The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1888-01-12

on his farm at two dollars per ton ?
Fighting grass all summer and buying
it all winter!
Why is it that thousands and thou
sands Of freight trains come south.
ward loaded with the products OF
Northern farms and SO many of them
are returned empty?
My heart was moved this morning
with pride as [ listened to the gifted
Grady in his thrilling and eloquent
portrayal Of the magnificent resources
and capabilities of this Southern land.
But the crowning argument, IN my
Judgment, to sustain the claim that 1t
is the grandest country on the globe,
is the fact that,it has undergone this
~stupendous drain on it's energies and
resources for these long years and we
are alive! 1t could have been accom-
plished nowhere on the globe except
on Southern soil and by Southern
men
The next defect, [ notice, is
"Tenant SYSTEM" by which I mean
that practice among the farmers in
the South Of renting or leasing lands
to tenants to be managed and cult
waited according to their wv methods.
In my judgment, no system could be
devised for more unremunerative and
improbable crops, or for the more
certain exhaustion and destruction of
our lands. With III cheap and natur-
ally fertile lands, if we had intelligent,
skilled and reliable labor, subjected to
wholesome rules of labor-discipline
and labor-system, as in England or
other old and advanced European
countries, then indeed might we hope
for the best results. But I hazard
nothing in saying that with this prac-
tice engrafted on our agricultural
system, neither the tenant nor land
lord may expect remunerative results,
and the farmer who persists in it will
leave to his children a legacy Of old
fields and g%ullies. For if there be
any one phase of the labor system of
the South which is settled beyond all
question among intelligent Southern
farmers, it is that we may hope for no
Improvement Of lands or crops or
methods if left to the control of free.
negro tenants. The wage-labor sys.
tenn, established on the equitable prin.
ciple of giving a just price for labor,
and demanding in return a just equiv.
alent from labor, would give to the
employee and those dependent on him
the full benefit of a fair value for his
labor and would keep the are an
cultivation of the lands where it should
always be,-under the direct control
and supervision of the owner.
THlRDLY-Ne "Broad Acre" System.
Is it not harder to cultivate a two
hundred acre farm poorly, han it is
to cultivate a one hundred acre farm
we'll p? Can that system of farming be
right which impoverishes the soil and
reduces the yield7 Can that system
of farming be right and profitable
which does not improve the soil and
increase the yield :?
The average farmer in the South is
attempting to cultivate too much land.
The average farmer in the South
owns more land than he can manage
profitably. The time, labor and money
expended on twenty acres SHOULD be
concentrated on ten. But it was one
Of those venerable and reverend GUS
toms of the past, which, although un-
profitable and wasteful, and unsuited
to those conditions imposed by the
destruction of our slave-labor SYSTEM
we still cling to with singular ~tenacity.
The s~lave-owner Of the South was rich
in proportion as he was able to increase
the number Of his slaves and to multi
ply his broad acres. And what
though, by his system Of farming, fair
and fertile fields we're exhausted, laid
waste and abandoned ? He had but
to slay and destroy his magnificent
forests to replace them with fresher
and richer fields, to be in their turn
depleted, exhausted aud ruined. Thus
was this goodly heritage, which the
God Of Nature had so bountifully pro
vided, wasted and positively robbed,
and today all over the beautiful hills
and plains of this fair land, abandoned,
exhausted fields and quilted hillsides
greet the eye as the mournful foot
prints Of slavery. Shall this process
of depletion, exhaustion, waste and
ruin be continued Shall the genera
tons which are to follow us continue
to be robbed =?