Miscellaneous. 



264 



[September, 1908: 



Denison Board of Trade, 

 Denison, Tex., January 2nd, 1908. 

 Dear Sir, — Referring to your esteemed 

 favour of recent date, beg to say that we 

 greatly appreciate your interest and 

 co-operation in our efforts for agricul- 

 tural advancement, and we expect great 

 good to result from the work planned 

 next year. The work of the past year 

 has served to thoroughly arouse our 

 people to an understanding of the great 

 work that your Department is doing in 

 the interest of agricultural advance- 

 ment. 



Your work in this community during 

 the past year has been of inestimable 

 value to our people. There has been a 

 wonderful awakening of interest among 

 our farmers, who are now on the alert 

 for new ideas and progressive methods. 

 There was a time, perhaps, when farmers 

 regarded the work of the Department of 

 Agriculture as empty theory and spurned 

 the advice of what they pleased to term 

 " book farmers," but they now realize 

 the science of agriculture and the wonder- 

 ful possibilities for improvement and for 

 increasing their earning capacity. Such 

 an awakening is manifest on every 

 hand in the vicinity of Denison, where 

 wonderful progress has been made 

 during the past year. I feel safe in 

 the assertion that there has been 

 more scientific and methodical work on 

 the farms about Denision during 1907 

 than ever before. * * * This is evi- 

 dence of real prosperity — prosperity so 

 firmly established that our little city 

 and the surrounding country hardly 

 realized the existence of the financial 

 flurry which so upset conditions through- 

 out the country. 



We regard the work in the interest of 

 agricultural advancement as being the 

 most productive effort of this organiza- 

 tion, and we feel deeply indebted to you 

 for co-operation, which has made our 

 woik much more effective than it could 

 have been otherwise. We feel that the 

 object lessons provided by you last year 

 were very effective, and the establish- 

 ment of the thirty demonstration and 

 co-operative farms planned for the next 

 year insures even greater progress. Two 

 of the farmers who operated demonstra- 

 tion plats the past year under the able 

 direction of Mr. J. L. Quicksall have sold 

 all their Triumph seed they had to spare 

 at SI per bushel. 



We are especially anxious to encourage 

 the corn growers whom we have suc- 

 ceeded in so thoroughly arousing during 

 the past year. I have never known so 

 much interest in the improvement of 

 corn as is in evidence here at this time. 

 * * * We are anxious to render any 



possible service that will facilitate your 

 work in the vicinity of Denison, believ- 

 ing that your continued co-operation 

 will assist us in making this the greatest 

 agricultural section of the Southwest. 



Very truly yours, 

 T. W. Larkin, 



Secretary, 



Taylor, La., January 5th, 1908. 

 Dear Sir, — Some four years ago I 

 worked a plat of land by your cultural 

 method, which gave me much better 

 results than the usual methods pre- 

 viously used. I have been following the 

 same instructions in part for the last 

 three seasons, and find this method 

 gives better results, especially the 

 thorough preparation of the seed bed 

 and the distance between rows and 

 plants. I find the crop much easier 

 worked and the yield better in quality, 

 as well as quantity ; I also have tried to 

 help a good thing along by showing your 

 instructions and my crop to others and 

 by having my tenants work by same. 

 One of the parties to whom I read the 

 instructions and showed the crop asked 

 me to see his crop last summer, saying 

 he had worked it my way and had the 

 best crop he ever raised in his life. I 

 think he had a fine crop for the season. 



Respectfully, 



W. O. Wall. 



Clarendon, Ark., Dec. 20th, 1907. 

 Dear Sir, — I took up your plan of 

 farming in 1906 in a small way with good 

 results ; in fact, was so well pleased 

 with it that 1 planted and culti- 

 vated something like 400 acres this 

 year. I followed your directions in 

 preparation and cultivation, using 

 200 pounds of phosphate per acre. 

 While we had the wettest and coldest 

 and most backward spring 1 ever knew, 

 causing me to plant the greater part of 

 my crop over the fourth time and as late 

 as June 9 to 12, then only getting about 

 naif a stand on most of it, and after that 

 date only had rain enough to keep the 

 ploughs out of the field a few hours until 

 picking time, I am satisfied with the 

 result, some of it paying me as high as 

 $30 per acre net rent, the lowest $6 per 

 acre, averaging about $13 per acre net. 

 I more than doubled my yield of corn. 

 I expect to go at it more extensively 

 next year. I have had my ploughs going 

 for two weeks, preparing cotton land 

 for 1908. 



Very respectfully, 

 W. S. Jeffries. 



