The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-10-09
FARMER AND PLANTER.
DIVERSITY OF PRODUCTS.

| The Most Prosperous Communities Those
where Agriculture Is Diversified.
| The most prosperous communities are
usually those that make the greatest
variety of products, whether agricultur-
al or manufactured articles, or both.
Indeed that State, county or township
is most favorably sitNated where both
manufactures and farm productions are
made in abundance. The farmer is the
bedrock of society everywhere, and to
him all other vocations must look, first
for the food they eat, secondly, for buy
ers of the wares they manufacture, and
often for the raw material from which
to manufacture those wares. The farm
er sells the manufacturer the raw ma
terial for making cotton and wooden
goods, timber for wagons, furniture,
Flows, etc., and food wherewith to feed
him. In return he buys the manufac-
tured goods he needs for his household
and farm.
Now the farmer that raises the great
est diversity of crops can supply more of
the manufacturers wants than he who
raises but one or two. If he raises both
material for both wooden and cotton
goods. Also, if he raises full line of
garden vegetables, field and orchard
crops, pigs, beeves and muttons, he can
we'll nigh supply all the demands for
food.
He who raises but one or two crops
has but one or two opportunities for
gaining money, against the dozen or
more resources or his neighbor who
raises every thing his farm can produce.
A diversity of products is also more
elevating in its tendency to the mind
of the farmer himself He has to study
more in order to succeed. Noah Web
ster. the great photographer, was an in
defatigable worker. He rarely took a
vacation, but he found rest in a change
of labor. When his mind grew weary
over one branch of work, he would turn
to something else, but kept on steadily
toiling. Change of occupation gives
rest in physical as well as mental labor.
Again, diversity of crops is less ex-
hausting to the land as well as to the
farmers mental powers than one crop
grown for years on the same soil. BY
diversity we also run less risk of the
over-production of any given crop, and
in consequence realize better prices.
Texas and the rest of the Southwest
is so rapidly developing it's many re-
sources, building up so many large
towns, extending its mileage of rail-
roads and entering so largely into man
ufactures of different kinds. thatit offers
fine inducements for diversified farm
ing. Almost any and all kinds of farm
produce can find ready and remunera-
tive market. Farmers should encourage
manufactures of all sorts, for factories
mean more men, women and children to
be fed from the products of the farm.
They also mean diversity of farming
and general prosperity The old custom
of sending off our cotton, lumber, iron
ore, ETC., to distant States and cities to
be manufactured, will soon be num-
bered as other dead customs are The
cotton manufacturer now seeks the cot
ton field as the best site for his factory;
the iron manufacturer is erecting his
foundry and rolling-mills at the mines,
ank the furniture-maker, wagon-maker
and other wood makers are planting
their machinery in close proximity to
our great forests. In short, new orde
of things is being inaugurated through
out Texas and the whole South, and
the inducements for diversified farming
are greater now than ever before. Dick
Naylor, in Texas Farm and Ranch.