By County Agent J.R. Sams
In these strenuous days of money shortage in the hands of farmers, I desire to call attention to a few things that can be done that will help very much. 1st. The wood ashes that accumulate from hard wood burned in kitchen stoves and fire places on the farm should not be thrown aside as useless; but should be scattered over the garden, Irish potato patch, cabbage patch and etc. Also all ashes at saw yards, and other places where wood has been consumed should be used.
2nd. All barn yards, hog pens, hen houses and other places where farm manure accumulate, should be raked and scraped and applied to corn fields, gardens and etc.
3rd. Leaves from forest and shade trees that accumulate in the yards and lots should not be burned, but used for bedding where people keep live stock in their stalls, and where they keep no live stock it should be used on the cultivated lot or garden, and if no garden, then give to the neighbor who does have one. Don’t burn anything that will add humus to the soil.
4th. Let me lovingly insist that they quit the habit of burning corn stalks and brush on their farms. As long as you have a gully or galled off land or even thin land that will not produce good corn; don’t burn brush, just common brush which most farmers pile into heaps and burn, spread it over your old poor pastures and sow some red top and Japan Clover under it and see in two years what it will do for the land and for the pasture. Try it on a small scale and you will burn no more brush while you have a gully or poor land.
Of all the needs, we as farmers of Polk county, and perhaps farmers everywhere, need to think. Think about what? Think first about his own best interest, and then think of his neighbor as he thinks of himself. The great trouble is this; what little thinking we do, is in a nutshell way about ourselves. This is all right as a starter, but our thoughts must not continue to dwell upon ourselves. It is all right for us to think as individuals, sufficiently to understand our needs and aims; but no community can ever rise to great achievements until the people learn to think collectively, as well as individually. We in Polk county have just begun to think collectively. We have had some community fairs, in which many people have taken part and thought together. We have a few community clubs organized, where the people meet regularly and think together about neighborhood needs and betterment. One of the greatest agricultural needs of Polk county is permanent summer and winter pastures. This needs to a limited extent is being supplied. One need supplied always ?? for one or more other needs. Our coming need is dairy cows and cream routes. These are in the near future, and there must be no let up until they are made a reality. We thought individually of a warehouse at Tryon, N.C. Then we organized the Polk County Farmers Federation and thought together and the result of that thinking is that splendid warehouse through which 40 carloads of cement and 10 carloads of fertilizers will be handled for cash this spring, besides a thousand or twelve hundred dozen eggs and other lines of produce. Now we want to think together as a whole county unit, and to this end we are calling on all farmers in Polk county, members of the Farmers Federation and non-members to meet at the Farmers Warehouse in Tryon at 10:30 a.m. May the 17, as well as all bankers, merchants and other business and professional men in a general picnic for the purpose of thinking together for the general uplift of Polk county. We have at last learned that there progress made by the different classes of business men in a county to know each other. All business interests in a county should be friendly and cooperate in building each other’s interests. To this end let every business group in the county do its level best to aid in ringing out the best thought at the picnic at Tryon May 17, for the greatest development of every interest in Polk County.
From the front page of The Polk County News, Tryon, N.C., May 4, 1922
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