The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1881-05-06
aUANo, CORN AND COTTON.

uiC idS Dccn TcdCncu. L not
propose TO 90 into detail and discuss the
above fully, for it would take up too much
of your space. | will only give you few
general remarks on it.
Our farmers from year to year are using
more and more gulno, and raising more cot
ton and less corn. wheat &c, making it APP
Iear that Suano does pay, but am by no
means convinced of this fact. More cotton,
i: the seasons are good ill be made this
year than has ever been made before. Ev-
cry laborcr and every horse is busy and
there is a demand for more Our farmers
seem to be of the opinion that guano is
tuanufact ured solely for cotton, and they
sa uso, il, at least very little of it, under
anything else.
Col. Il. f. Mason, our boss guano agent,
informs us that he has sold at Westminster,
up to the 1lth instant, one hundred and
seventy five tons of guaDo, aud that the
other agents there have sold at least two
hundred and thirty TONS Seneca City sells
more guano by several hundred tons than
Westminster Taking the above as basis,
| do not think that | make an over csti-
mate, when state that two thousand aud
five huudrcd tons will be sold in Oconcc for
81. 1t will require two thousand and five
| hundred bales Of cotton, averaging four
hundred and fifty poun Is, at ten cents per
| pound, to settle that little guauo account,
which toots up the nice little sum Of one
bundled and twelve thousand five hundred
dollars. This amount of indebtedness rests
upon the shoulders of our farmers before
they put their seed into the ground They
begin each years journey loaded down with
a hoavy debt, and it is Increased at every
| turn.
Raising corn and wheat for sale, or even
home consumption, is numbered with the
things of the past. Naturally, we have to
buy all of our supplies. Our corn and
wheat come from the West and Northwest,
and so does our bacon, our plows, hoes, and
in fact everything that we use have to be
imported.
In the fall our guano money goes to
Charleston, Richmond and other places,
aud-thc rest of our money falls glimmcrng
to the face of the earth, to pay for our
other wants. Like the ghost in Hamlet
Ills hcre"-"'Tis hcrc"-'.'Tis gone" and
we find ourselves left high and dry, ready
to 20 into debt for the same commodities
| and to come out at the end of the following
year still worse off. Corn, whclt, oats, and
part of our bacon, if not all, must be
raised at home, if We desire to make farm
! ing profitable. There is no man under the
sun that can make money by farming and
pay the heavy percentage consequent upon
the purchasing Of his supplies. The corn
that we buy comes from the West and
Northwest where it is worth about twenty
five cents per bushc, first cost, and to-day,
in Oconcc the same corn is brought here anG
sold for from one dollar ten to one dollar
and twenty-five cents per bushcl, making
profit on first cost of about four hundred
per cent. The merchant, too, must have
his turn price, and to save himself from los
must add on to his regular cash price, about
thirty per cent, if not more, and such is the;
case with everything that we have to buy
on time.
With cotton at niDc or ten cents, and mi
| the face of the above, | do not see how we
can contend that it pays to use guano to
raise cotton exclusively that we may pay
from seventy five to ;wo hundred per cent
on all We purchase Some farmers tell me
! that they are in debt and that they are COM
PEELED to raise cotton in order that they may
pay their debts and meet their current cx-
pcnscs. Just let them look back over the
past four years, and they will find that they
have been going all the time from bad to
worse. Farmers in this condition cannot
Immediately make i radical change and 90
back to the old profitable way Of farming
but they will have to do 50 by degrees, aud
the sooner they begin to inauguratc reform
| the better. They have become so much in.
Nl 81 4 I
| them financially.
There is no two ways about it, We are
compelled to manure our lands, but can we
not do it in cheaper aud more durable way
than by the wholesale use of fertilizer
that acts upon the soil like whiokcy on the
human system. Guano stimulates and ex.
cites. rs it were, the nervous system of the
earth, and when it's effects die out, leaves
the soil debillatcd. Cow lot, stable and
other manurcs of the farm. last for years
and keep the soil in a healthy condition by
| supplying those clements that it actually
needs. The same amount invested i'll this
way is equal to three or four times the
amount invested in guanos.
If we cannot raise corn and wheat for
market it certainly would pay most hand.
SouneiJ W ia'Sc chouSh W supply INC nome
demand. | look around and what men do
| find making money on their farms -
Why, those men that raise Their supplies
principally at home. y few years past We
shipped corn from this county-now we inl-
port it by the car load after car load
Enough wheat, at the same time, was raised
for home consumption, now it is shipped to
us in quantities. Only a short time since,
for merchant Of this place to sell either
corn or -four, more than they had taken in,
i'll the way Of barter, was unknown now
speculation in corn has become regular
business and barrel after barrel of -four is
Slid here.
More cotton and less corn and wheat are
| hnI InIr r.ISnl unn nI,I i,,ct