1084 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Live Stock and Dairy 
A Stock Partnership in the South 
[We have had a good many questions 
about the Gulf States as a territory for 
stock raising. The following letter from 
one of our readers in Southwest Missis¬ 
sippi seems to be a frank statement of 
normal conditions:] . 
Many plantations have changed hands 
and been bought by Northern stockmen. 
My next neighbor on the north is Mr. 
Green, from Michigan; on the south. Mr. 
Davis, from Kentucky. 1 am from Colo¬ 
rado, originally, but have farmed in Ohio. 
Virginia and Delaware. For three years 
have been raising cattle and hogs on the 
partnership plan on a banker’s planta¬ 
tion. My partner died last August, so 
we wound up our business, and I am now 
renting part of the place—85 acres culti¬ 
vated land and 75 acres pasture, for $500 
per year. Our partnership was very suc¬ 
cessful till the slump in livestock prices 
last Fall. As I believe this is one of 
the best places for developing the South. 
I will give you the working details of our 
plan. This same plan would work out 
on lots of your Eastern farms purchased 
by men who cannot do the work them¬ 
selves, or by those who wish to retire. 
I had found by experience that buying 
a farm and trying to stock it on limited 
capital was an uphill job. One is con¬ 
stantly hampered and fears to risk get¬ 
ting too deep in debt. This banker, 
whose place is 10 miles south of Natchez, 
mostly hill land, with some fairly level, 
and bottoms pretty well worn, tried to go 
into livestock with negro labor. lie also 
tried some white labor, which was worse 
than the negro. lie fenced several fields 
for his hogs and turned over 200 acres 
hill land into pasture. lie bought very 
cheap stock, and started to improve it. 
but only in a cheap way. His success 
was not marked, you may be sure. 
In July, 1916, T came down here from 
Delaware, where I had got tired fighting 
mosquitoes and picking strawberries to 
ship to New York, having half of my crop 
rot on the vines every year on account of 
lack of labor. We inventoried the bank¬ 
ers’ stock of cattle, 71 head. 103 hogs and 
some horses and mules at $3,000. He 
had some tools. I bought some. I paid 
him $1,500 in cash for a half interest, and 
went) to work August 1. By our contract 
85 acres of land, together with the pas¬ 
tures, were rented to the firm of Byrnes 
& Rand. In consideration that I was 
to put in my whole time and such help 
as my three boys, 16. 13. 10. could give 
me, no rent was to be charged, but all 
expenses, labor hired,* feed bought, ex¬ 
penses of all kinds, were to be borne 
equally and profits were to be shared 
equally. We had q, packing-house in 
Natchez till August, 1919. so we worked 
most of our stock right here. 
During the three years we marketed 
over $9,000 of hogs and $8,000 cattle; 
each drew $1,000 per year profits, and 
our original investment was practically 
intact. During this time I never called 
on Mr. B. for a dollar. The sudden 
slump in hogs in September last cost us 
at least $1,000. Mr. B.'s widow, timid 
as many women are, did not desire to con¬ 
tinue the partnership, as protits looked 
doubtful for 1920, so I have cut down 
the stock to 20 head of cattle and 67 hogs 
at present. I hire very little labor, as 
1 and my boys do nearly all our own 
work. I have two acres early potatoes 
ready to dig in three or four weeks that 
probably will bring some money—$8 per 
bushel, we hope; then have a few acres 
cotton, and have let a little land to ne¬ 
groes for cotton, on share. Of course, 
my prospects for making any profit at 
present prices for hogs is very poor. We 
must now ship to St. Louis, or New Or¬ 
leans: at present 12 to 13c per pound 
here for hogs that have cost probably 15c 
per pound in raise. My plan is to sow 
oats in the Fall for hog pasture, where 
July and August pigs may run till June 
or July. Tf oats make in spite of hogs, 
the hogs get them when ripe. I turn out 
sometimes May 1 till oats ripen, last of 
May. In another field have early corn 
22 to 15 inches high now ; also five acres 
in New Era cow peas, sown two weeks 
ago. The corn and peas will be ready to 
turn hogs in by July 1. probably, and 1 
can have finished hogs on new corn by 
August 1 to September 1. 
In my judgment this part of Mississippi 
should be pastured largely—horses, mules, 
cattle and sheep. Labor is said to lie | 
scarce, and we have to pay $1.25 per day 
for men and 75c to $1 for women, without 
board. Nearly all cultivated land is 
farmed by negro tenants, paying $5 to $8 
per acre, working about 15 to 30 acres 
per family. Generally the landlord has 
a mortgage on the tenants' stock, and he 
advances the tenant’s supplies, $10 to $30 
per month, charging 25 per cent interest, 
the law giving the landlord a first lieu on 
the crop for this supply bill and rent. 
Most years this is fairly profitable to the 
landlord, who generally lives in town, and 
the negro manages to live and put on a 
lot of style working about half of the 
time. Last year we had 84 inches of 
rainfall, which, with the weevil, made 
cofton a very poor crop. This season 
cotton is starting out badly; much has 
to be replanted. If another short crop is 
made, many more negroes will go to the 
Delta or on public works, and the land¬ 
lords will be left holding the sack. There 
will have to be a reaction hi'our livestock l 
markets in a year or so. In my opinion 
most of those who are selling laud at such 
long prices in the corn belt would do bet¬ 
ter to come down here and raise cattle 
and sheep. Mississippi laws are liberal 
to livestock men ; four cows and 10 hogs 
are allowed tax free, also all colts under 
three years old. In the Delta cotton is 
king, and bids fair to be fob a long time. 
