The Greenville Times

[Constitution.]

Mr. Farish Furman, formerly a member of the Georgia State Senate, retired from politics five years ago and went to planting. He owned a considerable tract of scrub land in Central Georgia, which he had leased to tenants, who had cultivated it on the old exhaustive wear-out plan, and left it nearly barren and worthless, valued at less than $5 an acre.

It was this land that Mr. Furman took hold of and resolved to cultivate on an entirely new system—that is, a new system for the South, but an old one in Europe and the North. He determined not to farm much land in the wasteful Southern style of 20 years ago, but to take only a few acres and cultivate it well and thoroughly, getting all from it that could be got.

He began his experiment with a field of 65 acres and planted it in cotton. The first year's crop was disheartening enough to have discouraged any other man—only eight bales, or one to every eight acres. The land, he said, was very poor and needed fertilizing. Analyzing the cotton he discovered its chemical constituents, and at once proceeded to manufacture a compost that contained just those substances that the cotton plant extracted from the soil.

Using 500 pounds of compost to the acre, he increased his crop in 1879 to 12 bales; in 1880, with 1000 pounds to the acre, to 23 bales; in 1881, with 2000 pounds, to 47 bales; while, this year, with 2000 pounds, he will produce between 90 and 100 bales on his 65 acre tract, or one and a half bales to the acre, on what is known as "scrub" Georgia land. He has thus conclusively proved the advantage of a system which, he declares, will, in time, yield three bales per acre on any land, however poor.

The experiment is a financial, as well as an agricultural success. Mr. Furman's compost cost $1.50 per acre, or $97.50 for the whole farm this year, and the total expense of raising his crop was $2,300, while the net profits were $2,725, or over $40 an acre. The land, moreover, which was less than $5 an acre in 1876, when he began cultivating it, is now worth $100.

Mr. Furman makes no secret of his compost. It consists of muck, green cotton seed and acid phosphate in certain proportions. He regards cotton seed as one of the best of fertilizers, but would extract the oil first, as the meal contains all the fertilizing elements in the seed. He pursues the ordinary system of cultivating cotton, except that he plants in hills instead of rows, and not so close as most farmers, being of the opinion that cotton is a plant which needs plenty of sun; and he does not hoe the cotton. Any planter who follows his system can do as well as he, he declares, and hundreds of farmers in middle Georgia are already imitating his example, cultivating small patches of land, but cultivating them well, and making far more money than with big plantations, wastefully and slovenly conducted. This is the lesson being taught in Georgia. The idea, as we have shown, has penetrated into Mississippi. There is a moral—and a big one, too, in it—if our own farmers would only see it.