Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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THE NEWBERRY SUN. NEWBERRY. S. C. Arnoriran AnrinilfiirA fltimr ilanf 4a 1 AffafcAn — The American Agricuiiure uwes ueoi lojenerson For Pioneer Work in Conserving Soil, Restoring HOME TOWN REPORTER In Washington By Its Fertility and Other Modern Farm Methods WALTER A. SHEAD WNU Staff Correspondent By ELMO SCOTT WATSON Released by Western Newspaper Union. A LANKY horseman rode steadily through the Virgin ia hills under a bleak March sky, his lean face brightening as he recognized familiar landmarks. He was muscular and vigorous despite his 66 years, with tanned skin, clear hazel eyes, a kindly expression and abundant gray hair that still showed traces of its original brick-red. The rider urged his sorrel faster up the slopes of a tree- crowned hill that towered over the rolling countryside. Spurring to the top, he threw the reins to a colored groom, dismounted lightly and greeted a family group waiting for him near a stately house. Thomas Jefferson had come home to Monticello. The year was 1809. But a few days before he had bid farewell to the White House, wished his friend'James Madison Godspeed in the Presi dency and rode out of Washing ton as a private citizen. Since his birth, April 13, 1743, Jef ferson had traveled an eventful route. He had experienced some de feats and many triumphs. Virtually every high office within the gift of his fellow citizens had been his. He had been state legislator and con gressman; governor and minister; secretary of state, vice president and President for two terms. He had doubled the territory of the United States and built a powerful political party. His ideals of lib erty were engraved in the law of the land. And now in the fullness of his honors he was to spend the next 17 years in serene retirement as the “Sage of Monticello,” busy amidst his farms. A Famous Epitaph. Visitors to Monticello always pause to study the epitaph chiseled on the gray granite shaft over Jef ferson’s grave. Written by the great statesman himself before his death on July 4, 1826, it reads: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Au thor of the Declaration of Independ ence; of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom; and Father of the University of Virginia.” Most Americans are familiar with these achievements of the many- sided Jefferson. Few citizens, per haps, are aware of another of his contributions—his work for the de velopment of modem, scientific - farming. So, on the birthday of this great farmer-statesman, it is appropri ate to tell the story of his encourage ment of agriculture. For farming was one of the consuming interests of Jefferson’s life. His roots were bedded in the earth. In many ways he was generations ahead of his time. He clearly saw the future possibilities of American agriculture and strove to make them a reality. Jefferson inherited an estate of 1,900 acres. He added constantly to that farm and by the time he mar ried 21-year-old Martha Wayles Skelton on New Year’s Day, 1772, his holdings exceeded 10,000 acres. A year later, the death of his father- in-law brought the family an addi tional 40,000 acres situated in west ern Virginia. As a practical farmer, Jefferson was constantly on the alert for new ideas. He made Monticello into a progressive experimental farm where new machinery, new meth ods, improved stock breeding, new crops and tests in restoring soil fer tility were tried out. Over a period of years he grew as many as 32 different vegetables on his farm. And he attempted to adapt and do mesticate acres of plants, shrubs and trees from distant countries. His Land Impoverished. The “Sage of Monticello” had much to contend with. During his absence on public business, over seers who farmed the land ravaged it, he said, “to a degree of degra dation far beyond what I had ex pected.” No attempts at diversifica tion had been made. Unlike the farmer of today who can get advice from his county agents, agricultural college agronomists or experiment stations on whether his soil is de ficient in nitrogen, phosphorus and potash and then obtain the correct analysis of mixed fertilizer, Jeffer son had to depend on talks with his neighbors and his reading of farm papers and books published in Eng land. So he corresponded frequently with George Washington, James Madison, John Adams, the Marquis de LaFayette and Arthur Young, the famous British agricultural scien tist. When he learned something new about agriculture, he recorded it in a “Farm Book” he kept in his own handwriting. One account tells how to lay out experimental plots to test the effects oi fertilizer. In these tests, his plant foods were manure and gypsum. Unfortunately for him, fertilizers as" we know them today were not in existence. Like a modern scientific farmer, Jefferson learned that clover and other legumes would help heal the wounds of his soil and give his land a breathing spell. He discovered that legumes had a valuable soil- enriching power, but did not under stand that this lay in their ability to impart nitrogen to the land. Crop rotation was another practi cal measure he championed. Thus he divided some of his lands under cultivation into four large farms. These were in turn subdivided into six