Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1884-05-24
FARMERS CONVENTION.
Regular Meeting of the Montgomery County
Association.

Regular Meeting Of the Montgomery County |
Association.
The second quarterly meeting, for |
the present year, of the Montgomery
County Farmers Association took |
place at the Court House Monday. |
Owing to the fact that the farmers
are now very busy preparing for the
coming crop, the attendance was
not large. This is to be much re-
GREETED, as the speeches made were
of an unusually interesting charac-
ter and all farmers who failed to
hear them missed a profitable treat.
President G. P. WarfieId called
the meeting to order and made the
following well chosen and sensible
remarks
Farmers of Montgomery County =
"We assemble to-day to consider
questions of great Importance that
must be legislated upon. Let our
deliberations be governed by that
spirit of liberality so characteristic
of our people, according 10 every
legitimate industry, every right
that belongs to them and extending
to them all the encouragement we
can, so far as is consistent with our
interest.
At the same time we should
promptly demand every right due
the interest of agriculture, and our
only hope of obtaining them is
through organized effort properly
directed. Here in our county con-
ventions every farmer, no matter
how modest he may be, has an OPP
portunity of expressing his views,
and he should not hesitate to do so,
and thus we may avoid the errors
often committed, and criticised and
complained of, when inevitably too
late. The greatest facilities for OBJ
taing information and transporting
produce are being rapidly develop
ed and our country is about entering
upon a career of prosperity hitherto
unknown in the history of the
world. Shall we longer sit stupidity
by and permit our own calling to
retard its progress by doing as we
| have too often done before-entrust
to the care of others indirectly inter
ested, and uniformed as to its
needs, the great interests of the ag-
ricultural Glasses ? Or shall we agree
upon some intelligent plan of action
to be presented by our delegates. to
be ratified or amended by our State
Association and then to be present
ed to our State or National Legisla-
ture for final settlement ?''
The following committee was then
appointed to select delegates to the
State convention at Nashville, June
4th: w. HI. Killebrew, M. G. Will
cox, DIR. N. L. Northington and w.
| o. Brandon.
Hon. Joseph E. Washington, of
Robertson county, was then intro
duced, and addressed the meeting.
Mr.. Washington is a fine type of
the intelligent and progressive
young farmer of Tennessee. He is
a fluent speaker and his address,
while clothed in good language was
marked by we'll taken and carefully
considered points. We shall attempt
not even synopsis of Mr.. Wash
ington's speech in the short space
devoted to this article, but shall only
mention some of the measures he
advocated.
He thought that the National and
State governments should provide
chemist whose duty it should be to
analyze soils, fertilizers, &c. He
had some very pointed remarks to
make about our deficient road laws
and the bad roads that prevail in
Tennessee. The farmers had heard
the demagogues and penny whistle
politicians howl about the oppres-
sion of railroads, but the greatest
obstacle that the farmers had to
contend with was bad public roads.
He favored a law that would pro-
vide for laying off roads in sections
and letting out the contract to some
competent person to keep them in
repair. The people will never get
good public roads until they tax
themselves for the purpose.
The labor system OF the country
was very much demOralized on
account of the unreliability of the
average negro laborer and his disre-
gard vi the obligations of a contract.
The most effectual remedy for this
would he To educate the negro and
give him ii higher moral sense OF
duty. The speaker touched up the
dog question in lively style. He
thought that all stray dogs ought TO
be declared outlaws and no action
for damages should lie against the
man who kills one. He didn't
think Tennessee was ready for such
melenium as a no fence law would
bring about, but he advocated a
law that would require people to
keep up their stock. Politicians
had a great deal to tell the farmers
about oppressive monopolies, howl
ed about protective tariff and free
tra.Ic. The tariff Was only an in
direct system of taxation, but the
greatest monopoly of the age and
the one that most oppressed the
farmers Of this immediate section
was the Reggie contract system, by
which tobacco was bought by sew
eral countries of Europe. The Uni
ted States Government should do |
something looking to its abolish
ment.
COL. u. F. -COCKRILB,
President OF the State FarIuer,' AS |
ISOLATION, and very distinguished |
agriculturiSt of Davidson county, |
was next introduced and addressed |