Editors Progressive Farmer:
I am very busy right now, but as I work I think, and it would take me a week to write (and weary you to read) all the communications I have thought of in the last two weeks.
We finished planting last Saturday and had a glorious rain Sunday and Monday. Potatoes are well up and harrowed over. Those drill planted are now twice as good as those 3 x 3, but the test will be in the measure next fall.
I have not time to do much canvassing, but if I had the means would send you a list of names as long as my arm at my own expense. Don't believe I could do that many persons so much good at so little expense in any other way. Am proud of our paper and feel that its contributors are my personal friends. Wish it were possible to meet them all on earth, and I certainly hope I can meet and greet them in heaven "some sweet day by and by."
Our bees are swarming these fine days, and I am suffering the punishment of an improvident man. Did not have hives ready and have had to hustle about and make some, taking time that I needed for other things and not getting very satisfactory results. Hurry work never pays. Have managed to keep the frames of standard "Landstork" dimensions, so when I get more supplies, I can transfer them if necessary or desirable with the least trouble.
Since I wrote last we have sown three test patches of alfalfa, putting the ground in best possible conditions and inoculating the seed. Will report results. That inoculating business makes me dizzy. How long will it be before our business is recognized as ranking among the learned professions?
Have also sowed some teosnite and pearl millet. Both are new crops to me. Only a little of each for a test.
Am now preparing land, every foot not already occupied, for cowpeas. I know what they will do. I turn land, disc and harrow smooth; then sow peas with corn drill; rows about two feet. Finish smooth with plank drag to give good bottom for mowing and let them go. Nor least amount of fertilizer drill will sow to give them a start (about 50 pounds per acre). Had fine success last year. Will report results this year.
Have a field of rye now on good land that has been shamefully abused. Drilled it in corn last year, using a small amount of fertilizer, perhaps 75 pounds per acre. Cut up corn, sowed rye and disked in. Now the rye in corn rows is full headed, while that in middles is about half as high, and not beginning to head. The field looks like the edge of a saw.
It looks now like one acre well fertilized would produce more grain than the ten. Then why seed and work the other nine?
The recent rains have given my horses a needed rest. Sold a pair of mules before I was done planting, and it has given it to the mares pretty hard. They are dead gave though, and the colts are growing like weeds. I should not have let the mules go when I did, but I have found the best time to sell to be when some one wants to buy. Then my neighbor had a large crop and was somewhat behind. Some scoundrel had burned his fine barn with all his tools and supplies. He needed them badly, and I could do without them.
I want to say amen to what Mr. Gerald McCarthy says about negro tenants, and I think he could class many white crop tenants in the same list. I hope to see the day when a man can't get a farm on less than five or 10 years' lease, and that on terms and conditions that both he, his landlord and the farm can live. This is one of my hobbies, and if I get mounted fairly, fear I will not get to bed to-night.
The road question is another hobby, and I may afflict you along both lines some day. I hoed in the garden as long as I could see, and want to begin as soon as I can see. Must sleep some, so bid you good-night.
--Sincerely yours, Henry M. Daniel, Madison County, N.C.
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