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Sunday, March 9, 2014

North Carolina Farmers Get Answers From The Southern Planter Magazine, 1909

Before the time of the county agent, farmers used to mail their questions to agricultural magazines, and the answers would be printed for all. Here are some letters from the March 1909 issue of The Southern Planter

I have a 10-acre lot set well in herds grass and clover, off of which I got a very good hay crop last year. Can fence same with six bales of wire. Would it pay best to pasture that land to improve it while in sod, or would it be best to break for corn? I have other shifts for corn, but not quite so nearby. Pasturing this land will put me on a four-year rotation instead of three years. Which is best to increase fertility fastest? I have 10 acres in grass and clover for hay crop this year; would you advise me to spread my manure on it to increase hay crop and fertility, or would you put manure on wheat? It is rather a difficult matter to get all on before April. Will sow timothy, herds grass and clover on wheat and can use manure on sod next fall and winter.
  --W.H. Moore, Person County, NC

We prefer a four-year rotation to a three-year one, except upon very light land, which will not hold a sod well. We would therefore pasture the grass land this year and then in the winter get manure on it for corn next year. Corn land is the best place upon which to use farm yard manure, as it always tells more effectually on corn than any other crop, and the great root system of a corn crop can most effectually utilize the coarse manure. This is the place where we would apply the manure you now have. If you have more than you need for this purpose, use the best rotted part of it as a top dressing on your wheat. On the grass land to be mowed we would apply 300 pounds of acid phosphate and 100 pounds of muriate of potash per acre at once, and then when the grass commences to grow freely would top dress with 100  pounds of nitrate of soda, and they should give you a heavy crop of hay. The manure which you can spare for the wheat will help you to secure a better stand of grass.
  --Editor
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Tobacco and cotton growing
I want to trouble you with two or three questions having great faith in your suggestions as to farming. I have just read your article on tobacco growing in the January Southern Planter. You are doubtless familiar with the soil of Edgecombe. The farm I am now running is of the grey sandy loam subsoil. Will the formula mentioned in the above article suit this class of land? Will Kainit answer for the potash and how much? Will fish scrap answer in place of dried blood? As it is not convenient to get this. If so will you kindly give me proportions? Will a crop of rye turned under be injurious to cotton, say turned under in March, cotton to be planted middle of April, rye followed cotton and peanuts, could not get it in until too late for clover.
  Subscriber, Edgecombe County, N.C.

The formula mentioned in The Planter will do very well for light sandy soil in Edgecombe. It was used in Granville at a rate of 700 pounds per acre. Kainit will not answer at all for the potash, as the chlorides will damage the quality of the tobacco. A man in Forsyth county, N.C., used this formula and put in the same quantity of kainit and, for course, did not get more than one-fourth the potash required, and that is a bad form for tobacco. Potash in kainit is a sulphate, but is associated with so much chloride of sodium that it acts like muriate would. Nor will fish scrap do as well as blood for the same reason. Rye turned under will help cotton.
  --W.F. Massey
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Will you please give me the kinds of fertilizers and the way to mix it, for an acre of onions? Also, the kinds and mixture for an acre of Irish potatoes? I will not have any stable manure. When should I set out Prize Taker onion sets so I can harvest by August 1st to 15th? How many bushels will it take of sets per acre? 
How many bushels of Irish potatoes will it take to plant an acre? Can you give me some points about how to cut the Irish potatoes for planting? The farmers here simply peel them and drop the peelings in the ground.
What is the best corn I can plant and the fertilizer I can use? What is the best cotton I can plant, and the fertilizer I can use? I go out in the country and ask the farmers what kinds of seeds they use for cotton and corn. They don’t know. I am only going to try 12 or 15 acres. Prepare it right and work it right, and see what I can do with it. I may fail, but I don’t think I will.
  --O.L. McFarland, Cleveland County, N.C.

We would not advise you to plant Prize Taker onion sets in the spring. They should have been planted in the fall. The best way to grow a crop of onions now is to sow the seed either under glass and then plant out the young onions in April, or to sow the seed in the field where the crop is to be raised in March. The Prize Taker is one of the best varieties for sowing under glass in February and then plant out the young plants. It makes an early, good crop handled in this way. It will also do well grown from seed sown in the field, but will not be so early. The land should be finely prepared and then laid off in furrows wide enough apart to admit of horse culture. In these furrows not less than 1,000 pounds of fertilizer per acre, made up of 200 pounds of nitrate of soda, 750 pounds of cottonseed meal, 750 pounds of acid phosphate (12 per cent.), and 300 pounds of muriate of potash to make a ton should spread. Two furrows should then be lapped over the fertilizer furrow and the ridge thus made be flattened down by rolling or with a hoe. On this ridge the seed should be sown. Sow plenty of seed, then thin out when the side of a lead pencil, so as to leave the plants three or four inches apart. The thinnings can be planted out on other ridges made in the same way. Cultivate the crop repeatedly so as to keep free from weeds. The soil should be worked away from the bulbs when they begin to form so as to leave them to mature on the surface of the ground and not under it.

In this issue you will find an article dealing with the question of the fertilizer to use for growing the Irish potato crop. This crop in your section should not be set out before June so that the crop will mature in the fall. You will require from 10 to 12 bushels of potatoes to plant an acre. If the potatoes are large and have few eyes, more seed will be needed. If they have many eyes the sets will cut out further and less seed be required. The sets should be cut so as to leave two or three eyes in each piece and leave as much of the potato as possible. It is ridiculous to expect to grow a crop from peelings. The eyes must have the substance of the potato to support the spouts they send out until the roots are formed and have taken hold of the ground.

In this column you will find advice as to the variety of corn to plant and as to preparation and fertilizing of the land. As the varieties of cotton to plant, Russell’s Big Boll and Culpeper’s Improved have been found to be good varieties for planting on light land. For heavier soils, Kin’s Improved has been found a good variety.
If you prepare your land well and make it rich and give the crops the proper attention, you ought to succeed.
  --Editor
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Tobacco and Oats
1. I would like to have a formula for a fertilizer for bright tobacco. My land is gray to white sandy soil underlaid with red and yellow subsoil. I cannot produce a heavy tobacco, but can raise a bright light tobacco. So you see why I want a fertilizer that will grow a bright, silky, fine leaf tobacco. The land I wish to plant this year is what is considered in fairly good state of fertility for the above-described land, with a fair amount of decaying vegetable matter in it. I think maybe Professor Massey can help me in a formula for this section as he is somewhat acquainted with the nature of the land in this section, as he has visited Yanceyville in the interest of the Farmers’ Institutes. What I want is the best fertilizer for bright tobacco on gray land.

2. Is kainit mixed in equal parts with bone meal and 300 to 400 pounds per acre drilled with oats a good fertilizer to use for that crop?
  A.H.D. King, Caswell County, N.C.

1. See Professor Massey’s reply to “Subscriber in this column. The nature of your soil seems to be much the same and the same formula should meet its requirements.

Acid phosphate would be preferable to bone meal to supply the phosphoric acid for a spring oat crop, as it is more quickly available and the period of growth of spring oats is very short. For fall seeded crops or crops having a long period of growth, bone meal is the best. To supply the potash, we would use muriate of potash instead kainit. Twenty-five pounds of muriate will give you as much potash as 100 pounds of kainit, and will cost you about the same per unit of potash, and you will save on freight and hauling. The acid phosphate and muriate of potash will give you a cheaper fertilizer than the bone meal and kainit and be more effective. 
  --Editor

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