The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-06-12
: Old-Fashioned EARNING.

A correspondent of the Monticello Times
gives some very interesting facts in regard
to the profits of farming in the days before
the war. The correspondent says that ia
the twenty years between 1910 and 1860,
he accumulated thirty thousand dollars. He
began by building a log cabin in the woods,
and had no help save that furnished by
sensible and loving wife. The home, being
an humble one, was soon paid for.
1t was paid for by raising cotton, hauling
it to Savannah and Augusta in wagon,
and selling it at from four to five cents
pound. The farm was near Macon, and the
wagon trip to Savannah or Augusta was
made in ten days. When the cotton was
sold, the wagon was loaded with as much
merchandise as could be comfortably hauled
back.
Notwithstanding the fact that he was
occasionally robbed, the farmer still made
some money by hauling cotton two hundred
miles in a wagon and selling it for five cents
a pound. The correspondent makes no Sc
cret of the methods by which he was ena-
bled to accomplish this remarkable feat. We
say remarkable, for the majority of farmers
nowadays can make no money by carrying
their cotton few miles to market and SELL
ing it for nine and ten cents pound.
How did the old-fashioned farmer make
money? 1t is very simple matter, indeed.
He raised nearly everything he consumed,
and his cotton was "a surplus cash CROP
The most that he bought was sugar and
coffee and Sunday suit of clothes His
farm was mandatory on. small scale.
His good wife spun and wove the everyday
clothes, while, during the long winter nights
and the rainy weather, the husband found
time to make his plow-stocks, his hoe
handles and his axe-helyes, and many other
things for which the modern farmer pays
round price.
The farmer correspondent of the Times
gives it as his opinion that the farmers OF
today would accumulate something if they
were compelled to haul their cotton to Sa-
vannah or Augusta, for, in that event, they
would be compelled to change their meth.
DDS and curtail their expenses.
He says, what THE CONSTITUTION has
been saying in one shape and another foH
many years, that the whole secret of sue
cessful farming is to raise more on the farm
'AA'FiA DAAS 1'ehAA SSAioOii4CSs LII lttlllIS Liz
cotton to Savannah and Augusta, the old
fashioned farmer consumed the meat and
corn that he had made at home. The result
was that the two hundred mile trip could
be made with an outlay OF cash not exceed
ing two dollars, and sometimes not even this
ontlay was necessary. Today such trips
the farmer consuming western bacon, corn
and hay-would cost at least ten dollars a
day.
The old-fashioned farmers cotton was
surplus crop, and when he sold six bales
for one hundred and fifty dollars, he had
that much clear money. When he got back
home with the merchandise, and the mer-
chant paid him fifty dollars in cash, trip
to Savannah was worth to him Just two
hundred dollars. The merchant had no
mortgage on him for bacon or corn. He
raised his own meat at cost of two or three
cents pound, whereas it costs a modern
Georgia farmer from ten to twenty cents a
pound to raise it in the west. He made the
corn at forty cents bushel, whereas the
modern farmer buys western corn at from
seventy-five cents to a dollar and half @
bushel, according to circumstances.
1t has been demonstrated in these cole
umns from the practical experience of many
Georgans that farming can be made to pay
in this state; nevertheless, it is interesting
to compare the old methods with the new.
JACOB HARDMAE, WHO died in Brocton
county, West Virginia. the other day, left In
his will a request for his heirs to hunt up one
Jacob Bush and pay him the sum of one dol
lar. 1t appears that in making change thirty
years age Bush paid Hartman a dollar too
much. This weighed upon the latter's mind
all through life, and he tried to set the matter
right in his will. Afther considerable trouble
the heir Of Mr.. Bush was found and the money
was paid over to him.
The DIRECTORS TO Judge Thurman's adj
vanced age may learn something by referring
10 the Country Parson," whose literary ef-
forts won him some fame quarter of a centu.
ry ago. lie told how in his younger days, be-
ing annoyed by certain friends who, he
thought, assumed a patronizing air towards
him on account Of his youth, he determined to
compile a quantity of historical facts to show
that the great achievements Of the worlds
history had been owing to the proves of young
men. lie persevered in the self-imposed task
long enough 10 learn some very interesting
particulars, but desistcd when he discovered
as lac did, that facts would not support his
theory. On the contrary, lie discovered the
Ia Al.