To the Farmers of
Polk County
J.R. Sams, County
Agent
My stay of 1 ½ years in your county has so endeared the
grand little county from every standpoint to my heart that I feel away from
home when I leave it for a few days. It is my duty to be here (Extension
Service training, N.C. State University, Raleigh) for a few days and
then will be back with the people I have learned to love so dearly. I am here
to see if I can take back something new or better than I have been trying to
give you; but it is hard to get away from the old truths of Agriculture. It is
like the old Gospel of the Christian religion. The older the better. Now I want
just a few words with you to ourselves.
I don’t want any outsiders to hear what I am going to say. I
want us to get ahead of all the rest. Now here is our secret. The truth of the
matter is that Polk county can be made the best place on the earth to live and
we must pin back our ears and roll up our sleeves and make it so—and here is
all we have to do to make it so. Listen! We have the same problems to work out
that other people down in Alabama have, and that the people down here have, and
the very first thing for us and for them is to stop land from washing off
towards the ocean every rain that comes we can do that by getting busy right
now and cover all gullies and bare places on the farm with brush and weeds
while they are green—now is the time of year to do this—RIGHT NOW—and don’t
forget nor neglect to do it. I have asked you before to do it; but I fear I’ll
go back and find that all have not obeyed me. Then, when we stop all soil from
washing away, the next thing is to build up our soil till it will make better
crops. To do this we must grow legume crops, such as soy beans, cow peas,
velvet beans, crimson clover, bur, red and sweet clover, vetch, etc., and
grasses and sod crops to prevent the washing away of our soil.
Now this is not a hard thing to do. The hardest thing in the
whole thing is to just make up your minds and be determined to begin it and to
keep right on till the thing is accomplished. Then when all the land is saved
from washing away and the soil is built up that fine clovers and grasses will
grow everywhere, then the thing to do will be to fence off all the land that is
steep and set to permanent pasture and put good cattle and sheep on it, and put
that part of the farm that is level enough, by proper crop rotation not to
wash, in corn, cotton and other cultivated crops, and see how much easier and
better the living will come—and then your title will hold your land.
Now, whatever you do, don’t say a word about this little
business we have on hand; just get busy. If you talk about it the secret might
get out and the farmers over in Rutherford county or down in South Carolina
might get busy and beat us—which we must not allow. Now every intelligent
farmer in the county knows that these things ought to be done, and that which
ought to be done can be done, and what can be done let every farmer in the
county do his bit to aid in doing it.
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