The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1875-11-04
Profitable Farming at the South

Profitable Farming at the South
The Rural Texan publishes a report of |
Committee made to the Bastrop County !
Agricultural Society, from which we ex-
tract the following sensible advice to
Southern farmers
You have been working hard at the
production of cotton for the last ten |
years, and the net result is that you can
scarcely supply the substantial wants of
your farm and household. What should
an intelligent farmer do under such cir
cumstances? Evidently look back and
see wherein he failed to raise cotton in
elligentlY-what it cost to raise it-what
it brought when sold-and whether the
net results, after al reasonable farm and
family expenses were paid yielded pro-
fit sufficient to justify the continuance of
the present plan of planting; or if it
he such as indicated by me in the be-
ginning, he surely should quit raising
it outright or else greatly modify his
mode of production. If threatened bank
ruptey has been brought about by the
present plan, where is the fault, the flaw,
the leak, through which the result of 80
much hard labor has escaped / believe
that have truly indicated the effect Of
the production of cotton. as now practic-
ed, and 1 submit some of the reasons for
that belief First, as regards negro labor.
You contract with them, considering a
full grown healthy man as full hand,
as in former days, full rations, as much
land, as many implements and as much
team, and supposed he would work all
day for twenty-six days, as a months
labor, and upon this hypothesis, that you
would make light bags of cotton, of good
quality, and gather it in season; where
as it turned ont that the full hand only
worked three-fourths of day for four
days in a week, and sixteen in the month
and all the work he did was badly done,
and as a result the crop was only half
cultivate d, gathered too late, badly dam
aged; and in the meantime, you being
discouraged by the prospect, had, in self
defense, refused to issue rations and en-
dorse for goods, as the laborer demanded
pilage-and when too late
your yearlings gone, your hogs gone,
your chickens all gone, your implements
destroyed or traficked off, to say nothing
of an occasional turn of corn, and a coat
and shirt and socks; and so your labor
that you had estimated to cost you $40
per month, has really cost you $40, and
your twenty acres has dwindled to ten,
and the quality ofyour cotton that your
hopes classed good ordinary is only
low middling," or lower sometimes low
est-and you end the year in debt and
badly discouraged That is lamentable {,
but is not the greatest harm you have
sustained if you have not discovered the
caase of your failure, for without you
have, you will repent the error
The proceeds of your crop are consum.
ed in buying what should and could
have been grown on tine farm cheaper,
and furthermore. the planting of large
cotton crop begets large ideas Of profit
and consequently extravaganza. 1t IL
1ates one like bladder it operates on
the brain like ether. A big cotton patch
makes one strut like a peacock, but
Christmas opera es on his pride and fol
ly like the sight Of said cocks foot does
on him.
He goes to work before January for
another and larger crop Of cotton, and
by May he is inflated again. Talk to
him about selling little corn, or oats, or
rye, OF butter, OF eggs-nGt he, he's got
big cotton crop he won't even raise
corn for home use, he can buy it cheap
eI
/ know cotton has been called king,
but real kings crowns are so heavy
sometimes that they groan beneath them
aud they are SO loaded that they sink
under their burdens So, my friend, we
are treating cotton it has great vitality
aud can bear much, but not all that folly
may load it with it is good in its place
aud has place in agriculture aud com
meree but it does not 6ll ali space, 9th
or things demand standing room, ard
now we will see if we can fad that place
on Texas prairie. Texas produces free
" all the cereals-wheat among them
Il a splendid grass aud hay eountry.
Horses, cattle, sheep, goats and hogs can
he raised cheaper than elsewhere. Fruits
sugar-oane, tobacco aud field peas, to
rotbor with vegetables generally, yield