Record Crop on Dynamited Ground 



From OHIO STATE JOURNAL, Columbus, Ohio, August, 10, 1911. 



Among the visitors to Columbus yesterday was J. S. Fowler, of 

 Anderson, S. C. He is one of the original dynamite farmers of the 

 South, the new method of farming which is making the South proof 

 against the drouths which have so often blasted the hopes of its 

 farmers. 



He brought with him pictures showing corn fields planted by the 

 dynamite method, to prove that the stories he told of the corn crops 

 were not fabrications, absurd as they might sound to the ears of 

 farmers in what is supposed to be one of the great corn-raising sections 

 of the country. The land in the western part of South Carolina is 

 good, and Mr. Fowler said that under the old method he had raised 

 100 bushels of corn to the acre on his plantation, which consists of 

 2,000 acres, but this yield has more than doubled under the new 

 method. 



This year he prepared four acres with dynamite. Half a stick 

 of 40 per cent, dynamite was used to each fifteen feet square, the 

 dynamite being placed in holes punched in the ground and then fired. 

 It cost $18.00 an acre for the dynamiting. This stirred up the ground 

 from three to four feet deep. It was plowed and harrowed in the 

 usual manner and the corn drilled. Just before he came to Columbus, 

 the time when the pictures were taken, officials from the government 

 agricultural experiment station visited the field and estimated that 

 the corn would yield 260 bushels to the acre. Mr. Fowler says that 

 he does not believe that it will go that high, but states that he expects 

 over 800 bushels from the four acres. Some of the stalks of corn have 

 from three to five ears and all are large. The corn is about fifteen 

 feet high and very uniform. Next year he expects largely to increase 

 his dynamite acreage. One dynamiting does for years, it is said, and 

 the corn requires but little rain, as what does fall is held in the ground. 

 Mr. Fowler says that the cotton crop in the South this year will 

 be a record-breaker, in spite of the reports of dry weather. "We 

 have learned many lessons," he said. "We are plowing deep for our 

 cotton and the dry weather does not damage us as it once did. This 

 year streams are dry, the cotton mills have closed because of failure 

 of water power, but there has not been any damage done to the 

 crops. Our new methods of farming have made us practically inde- 

 pendent of the mid-summer drouths, and the cotton speculators who 

 are counting on a short crop because of dry weather are going to be 

 badly stung. 



"Cotton has never looked better than this year in all the Southern 

 States in which I have been, and the weather has never been so dry. 

 Under old methods of planting the crop would have been almost a total 

 failure. But now it does not show any damage at all. The Southern 

 farmer is taking up new methods, and already he is beating the big 

 yields once reported from Northern farms. This fall hundreds of 

 old farms will be dynamited and next year they will raise immense 

 crops of corn and cotton. It costs money, but we are getting it back 

 and have never been so prosperous." (See page 87.) 



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