By the Associated Press
Raleigh, N.C., Aug. 25—A thorough knowledge of how to employ the proper methods of crop diversification constitutes the farmer’s chief basis for success, according to J.P. Pillsbury, professor of horticulture of the North Carolina experiment station at State College here. In an interview granted yesterday Professor Pillsbury cited interesting examples to bear out this statement.
“A few years ago in Catawba county, widely known for its dairying, a farm survey was made,” the horticulturist said, and in the course of the survey it was noted that the operators of 50 small farms had an average yearly labor income of $125. In looking over the figures from which this average was derived, it was noted that two of these farmers who made much more, one over $800 and the other over $1,600. A glance at the records disclosed the facts that the first was growing strawberries and marketing them in neighboring mill villages, while the other was growing nursery stock. Not considering these two farmers, it was discovered that the remaining 48, who were growing corn, cotton and other general farm crops, only received a net return of $53 for their labor. It would seem that more of these small farms should have been utilized in growing horticultural crops, and that, as nearly always is the case in dairy sections, the county as a whole should have turned its attention to its horticultural possibilities as well.
“This instance is not cited with the idea of advising that all these farmers should have changed their farms as to crops and specialized in growing strawberries and nursery stock. An exchange of one or more crops for one or more different crops is not diversification, and the horticulturist must practice the highest type of diversification to insure his success.”
Diversification, he explained, has an entirely different meaning. It not only means the growing of a variety of fruits and vegetables and other crops, but also the keeping of some livestock, of various kinds, the production of food for the farmer himself and his family, the growing of timber in order to insure a supply of wood, and the surrounding of his homes with plants and flowers to make his house attractive and his homelife happier, Mr. Pillsbury continued.
“The point is,” he said, “that with the horticulturist, his horticultural specialty is merely dominant and occupies the position of his chief interest. The other things are added to his stock of interests to make his specialty secure. He finds it not only economically necessary, but profitable in many ways.”
The farmer must get rid of his idea that this is an age of specialists, he declared, explaining that as far as he is concerned it is not, except in large corporations, educational institutions and in some cases extensive farming operations.
“It still takes an all-round man,” Mr. Pillsbury said he believed, “to run a farm, and the smaller the farm, the bigger the man must be in his knowledge of agricultural principles, such as soil and other natural elements, the kinds and varieties of crops that he can grow to advantage and of the means and expedients best adapted to his needs for diversification of his particular situation and of how to utilize his products to the best advantage. Farms are becoming smaller and smaller every day by subdivision and the day of the garden type of farming, as carried on in older countries, is not far away.”
From the front page of the Concord Daily Tribune, Saturday, Aug. 25, 1923
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