fields of 40 acres each. This per mitted a six-year period of rotation. For example, the first field would be planted to wheat, the second to com, the third to rye or wheat, the fourth and fifth to clover and the sixth to buckwheat. Rotation and legumes helped save his land from exhaus tion and wastage. Pioneered in Contour Plowing. In still another modem method of tillage, Jefferson pioneered. That was contour plowing which is so ef fective today in saving soil and wa- Thomas Jefferson, the fanner ter from costly run-offs. Jefferson, aided by his son-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph, the brilliant and high-tempered husband of Martha Jefferson, introduced the system of plowing horizontally around hills. A further phase of Jefferson’s farm improvement program con cerned experiments in livestock breeding which he carried out in co operation with his friend and neigh bor, James Madison. The “Sage of Monticello” brought system into management and inven tion into work. Each farm was an independent unit, directed by a stew ard and worked by four male slaves, four female slaves, four oxen and four horses. Jefferson hated the institution of slavery and did every thing he could to raise the physical and moral level of his slaves. The considerate treatment of the colored folk on the plantation surprised many a visitor. To stimulate the slaves’ initiative, Jefferson praised them when they did something well and rewarded them when they achieved something out of the ordi nary. The slaves responded to their kind master with great devotion. An All-Metal Plow. But slaves and oxen were not the only means used to cultivate Jef ferson’s lands. With a lively sense of inventiveness, he was one of the first Americans to use farm ma chinery. Half a centufy before the steel plow was invented, Jefferson designed an all-metal plow with a moldboard that turned the soil ef fectively. Shaped according to mathematical computations, the moldboard met the least possible resistance from the earth. Jeffer son also devised a seed drill and a hemp brake. On the Jefferson plantation there was a threshing machine which was carried on a wagon and weighed about a ton. It was capable of threshing as much as 150 bushels of grain a day. There was also a drill ing machine, invented by one of Jef ferson’s neighbors. The instrument had a sharp iron that opened the furrows and a small trough contain ing the sowing grain behind it. "Jefferson’s enlightened efforts at soil conservation and the bettering of farming methods entitle him to foremost rank among great Amer ican agriculturists,” said an official of the Middle West Soil Improve ment committee. “He had an in stinctive feeling that man should be a careful custodian of the soil en trusted to his care. His work in soil improvement, however primitive it was, helped pave the way for modem soil science. Were he alive today, he would be a crusader for soil con servation, for sounder farming methods, for playing fair with the land by returning to it fertilizer ele ments removed by growing crops and the effects of the elements.” Artist and Architect. In his own words, the business of farming kept Jefferson “busy as a bee in a molasses barrel.” He was often either drawing or designing or sketching. Now it was a plow, now a carriage, now a building, now a fence and now a garden. A lover of flowers, he laid out a garden and planted rare specimens. An archi tect who learned the art by inde pendent study, he drew blueprints for many buildings, many of which still stand as a monument to the many-sided genius of their creator. In addition to Monticello, the best examples of his architecture are the capitol at Richmond and the Univer sity of Virginia. Aside from his agricultural inven tiveness, Jefferson designed a unique multi-writing machine to produce stereotyped letters some what after the fashion of the mod em mimeograph. He designed an ingenious dumbwaiter and built him self a handy weather-vane. Because of the fact that his farm and those of his neighbors were located far from big cities, Jefferson built a number of industrial estab lishments to make himself and his friends reasonably self - sufficient. His most ambitious projects were a flour mill and a nail factory. ' His Own Flour Mill. The flour mill was a stone build ing four stories high. A canal three- fourths of a mile long led to the dam above the mill and cost several thousand dollars. The nail factory employed ten workers, who drew $2 a day. It supplied nearby stores as well as neighbors, including James Monroe, with nails. It closed in 1812 when it was unable to obtain rods. There was also a small cotton mill which manufactured homespun from cotton obtained in Richmond. Three spinning machines wove cloth for all Jefferson’s slaves. Wagonloads of homespun were also sold to mer chants. Like other plantations of the time, Monticello had a smithy where wrought iron work for the plantation was made. Although debt acquired during his public life and a depression in farm prices following the Napoleonic wars brought financial crisis to his later years, Jefferson was eminently sat isfied with farming as a career and a way of life. “Cultivators of the earth,” he once wrote to John Jay, “are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous—and they