54 The Bulletin. 



The father of to-day must study and so obtain a grasp on the why and wherefore 

 of the farming business as to be able to start the training of the boy right out 

 on the home acres, and by investing him with some responsibility start him on the 

 road to self-reliance. 



The teacher of the country school should be instructed as to the need of our 

 State along agricultural lines, that she may inspire the student to earnest train- 

 ing of his mind toward a broad agricultural life. Preparation for his work should 

 include some instruction as to the needs of soils, how soils are made, the value 

 of humus, etc., and she should ever keep before the pupil the fact that the soil is 

 the verj' foundation of everything, one of the greatest gifts from the Creator, 

 and he is greatly honored who by care and thought is privileged to work with the 

 Creator in the further building of soils. 



The college professor should be most careful when the boy is passed on to him, 

 that he teach him along broad lines which he personally knows to be sound, and 

 that the young man's day of training may inspire him to study the why of tilings 

 to the end that when in later years he is out in the sea of life alone he may be 

 able to swim with boldness. 



The local press of our State should be informed as to the relative value of first- 

 class farmers as compared with other citizens — that they are the greatest need 

 of any State where agriculture is the leading industry — and offer the young man 

 who aspires to an agricultural life the same encouraging publicity as would be 

 given the young man of the community who fits himself for the practice of law 

 or medicine. 



I woul(J that we all might be able to get some idea of what is before this 

 twentieth century farmer and be willing to do our share, not toward making his 

 path easier, but toward training him to fight with power, that power which is 

 founded on knowledge. 



DOES IT PAT TO FERTILIZE?* 



B. W. KILQORE. 



Exclusive of cotton-seed meal purchased and applied direct by the farmer to 

 the soil, there were used last year (1!)0!)) in this State 512,725 tons of fertilizer, 

 worth at $20 per ton $12,254,500. The State's fertilizer bill this year (1910) will 

 be between twelve and thirteen million dollars. Is this large amount of fertilizer 

 used profitably, not only on the crop to which it is applied, but also to the future 

 and permanent betterment of our lands? For any system of farming which does 

 not have for one of its objects putting the land in such shape that it will produce 

 more next year, under favorable seasonal conditions, than it did this, is not only 

 unwise, but is as much a wrong arid a sin as to knowingly bring up and train the 

 generations for the future to have less vitality, strength and productive capacity 

 than the present. Some say that there is too much fertilizer used, that it is a 

 waste and a heavy tax on the farmers, without proper returns. Part of those 

 who hold this view do so without much, if any, thought, and as a matter of the 

 moment and for strengthening some argument, or proving specially advantageous 

 some svstem of agriculture which they are advocating. '' 



A fair and proper answer to this question is certainly one of the big economic 

 problems in our fanning. To some extent it is a question for each individual 

 farmer, and it certainly is one which should be considered from the standpoint 

 of each individual crop and soil type. 



It is our purpose to deal with the subject from the standpoint of cotton, 

 admitting and empiiasizing that cotton is the staple crop which yields handsomer 

 returns than any other grown in the State for projier feeding, and what I shall say 

 will be based, in the main, not on guesses or estimates, but on actual yields or 

 weights obtained -in our experiments on the Iredell Test Farm near Statesville, 

 where the soil is a red clay loam, and on the Edgecombe Test Farm, where the 



•Address before the Farmers' Convention and containing the main facts in talks at Farmers' 

 Institutes. 



