The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-06-18
TOBACCO.

Nh. EDITORIALS l see that the pre-
vailing hard times have given rise of
late to much discussion in the news
papers relative to a very vital ques,
ton, in which tobacco planters are
deeply interested, and as l am an
humble member Of the fraternity, will
you allow me, in my homely, slip. shod,
countrifed fashion, to make a few OBJ
servations on the subject?
We tobacco planters have encoun-
tered no such ordeal since the war as
that which now confronts us, and of
our with our discontinue, other
industries must more or sless suffer.
Indeed, the predicament in which we
find ourselves involved is unprece-
dented in the recollection of anyone,
either before or since the war, and
how or in what manner we are to get
out of it is a staggering puzzle, with
no clue indicating a solution. With
tobacco fetching less than the cost of
production, we find ourselves not. only
In disastrous ~arrearsy but with that
whichis worse than the wolf at our door
hopeless, irretrievable bankruptcy
staring us In the face. In vain we
work hard and make good crops, and
economic to the last pinch in the face
of starvation prices. Mother earth
may not fail to do her part to the
utmost, but the ruinously financial
part is more than she bargained for,
and unless prices rule higher, and that
soon, she will fail to nurture us alto.
gether. Men who never before failed
to meet their pecuniary obligations,
and to meet which was a
religious obligation with them,
are compelled for once to succumb
to the inevitable, and experience
the modification of compulsatory de-,
linquency. We look forward as a
dernaer resort, a sort of forlorn hope,
to the crops pitched for this year to
tide Us over the breakers which en-
viron us, and if the present prevailing
ruinous rates do not improve to an ex
tent that will aus our products to
exceed the cost of production consid-
erably, why, the jig is up, and how
we are to extricate ourselves out of
such an ENHANCEMENT is past compre-
hension.
Some advice: off your adopted
system don't pay, go at something
else; diversity your crops; convert
your plantation into meadows and
clover pastures, and go to raising
stock" and then they think that we
would literally revel in pastures
new" 1t is very easy to criticise and
to give advice, but do such people
comprehend, especially in regard to
the subject in question, what they are
talking about 2 In the first place,
where is the capital to come from to
enable an ~impecunious clod- hopper to
turn such an agricultural somersault :?
And then, do such advisers entertain
the least idea as to the serious onse-
quences involved in SO momentous a
thing as the sudden change of a life.
long system, with the fixed habits ap-
pertaining thereto :? 1t is sufficiently
ruinous to have to contend with a sue.
cession of disasters, occasioned by
unpropitious seasons, but these are
comparatively temporary and may be
remedied by n or two favorable sea-
sons, but when ruinousIy low prices
more than counterbalance good crops.
with no outlook ahead that seems to
give a prospect of ultimate relief other
than experimenting with crops and
modes of agriculture different from
the long-established system to which
you are Injured, then the prospective
outlook is not fattering. No more
calamitous slam can be imagined than
when a whole district is forced to for.
sake a lifelong mode of culture Incl
den to the staple products peculiar to
the soil and climate, and, above all,
which has become a second nature
with the cultivators, and seek relief
| by resorting to a precarious, empirical