Make Money By Growing Hay, Says J.R. Sams, June 8, 1922

Our County Agent’s Department. . . Some Timely Talks to Polk County Farmers, and Others, on Timely Subjects

By County Agent J.R. Sams

To Polk County Farmers

Why don’t you listen? Why don’t you grow that which is in demand? Why not produce hay and put it on the market after feeding your own stock, instead of buying inferior hay, paying $15 per ton freight, to say nothing of the price of the hay that can be produced in Polk County cheaper than in the country from which it is shipped from?

You have the soil, the rain fall and sunshine to produce as fine hay as can be grown on the earth. You have an unlimited market at present for all the hay you can grow. You have an unlimited list of hay plants to select from, that will make the finest quality of hay. Alfalfa, sweet clover, mammoth clover, red clover, alsike clover, etc. Then you have the cow pea, velvet bean, soy bean, vetch with rye, wheat oats or barley, Sudan grass, sorghum, orchard grass, tall oat grass, meadow fescue, dallas grass, timothy, red top, and many other grasses to select from; or a dozen combinations of these grasses and legumes may be formed to produce the most nutritious feeds. When I came to Polk County I was confronted by almost everyone that grasses would not grow in Polk Count. Tat this time no intelligent man or woman will question the matter, if some lime is used with alfalfa and the clovers, and some nitrogen and humus for the grasses. Why not grow that for which there is a demand? If you don’t believe there is a demand for hay, just go to any freight depot or farmers warehouse in almost any section of the South and see the farmers load their wagons with hay, paying $12.50 to $15 per ton freight and for the hay beside. I appeal to every farmer in Polk County to begin to think now about growing hay for next summer. Sow sudan grass and peas or sorghum cane without peas. Then in September sow oats and vetch or wheat and vetch for hay next spring. Don’t be caught again next spring hauling hay back from the railroad. Let the hay hauling be the other way. It is a serious reflection on the good horse sense of every farmer of Polk County to haul hay from the railroad to his farm when the possibilities of growing hay here are so great, and the labor of hay making so small compared to cotton and other crops grown in the county.

Any one who doubts what I have written, just go over Pacolet bridge and ask Grant Miller whether or not I am lying. See his grasses and clovers growing. Ask him the lick which brings such results, and then go and do likewise.

From the front page of the Polk County News, Tryon, N.C., Juen 8, 1922