Here©s Georgia! LIBRARIES - the Digital Library of Georgia

FACTS ABOUT GEORGIA 139
cribs, and a house that cost more than $2,000, lived as well as I
could ask to live anywhere in the world, all of which has been
paid out of the proceeds of the plantation. I have made no
specialty of anything, except that each crop must stand or fall in
the light of results from it. Diversified farming, together with
peaches and asparagus, covers the effort with me, and each has
contributed very materially to the whole."
Regarding Georgia climate, Mr. Sheppard says:
"I want to especially stress the healthfulness of this section of
Georgia and what I say with reference to this section will apply
to all sections of the State where there is a pure .water supply.
I moved to the State in 1895, and my family consisted of four
members. Since that time I have not paid one dollar for doctor
bills, except in cases in no wise due to location or climatic condi
tions. Strange as it may seem, my son and his wife from Chicago
spent two weeks with us the first of last August, and each of
them will bear me out in the statement that real Georgia summer
is preferable to the sweltering heat of Chicago with its beautiful
lake front and muchly advertised 'breeze.'"
Profit in Small Acreage
A few exceptional acres of land in almost any part of Georgia,
under intensive culture, enriched with stable manure and pea-
vines turned under, will grow two bountiful crops a year—say
oats and cotton, onions and potatoes, corn, velvet beans and pea
nuts, rye and rape followed by cotton, wheat for the chickens,
followed perhaps by Egyptian wheat for the same purpose, will
make a prosperous farm. They can be made to yield a return
of $200 an acre. J. Gid Morris, at the Belmont Farm, near
Smyrna, Cobb county, has shown how this can be done. On six
acres he gets an annual yield of above $300 an acre.
Mr. Morris made a record crop in 1915, realizing $1,371.95
from two acres planted in oats, followed by onions and potatoes.
Of oats he got 65 bushels, bringing him $48.75 in the spring. The
onion crop following amounted to 180 crates, for which he re
ceived $1.60 a crate, and of Irish potatoes he could proudly boast
of 516 bushels, which brought $2.00 a bushel when sold for seed.
In all fairness it must be explained that Mr. Morris is one of
the most intensive farmers in the State, sparing no expense in
fertilizing and cultivating, and that his "Belmont Farm" was for
many years one of the largest poultry farms in the country; and
the old chicken runs are rich in droppings, to all of which he
adds many loads of leaves and woods earth, mixed with stable
manure.
R. N. Nolan, near
Brunswick, in Glynn
county, in 1915, made
550 bushels of Bermuda
onions on one acre of
land. They netted him
$830.00, an average of
more than $1.50 a
'bushel. Some of the
larger ana finer onions
'brought as high as $S.OO
a bushel. ,
At Hahira, in Lowndes
county, in 1916, TV. D.
McMillan cleared $170
on a half acre tract. His
crops were cabbages,
onions and Irish pota
toes followed 'by cotton,
of which he made one
bale. Oats followed the
cotton, with a product
of fifty bushels. He had
put the green cotton
seed back on the land
as fertilizer.