The times and democrat. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1881-current, 1886-04-29
0ur Farmers.

day in Columbia, and the question is
asked on all sides what can it do to het-
ter the condition of the farmer. This
question is not easily solved, as it is
hard to see what convention can do
to make non-paying business profita-
ble. That farming, or. at least, our
method of farming, is unprofitable.
goes without saying. 10 be convinced
of this fact, we have only to look
around us, and we will see evidences of
it on every hand. but it is hard to see
how the convention isgoing to remedy
this unless it can induce our farmers
to change their mode of farming. No
man can have his smoke-house in Ten
nessee, his corn crib in Indiana, buy
his stock in Kentucky, and plant cotton
at cents a pound and make a living.
Indeed, many farmers say it actually
costs more to produce cotton now than
they can get for it. Why then plant
it. Why not raise corn, oats, meat and
stock, thus insuring the means of llv-
ing, and only plant cotton as a surplus
stock to sell. This would reduce the
supply and in the natural order OF
things increase thedemand. The reply
comes that 1--WE are in debt. We have
nothing to run us through the year.
In order to live we must get advances
from the merchant. When we go to
him he says. How much cotton will
you raise? Cotton, and nothing but
cotton, can be pledged to the merchant,
or converted into money, II we 60 to
town with a load Of corn, oats, or pota-
toes, we have to hawk it AROUND the
streets all day, and perhaps not find a
purchaser; if we 60 with bag of cot
ton, a dozen buyers crowd around us
before we reach our destination. We
have no money to plant with-the
who let us have the money
or provisions wants cotton and cotton
we must plant" In the language of
the Augusta Chronicle, from whose
columns the above extract is taken,
"what state of affairs is this. The
farmers no longer free agents, no longer
independent landowners, but simply
tenants on their own farms-a body of
serfs obeying the mandates of the real
and growing poorer and
more dependent every year. This is no
fancy picture. 1t is mournful reality.
A prominent merchant in country
town told the writer that he lad re-
corded over 400 mortgages on farmers
lands and stock since the first of JAN
uary, and sixty in the past fifteen days.
This was but a single store in single
county-think what mass of encum-
brances the records of the State must
show. No people can prosper under
such u system. The credit system as
at present carried on between our fac
tors, country merchants and farmers
means the inevitable impoverishment
and ruin of our planters, \ farmer
will enter into any obligation for the
future so he is relieved of present en-
barrassment. He will contract to do
that it is manifestly i'm
possible for him to do, and burden his
land with an encumbrance that must
in the end overwhelm it. There is but
one way out Of all this. That is for
farmers to settle up their Indebtedness,
and begin to live within their means.
This is not impracticable. Let the
planter who is farming 1000 acres,
with a mortgage on it, sell 500 OF them
Ind pay out. Let the man who is run
hing two hundred acres sell 100 or $50
f necessary to set him free, anG so on
lown. Then with fifty acres unencum-
)ered, and, owing no man anything, let
lin raise his own corn, potatoes and
,acon. Let him raise what he requires
o live on, and let him live on what he
Makes" This advice if followed would
make the farmers of South Carolina
masters Of the situation in less than
i've years, and put them on the high
Dad to prosperity and wealth. If the
Farmers Convention can Induce the
armers of this State to follow the ex-
client advice given by the Augusta
Chronicle to the farmers of Georgia it
will not have been held in vain, and
ur farmers will become independent,
,ut if they continue "the suicidal poll
y Of planting cotton to the exclusion
# food crops and mortgaging their
ands to merchants who furnish sup
,lies at high prices and ruinous rates
# interest" we agree with the Chroni-
lie that it is only a matter of time
when the end must come.