The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1886-03-17
FARMERS TO TEE FRONT.
Call for an Agricultural Convention ut
Colunbia--An Address Setting Forth the
Grievances of tho Tillers Of the Soil.

Call for an Agricultural Convention ut
Colurnbia--An Address Setting Forth the
Grievances Of tho Tillers of the Soil.
To the Farmers Of South Carolina:
Seventv-six per cent. of our States
population are actively engaged IN
agricultural pursuits. AT least one
half of the remainder are directly de-
pendent upon the farmers for the
means of a livelihood. We may justly
claim, then, that we constitute the
>,ate, yet we do not govern it, nor are
the laws administered in our interests,
and few are passed for our benefit.
We pay taxes and vote and there is
no further use for us. These taxes do
not grow any less, while our ability 10
pay them grows smaller year by year,
and nothing worth naming has been
done to foster and encourage that in
terest which feeds and sustains all
others. The negroes used to be the
s'mudsills" of our economic fabric;
but thousands of white men-land-
owning farmers-fnd themselves slow
ly but surely sinking beneath The
waves to be added to the foundation
upon which few men and corpora
tions are erecting their fortunes. In
pending bankruptcy stares thousands
in the face, while other thousands are
overseeing their own plantations for
their vic.uals and clothes.
An insane system of farming largely
prevails and our lands are growing
poorer year by year. Large areas of
South Carolina are being made q
desert to feed negroes, while the land
owners, giving no thought to the
future of themselves and children,
stand idly by, or assist and direct this
skilnmiug of State, which, by reason
of soil, climate and geographical posi-
ton, might be made veritable Gar
den of Eden. The negroes will ego
West went the bones are pickt d.
What will We do? We are farming
towards despair" in thus continuing to
impoverish our lands by ignoraut cul-
ture, but nothing is done by our Leg
islature, or its creatures, to stop it, or
to try to teach the people better aud
wiser system. Forty thousand dollars
are spent annually in the State, three
fourths Of it spent by farmers, to edu-
cate men for other professions and
pursuits; the farmers get nothing, and
are left to grope their way tawards the
grave in ignorance and its consequent
poverty. Even the pittsnce donated
to educate farmers by the United States
Government is taken from US and ap-
propriated to sustain the institution at
which our future masters are being
trained. How thankful we should be
to the good Lord for such generosity
and wisdom among our statesmen, So
called!
Again, we pay $4,000 annually by
specific tax, which comes out Of the
farmer alone, to sustain a department
of agriculture. A good slice of this is
spent to collect the phosphate royalty,
which goes to support the State Gov.
ernment, and the rest is frittered and
wasted, so far as we can see, the only
benefit received by the farmers being
a partial protection against fraudulent
fertilizers.
A msio.ity of the board Of agricul-
ture are not engaged in farming. Who
wonders, then, that so little has been
done by it to benefit our farming in
terests?
Four bad crops out of five and the
consequent poverty Of our farmers cry
aloud for economy and reduction of
taxes. But this cry, which came from
every county, was ignored by the last
which also persistently
refused to obey a plain mandate of the
Constitution to provide for reappor-
tionment of re representatives. by holding
!, c, nsus. It is small wonder, then,
that nothing was done to protect the
farmers against robbery by dishonest
fertilizer manufacturers.
The Legislature which recently ad
ourned thorgh not corrupt, has been
sery negligent OF the public welfare.