Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-25
HOG AND HONINY.
An Interesting Talk with a Practical Man
Who Thinks that Ticket will Win.

! Hon. John H Harrison, senator from
the Waco district, has been in the city
several days on business Senator Har-
rlson has been farmer for many years 3
and was for a time, until the OrganizaSs
ton began to take a dish in politics Ia
leading member of the Farmers Ali
| ance. During a conversation with
| representative of The GAZETTE yesteT-
day, he recouuted some very interesting
experiences of farm life, and gave some
very instructive points concerning the
benefits which the farmers might have
reaped from the Alliance, had they gone
about it in the right way
''In the ub-alliance to which l be-
lOnged. said the senator, ''we organ
lied a sort of literary society meeting at
stated periods, for the discus
sion Of interesting topics, and to
hear the reading of essays by
certain members We established q cir
culating library. and did what we could
to encourage the young men and young
women of the neighborhood in improving
their minds and fitting themselves for
any social circle III which they might be
called to move The subjects discussed
were usually practical, and the essays
frequently touched of matters connected
with the farm. The result OF these dis
cussiOns was seen in diversified crops,
and in the effort of the farmers to raise
everything they needed at home, as far
as practicable. The benefit is perman-
ent, and this practice is still being kept
up.
tsWhat do you think. senator, of THE
GAZETTE IS hog and hominy' crusader"
- think you have struck key note
1t seems absurd that Texas should send
abroad to buy meat for home consumption,
and yet it is an ipdisputable fact. The
farmers raise corIt which they can t sell
save at TuinousIy low prices, and buy
bacon at ruinously high prices. Let me
tell you an experience l had some time
ago L had 5000 bushels of corn and
there was no market near. ] wanted
some lumber, so I went down into the
mill country to make Il trade. Counting
up freights and everything, I found that
| would realize % cents n bushel for my
corn. ON the trip heard somebody say
there were a great many hogs in the
Trinity bottoms l bought q drove and
took them home. | turned them into
lot and shOveIed in the corn by the
wagon load. For every bushel of corn
thus fed / realized 50 cents. | have
heard great many people say meat
could net be cured and kept i'll Texas. l
have cured many thousand pounds of
bacon since 1851, and don t
think l have lost 100 pounds alto
gether And have gotten l6
cents for hams killed and cured in the
BrazOs bottoms, when Northern sugar
cured hams were worth II and u cents,
The farmers of Texas are>robbing them
selves of many thousands of dollars
Nv fniE 70
own bacon. 81
$50 you are an advocate of diversi-
fed crops even for the great cotton grow
ing Brazos bottoms, are you?7'
"Indeed l am. I had the idea washed
into me by food once, and l tried it
and proved its worth 1 woke up one
morning to find utter desolation staring
me in the face. The water had Sub
merged every stalk of cotton had and
thousands of dollars worth of work was
eternally gone. The next year 1
took a different tack. 1 turned
twenty eight acres Of ground into a
truck farm. had watermelons on
the market by the time other peoples
vines had begun to bloom, and corn and
tomatoes and other salaDle garden prod
uCts were full as early. Formerly l had
bought everything of the kind my family
used. Now 1 supplied the stores that had
supplied me- I began the season several
hundred dollars in debt to grocery mer-
chants in Waco for supplies. l paid
them off supplied my family, fed enough
hands TO plant and cultivate 500 acres of
cotton and 800 of corn, and had money
over when the cotton picking season be-
gan. picked forty-one bales that year
before [ sold one, because l didn t need
to raise money by the sale of the cotton
to pay for the picking. [ am an advo-
cate of diversified farming and of the hog
and hominy proposition, because 1 have
tried both. > .,eelVI