50 The Bulletin. 



ignorant negro and spavined mule could loll through the program some time 

 during the summer and finally bring the glad tidings to the village storekeeper 

 that the "crap was laid by." Such farming is the bane of the South, as every 

 one knows, but it's the only kind untliinking labor is capable of. We can not 

 have diversity of farming without diversity of knowledge, and this will not come 

 until an eight-months school is maintained in every countrj' district in the State. 

 Most of us have passed the allotted time of attending school, but we had to learn 

 in the bitter school of experience, and if we will but try to supplement this with 

 such knowledge as we may gain from books, the agricultural papers, and most 

 important of all, from Farmers' Institutes, we may yet make this Old North 

 State blossom as the rose. 



There is no disguising the fact that want of knowledge is responsible for the 

 low state of agriculture in the South to-day. Tlie old negro farm hand has 

 passed away, and with him passed the knowledge and abilty of his race as such 

 to till the soil; the Southern white man with the best advantages has moved to 

 town, thus leaving the impression everywhere that farming was the calling of the 

 halt and those who could not help themselves. 



We must change all this, and for our own credit's sake we farmers must take 

 the lead in demonstrating that this appearance is deceptive. We must study 

 better methods of letting out our land. We must follow more rational cropping 

 plans. We must learn the lesson of thorough and deep drainage; and there is 

 but one system worth the price, but one system worthy of the adoption of a 

 progressive farmer, and that is tile or underdrainage. I do not mean by under- 

 drainage that a farmer must put tile in the few ditches that he has and fill them, 

 but I do mean that the best land in this State will never yield within fifty per 

 cent of a normal crop until tile drains, five feet or more deep, are sunk plentifully 

 in the ground. No matter how much fertilizer you apply, you can not hope for 

 a full crop from any of the best lands of the State without deep and thorough 

 plowing during the fall and winter, and deep plowing is suicidal on wet or 

 undrained lands. We will continue to be the helpless vassals of the fertilizer 

 dealer "until we learn to grow more legumes with which to supply humus to our 

 soils, in the shape of turned-under crops or stable manure, and it is folly to 

 attempt to get humus in an undrained or unbroken soil, the ferment of the decay- 

 ing vegetable matter only adds to the already too acid condition, and none of the 

 legumes do their best in such soils. It is folly to expect the cropper, as we now 

 know him, with his move-every-winter program, to do any work worth while 

 improving the soil. In fact, he and the nonresident landlord are the arch enemies 

 of Southern agriculture; both think of little more than avoiding expense and 

 bleeding the land for all it is worth. Neither, as a rule, cares for the social or 

 educational conditions of a community where the land is so held, and as a result 

 there is apt to be neither schools nor churches in such a community. 



The direct property tax system, as it is now operated, tends unjustly to put an 

 undue share of the burden upon the small farmer, and to enable the large land- 

 holder who lives in town, generally at the county seat, to escape a greater part 

 of his just share of the taxes, by getting his property valued at about half per 

 acre what the land of the small resident owner is taxed for. It is due to neglect 

 of our public duty, my friends, that these things are true. We owe it to our- 

 selves to see that an eight-months school is in operation in every country district. 

 We owe it to ourselves to see that some system of farming is adopted that will 

 insure the proper fitting and cultivation of the soil. We owe it to ourselves to 

 see that the large tract of land bears its pro rata share of the burdens of taxation 

 in accordance with its real value. I wish to emphasize this wrong now, because 

 about this season of the year many a complacent tool of the tax dodger is slipping 

 into a place where he can be of service to his patron next spring at listing time. 



It is matter of great pleasure to me that our agricultural departments are 

 turning more to helping in the home. Here is the place quickest to work a 

 revolution in farm life in the South. The women take more readily to teaching; 

 they naturally expect the fashions to change every season, and they study cooking, 

 canning, and household hygiene as readily as they do the season's fashions. To 

 the American woman's credit be it said, she abhors nothing more than becoming a 

 fossil. And the farmer's wife has had so few conveniences, so little of the com- 

 forts of life, that she is eagerly seizing upon every opportunity to promote better 



