VOL.  LXXXII. 
Published  Weekly  by  The  Rural  Publishing  Co.. 
333  W.  30th  St.,  New  York.  Price  One  Dollar  a  Year. 
NEW  YORK,  JULY  14. 
No.  4751 
Entered  as  Second-Class  Matter.  June  26.  1879.  at  the  Post 
^ice  at  New  \ork.  N.  Y.,  under  the  Act  ot  March  3.  1879. 
We  Need  “Balanced  Production”  More 
Than  Loans  -  . 
THESE  experiment  cotton  patches  in  Northern 
States  may  result  in  good.  There  could  be 
many  for  recreation  and  it  is  likely  they  will  turn 
out  to  be  profit  later.  The  season  is  a  little  short 
but  the  plant  may  adapt  itself  in  a  few  years.  The 
weevil  and  treck  of  Southern  labor  to  Northern  in¬ 
dustrial  work  threaten  much  less  yields  in  future, 
and  America  is  the  principal  cotton  field. 
We  read  a  Georgia  grower's  letter  in  the  Breed¬ 
ers’  Gazette,  in  which  he  says,  “When  a  Negro  de¬ 
sires  to  leave  1  fence  his  place  and  turn  cattle  on 
it.  I  say  to  him,  ‘Go  North  and  stay  there.’  I 
sell  a  few  cars  of  steers  each  year  and  consider 
these  the  most  prosperous  times  I  ever  saw, 
Hunter  Vaughn  of  Montgomery,  Ala.,  took  1.200 
acres  of  this  cotton  land  and  showed  me  it  starting 
nicely  in  grasses,  and  covered  with  sheep.” 
These  men  are  like  the  writer.  When  the  mob 
turned  to  wheat,  we  threw  the  fields  to  pasture, 
clover  and  Alfalfa,  put  up  another  barn  and  put 
sheep  in  the  fields.  Sheep  are  a  deficit  and  we 
defy  this  generation  to  make  them  a  surplus  and 
run  us  out  of  them  like  it  did  wheat.  Cotton  is  a 
home  surplus  but  a  world  deficit,  because  labor 
ran  away  from  it. 
We  believe,  but  do  not  know,  that  cotton  can  be 
grown  at  a  profit  in  warm,  loose  soil  up  as  far  as 
the  forty-first  parallel.  The  season  can  be  made  as 
long  as  in  the  South  by  starting  in  beds,  and  plant¬ 
ing  like  tomatoes,  cabbage  and  tobacco,  and  if  the 
plants  like  heat  they  can  get  it  most  anywhere. 
Again  in  many  of  the  Southern  fields  it  is  grown 
in  soil  almost  devoid  of  humus  or  available  fer¬ 
tility.  The  function  ot'  the  soil  is  to  hold  the  roots 
and  keep  tfio  plant  from  toppling  over  while  it 
grows  from  fertilizer  and  atmospheric  gases.  Then 
labor  in  the  cotton  fields  is  no  comparison  to  that  of 
the  North,  and  (lie  endeavor  is  well  worth  a  test. 
We  must  do  something.  Collectively  we  have  been 
breaking  the  market  for  about  all  we  grow.  In 
proportion  as  we  sell  low,  wages  of  others  rise  and 
hours  shorten.  We  waited  two  hours  for  some  work 
in  Newark.  Ohio.  Outside  the  plate  glass,  four 
men  were  taking  up  a  pavement.  Across  the  street, 
three  and  a  plug  team  were  taking  away  a  shade 
tree,  and  back  of  them,  seven  carpenters  were  pres¬ 
ent  on  a  building.  “Were  present”  is  the  proper 
term  for  all  of  the  fourteen.  I  could  drop  on  one 
knee  and  move  more  brick  than  the  four,  could 
hook  a  good  team  to  the  log  rigging,  go  to  the  woods 
and  move  a  larger  tree  out  of  sight  with  my  axe  in 
less  time  than  the  three,  and  if  you  will  notice, 
carpenters  are  the  most  sociable  fellows  during 
eight  hours  of  the  day. 
Ayrshire  cow,  Auchenlrain  Craig  3J,th,  now  on  test  at  Alta  Crest  Farms  Massachusetts.  In  03  days  she  has  made  3.0.12  Quarts  of  certified  mill;  soiling  at  25 
cents  per  Quart.  Iter  largest  day's  flow  was  100.8  lt>*. 