are tied to their country and wedded to its in terests and liberty by the most last ing ties.” Playing His Violin Was Solace to Jefferson in His Old Age Posterity has had so many things to remember about Jefferson that it has largely overlooked his associa tion with the violin; yet that was one of the outstanding interests of his youth. About the old Virginia capital of Williamsburg, where he attended the college of William and Mary, the red-headed, raw-boned lad with a fiddle case tucked under his arm was a familiar figure. The story is told that one evening when Jefferson was paying court to Martha Wales Skelton, the young widow who was to become his bride, two other suitors, coming to call, paused before knocking to peep in at the window and see what their chances were. They caught sight of the widow Skelton seated before the harpsichord. Towering above her was their rival with his fiddle under his chin and his bow busily sawing the air. The rivals silently slunk away. In later years, long after Martha Skelton Jefferson had died and the violinist she used to accompany was pressed by family cares and affairs of state, he continued to play his beloved Cremona. The sort of thing he played is revealed now in the old music books, which have been treas ured by his family through all the intervening years and which were recently presented to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial foundation by his great-great-granddaughter, Miss Fannie M. Burke of Alexandria, Va. Are You Watching Congress? WNU Wmshingtoh Bureau 621 Union Trust Building I WONDER if this 79th congress is •* responsive to the will of you folks . . . the 50-odd million of you in the Home Towns and the rural commu nities who voted to send them down here to Washing ton? I have been labor ing under the as sumption that with the exception of three or four men who come under the head of “American Labor,” "Progres sive,” and "Non- Partisan League,” that the 96 senators and the 435 mem bers of the house were either Demo crats or Republicans. As a matter of fact they are so labeled in the Congressional directory. But up on Capitol Hill in talking to the members, newspaper men, lob byists and others around the con gressional cloak rooms, a great number of these congressmen are tagged with labels of “Left-of- Center,” “Right-of-Center,”’ “Reac tionary,” “Tory,” “Radical,” “Lib eral,” “Conservative,” or “Independ ent” or some other ill-defined label. Walter Shead As I see it, this congress is ruled by so-called “coalition” groups, groups pressured for one reason or another, groups prompted by opportunity, by prejudice, by likes and dislikes and motivated by a great num ber of reasons other than the traditional party convictions as we have come to know them. Whether this is a good or a bad- sign, I don’t know. Some folks here say it might bring forth a “do-nothing” congress. Others say independence of party labels is evidence of a strong and vigor ous democracy. Of course there are many earnest and sincere men here ... a few stalwarts in bot’i houses who will not compromise with expediency and opportunism . . . there are those who do not represent some bloc, some lobby, some pressure group but who still have the old-fashioned idea that they are here in Washing ton to represent nil the people in their state or district. This congress opposed Henry Wal lace for secretary of commerce on the theory he knew nothing of big business and was an idealist. It op posed Ed Steftinius as secretary of state and his assistant William L. Clayton because they were from the ranks of Big Business and were real ists. All three eventually were ap proved. The reason T raise the question of whether or not this congress is re sponsive to your will, and point out the formations of blocs and pressure groups and coalitions, is because within the next few months this group of men, particularly in the sen ate, must make the most impor tant decision facing this nation since the Civil war. The people generally, I feel, favor ratification by the sen ate of the structure of the peace or ganization under the framework of the Dumbarton Oaks conference and the Atlantic Charter. Reactiorfs in congress are good. Reactions to the Crimea conference, generally, are goodt but here and there is heard a dissenting voice. Poland and other nationalities have large groups in this country. They have votes too. Twenty-five Years Ago. Former Senator James E. Watson of my home state of Indiana, writing recently in his memoirs, described how the peace treaty was beaten 25 years ago. Called into a conference with then Senator Lodge of Massa chusetts, Watson writes: “Senator, I don’t see how we are ever going to defeat this proposition. It appears to me that 80 per cent of the people are for it, churches are very largely favoring it, all the people who have been burdened and oppressed by this awful tragedy of war and who imagine this opens a way to build peace are for it, and I don’t see how it’s possible to defeat it.” “He (Lodge) turned to me and said: “ ‘Ah, my dear James, I do not propose to beat it by direct frontal attack, but by the indirect method of reservations.’ ” v Then Senator Lodge described how he would propose reservations on this and that to attract support from the various groups and blocs. And Lodge won 25 years ago and the people lost. And despite the optimism now for the peace ratification, unless the people who elected this con gress are watchful, it could hap pen again. Just remember that minority of a third of the sen ate which scuttled the peace treaty after World War I. The groups and blocs are there. It still takes a two-thirds vote of the senate to ratify. The only factor, in this case favorable, is that leadership is not there . . . there is no one with the ability of a Lodge to lead in the fight against ratification. SEWING CIRCLE NEEDLEWORK Dainty Frock for the Little Girl 7 ,7. I ITTLE girls of two, three and ■*-' four years will adore this dainty frock with the gay four-inch duck applique. Pretty and very practical—it opens out flat for iron ing. Pattern includes sizes 2, 3 Early Draft Victim A tombstone in a cemetery near Washington, Ind., bears this curi ous inscription: “In memory of Eli McCarty . . . killed while no tifying drafted men.” Wounded in one of the early bat tles of the Civil war, Captain Mc- .Carty left the Union army in March, 1862, and became a gov ernment agent enrolling men for the draft. Aroused by the news of the draft a group of southern sym pathizers vowed to shoot a govern ment agent on sight. McCarty was their unfortunate victim. No Doubt Now! There’s no doubt about it! Nu- Maid Margarine has a finer, fresh- churned flavor. It’s the Table Grade margarine . . . made espe cially for use on the table.—Adv. and 4 years. Pieces from your scrap bag can fashion the ap plique. • • • To obtain complete pattern, finishing In structions for the Frilled-Sleeve . Frock (Pattern No. 5850) send 16 cents In coin, your name, address and the pattern num ber. Due to an unusually large demand and current war conditions, slightly more Ume is required in filling orders for a few of the most popular pattern numbers. SEWING CIRCPE NEEDLEWORK 530 South Wells' St. Chicago. Enclose 16 cents for Pattern. No Name Address- Sacred Cemetery The Campo Santo cemetery in Pisa, Italy, is believed to be par ticularly holy because, when under construction between 1188 and 1200, it was filled in with 53 ship loads of earth imported from Calvary. WED.—THURS.—FRI.—SAT. 7:15 a. m. (CRT): CIS a. at. (tWD SUN0AT 1:15 a. ai. (CRT): S:1Sa. ai. (CRT) Your Fffvc rif# CBS Statloo Sponsored by Ballard's HOW TO “KNOW” ASPIRIN lust be aure to ask tor St. Joeaplk Aspirin. There’s none faster, nans stronger. Why pay more? World's largest seller at 10*. Demand St. Joseph Aspirin. £ (j3ut£ lAJar d^oruis Wonderfo/f^H-/ CORN FLAKES co 1 , “The Grain Art Gnat Fast*” — Kellogg's Corn Flakes bring yon nearly aB the protective food elements of the whole grain declared essential to human nutrition.. FOR QUICK RELIEF FROM MUSCULAR ACHES itiff Joints • Tirod Muscles • Sprains • Strains • Brafsosl * ‘Mat you NBED ca. SLOAN S LINIMENT A MESSAGE TO AMERICA ABOUT AMERICAN SOIL T HE SOIL is the very foundation of American prosperity and progress. Our independence and our opportunities are deeply rooted in it. For years, people thought our soil was inexhaustible. New land was plentiful. New farms could be carved out of the wilderness cheaper and easier than old farms could be maintained. So when a farm lost its fertility, the farmer and his family simply moved to a new piece of land. Today, it is a different story. Most of the good land has been cleared and is being farmed. When a farm loses its productive capacity, there may not be. any place to move. And the nation’s supply of food and fiber is reduced. That is why soil conservation has become so vitally important. More than one hundred million acres of land have been seriously damaged by wind, water erosion, incorrect farming practices and other causes. Each year millions of acres more are being damaged, some beyond redemption. Soil conservation methods are efficient, effective and easy to practice. Contour farming, terrac ing, strip-cropping, fertilizing and crop rotation are the principal methods used. Every farmer can get complete information and specific recommendations from his local Soil Conservation Service Representative, his County Agri cultural Agent or his Vocational Agriculture Teacher. The land that each farmer cultivates is a national heritage. It should be passed on to the next generation better than it came to him. That is a trust which each man assumes when he makes his living from the soil. Firestone believes that soil con servation is fundamental to the welfare of our country and its people. We believe soil conserva tion is everybody’s business. That is why we are conducting extensive experiments on the 141-year-old Firestone Homestead Farm near Columbiana, Ohio, where our founder, Harvey S. Firestone, was bom. That is why we are sponsor ing soil conservation contests through the 4-H Clubs, cooperat ing with the Future Farmers of America and promoting the .^change of ideas through the Firestone Champion Farmers Association. We have also recently published a new booklet on soil conservation entitled, “Our Native Land, a Trust to Keep,” which you may obtain without cost. Simply send your request to the Firestone Farm Service Bureau, Akron, Ohio. I feel sure that you will find this booklet interesting and instructive. Chairman The Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.