Roy Greenlaw was 16 years of age when his father died and left him in charge of a 435-acre farm. Five years later, 1938, he was selected as the Star Farmer of America and given a $500 cash award. Likewise, Robert Lee Bristow, Middlesex County, Virginia, Star Farmer of America in 1937, took charge of the 203-acre family farm in 1935 at the age of 19, after losing both parents.

These records are a real challenge to farm dads everywhere. How many boys are there on farms today who could, if given a chance, add that needed something to get the farm out of the red?