San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-09-08
PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS.

PERTINENT PARAGRAPHS.
BY OUR SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION.
The recorder assesses o tramp from
So to $40 and drunk at 81, which
seems to be Furnishing poverty more
severely than misdemeanOr.
"There was once upon a time" as
the fairy stories say, q song and the
"Dimes and dollars, dollars and
dimes.
The want of money is the worst OF
crimes.n
Dives regarded Lazarus as q crimi.
nal as we'll as q vagabOnd, because of
his poverty. But when they died
their positions were reversed.
The demand of dollar q hundred
for picking seed cotton. ia more than
farmers can afford to pay, with the
low price of lint cotton.
1t usually takes 1900 pounds of seed
cotton to make bale OF 500 lbs. of
lint cotton before frost, rs the seeds
are green and heavy.
At cents this bale would sell for
$40, from which must be deducted
the cost Of ginning. packing, hauling
and the SIS for the picking of it-so
that, with good luck, it will net the
farmer $lS-less than cents a pound.
There seems to be in this demand
plain violation of the humane adage
of Live and let live"
The farmer constitutes the tap root
of all private and national prosperity
he raises all that feeds and clothes
the community, and he is entitled to
"fair play and no gouging."
His subtreasury scheme is the quin-
tessence of folly, and is fraught with
ruin to the entire country, but for all
that, he should not be scrayed to the
bone and then have the marrow
twisted out of his bones.
The ante bellum cry that "cotton is
king" is still imbedded In the minds
of the farmers of the south. They
can't dislodge it, delusion though it
be.
This delusion has ruined thousands
of farmers. They sacrificed corn,
milk and butter, and comfort to grow
big crop of cotton. If drought,
flood, storms, or caterpiliars, cut snort
their cotton crop, they were used up
and brimiul of that Undesirable
sensation of goneness.
1t required big share of their cot
ton crop to purchase articles which
they should have produced at home.
They were seldom able to make
buckle and tongue meet, Tat the close
of the year. Accumulation was inn
possible.
If the low price of cotton, together
with the demand of the cotton pick
ers, have the effect of disgusting farm
ers with the raising of cotton, those
things will prove to be BLESSINGS in
Disguise"
There is no money in raising cotton
with hired labor. at s cent per pound
for lint cotton. That is a selt-evident
proposition.
Why do men continue to prosecute
losing business year after year?
Farmers must rent out their land, re-
serving enough for themselves to
work and take hold of the plough
handle themselves.
Labor will not hurt or degrade them
in the least. Let them adopt the in
tensive plan of Misunderstanding
the soil to the utmost-and by this
system double the crop per acre. One
able bodied man can cultivate IL
acres in corn. acres in cotton and
one acre in potatoes. And double as
much with sulky gang plough.
/ Under the intensive system, he
ought to gather so bushels of corn to
the acre-600 bushels; $500 pounds of
cotton to the acre-12 800 pounds, say
seven bales of lint cotton; and $50
bushels of sweet potatoes. No bad
years work for one man.