In South Mississippi sweet potatoes. Irish 
potatoes, tomatoes and strawberries will 
increase in importance. One of our most 
profitable crops is pecans. On this place, 
where 1 the owner reserves the pecans, the 
crop last year netted $1,000. Some trees 
yield $100 to tree. As a money crop 
pecans in Mississippi beat apples in New 
York. 
I want to express my appreciation of 
the good fight your paper is making for 
the ordinary farmer. I have been at 
it (farming) 40 years in five States, and 
while it looks now as if any man of sense 
would quit it and get one of those high- 
price jobs, yet I have not been able some 
way to get away from it. We must have 
better and more general organizations. I 
have been a member of the Grange for 
many years, when in a Grange State. 
Here we are about one white to 10 ne¬ 
groes. and can hardly keep up a county 
school. Our precinct polls usually three 
to four votes. There are 600 to 800 ne- 
goes in it. 
On the whole. I think farmers in the 
South are in a more hopeful frame of 
mind than in the North and East, and 
the farmer or planter is recognized as 
more of a business man in the South than 
anywhere else. All wholesale houses are 
glad to do business with us. and the banks 
are quite liberal. When these business 
planters get together everybody sits up 
and takes notice. f. m. BAND. 
Adams Co., Miss. 
Canning Milk in the Home 
Is it practical for a family with one 
cow to can milk for use during the eight 
weeks or so when the cow is not being 
milked? If you think this has merit, 
how should this he done? a. C. F. 
New Jersey. 
As a result of several inquiries which 
have been received about preserving milk 
by canning in the hoini where only one 
cow is kept, this article is written to ex¬ 
plain why it is impossible to accomplish 
the same successfully bv any method 
adapted to home use. 
Milk when it is produced contains bac¬ 
teria. and in the process of handling more 
bacteria get in from the air. utensils and 
other sources. These bacteria cause the 
souring of milk, and the development of 
some of the undesirable flavors. Conse¬ 
quently in preserving milk such organisms 
must be destroyed or their growth con¬ 
trolled. as well as to prevent others get¬ 
ting in. 
There are several methods of destroying 
bacteria and controlling fheir growth, but 
only those adapted to the handling of 
milk are considered below. Heating milk 
to a temperature sufficiently high to kill 
all bacteria will impart a very objection¬ 
able cooked flavor; in fact, so pronounced 
that few people would care for such milk. 
This eliminates the possibility of heating. 
Holding milk at low temperatures is an¬ 
other way to control the growth of bac¬ 
June 12, 1920 
teria : hut while milk may not sour for 
some time when held at low temperatures, 
bitter or other undesirable flavors may 
develop because of certain bacteria that 
thrive at such temperatures. Germicgles 
must not be used, for most of them are 
poisonous. 
Canning presents another problem. As 
milk sells at about 15 to 20c per quart it. 
is impractical to pay about half that price 
for a suitable receptacle in which to keep 
the preserved milk. Most people think 
the price of milk to the consumer is high 
enough without this added cost. From 
these facts obviously it is impossible to 
can milk at home successfully, and very 
impractical. In large factories where 
milk is condensed, it is heated under par¬ 
tial vacuum, so that the milk may boil at 
a temperature at which a cooked flavor 
will not he obtained. The condensed milk 
is also more economically canned. The 
advisable thing to do with surplus milk 
at home is to skim off the cream for but¬ 
ter-making or other purposes, and use 
the skim-milk for making cottage cheese, 
feeding, etc. In this way more good dairy 
products may be had in the home and ail 
the milk used to good advantage. 
F. e. w. 
Gkeene: ‘‘Where are you living now?” 
Gates: “Well, I don’t know exactly.” 
Greene: “How is that?” Gates: “It’s 
this way: I hired new apartments, but 
the old tenants defied tin* landlord and 
won’t move out. Part of my furniture is 
<>n the walk and part.in a furniture van. 
My wife has gone to her mother’s, and 
the children are with Aunt Kate. I am 
Sleeping on a cot in the garage of a friend 
of mine, and my grandmother has gone to 
the old ladies’ home until I can straighten 
things out.”—Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 
Mr. Akins Says The 
% 
Perfection Milks More Gently 
“Our Perfection is the best milker we’ve ever 
had,” said E. J. Akins when asked how he liked 
his milker. He held up his hands and looked at 
them. “You know at this time of year when a 
farmer is using tools his hands get stiff and hard 
and no matter how much he tries to milk gently, he 
e. j. Akins simply can’t do it. His hands hurt the cows and the 
milk falls off. I’ve seen it happen many a time. But since we’ve been milking with the 
Perfection our cows are milked with a gentle downward squeeze the year round. The 
cows like it better than hand milking.” 
The Boys do Milking Now 
“I hardly ever milk anymore myself. My 
two boys, 12 and 14, handle the job alone 
with the Perfection Milker. I can tell you 
there’s nothing more popular around this 
place than our Perfection. 
Our Perfection Milker has been just 
like a catching disease in this neighbor¬ 
hood. As soon as I got it everybody else saw 
it and wanted it. There are quite a number 
of Perfections around here now.” 
Send For Names, Addresses, and Catalog 
It’s not necessary to add anything to 
what Perfection owners say. Their own 
words are selling Perfection Milkers as fast 
as they can be installed. We’ll gladly send 
you names and addresses so you can investi¬ 
gate for yourself. Also a free copy of 
“What the Dairyman Wants to Know”, the 
great book which answers every question 
about milking machines. Write. Today. 
Perfection Manufacturing Company 
2115 E. Hennepin Avenue Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
