Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1891-08-20
FARMER AND PLANTER.
ARE WE SLAVES ?
Pertinent Query Put by wel-Known
Agrict Itural Writer.

A Pertinent Query Put by "A Well-Known
Agrlcl itural Writer.
II makes q rehecting man sick at
heart to contemplate the present con-
dition of the great mass of southern
farmers, There is a trades paper pub
lished in the interest of house carpen-
tiers which has for its motto these APP
propriate words: 1.-THE men who build
palaces should not live in hovels!"
What more appropriate sentiment
could be applied to the great army of
producers of the necessaries of life than
this "Those who feed the world
should not themselves live on husks!"
Yet, how nearly is this the condition
of II large portion of the agricultural
masses They toll increasingly from
early dawn to shutdown or after; yet
their families have not as many COM
forts-to say nothing of luxuries-as
other laboring people. Whatever deli
cacies the farm may produce are sent to
market, and the refuse or unstable
ouly are kept for home consumption.
All the best peaches are sent to town.
Likewise all the eggs, butter and poul-
try the overworxed housewife may be
able to accumulate, while 81 ; and her
family must content themselves with
bacon, corn-bread and what few vege-
tables the usually overcropped farmer
may be able to raise.
No wonder we hear murmurings of
Il ,,.Ae
our rural population. No wonder boys
leave the farms in disgust and seek oc-
cupation in the crowded cities. No
wonder the girls express contempt for
farm life and reject the rustic beauX
They all see the hardships the farming
people undergo and the inadequate pay
most of them get
This stringent condition of agricul-
ture has caused a general cutlery
against our lawmakers and our gov
eminent. In their desperation farmers
have been led into many chimerical
and impractical ideas. They demand
instant relief through legislative chan
nels, and bitterly denounce our politi-
cal leaders as subsidized demagogues!"
In their wild cutlery for relief they
often let their impulses get the better
of their Judgment, and thus are apt to
become the prey of set of political
schemers, who, to say the least, are no
improvement ON those upon whom they
now hurl their anathemas.
That there has been much unjust
class legislation, no fair-minded man
will deny; but that counter class legis-
lation will permanently improve the
farmers condition, no impartial man is
prepared to admit 1.-TWO wrongs
never did make one right" and never
will. There are some things that leg
islation can relieve in part but the i'm
provement in the condition of southern
agriculture is mainly matter which
farmers themselves must work out.
With an abundance of food stuffs for
home use (which should be every farm
er's first care), the farmer can easily
raise enough cotton to supply his other
wants.
Mr. R. H. Harris, of North Carolina,
very pertinently says: IF the farmers
of the south would plant half the land
they now do in cotton, and manure and
cultivate it better, plant more grain
and grass, and keep more stock, they
would soon be independent and the
richest agricultural people in the world. u
This is the whole matter in nutshell;
the southern farmers are slaves to
king Cotton" They should plant cot
ton-most of them shouldn't it should
be secondary and not primary crop;
secondary to corn, oats, hay and hogs
1t is not right that the farmer should
labor so hard for such small pay. Sure
ly no laborers in the worlds great
whey ard are more deserving oil
reward. No member of society Is
more important to the genera
welfare than the farmer Instead
of being a slave and mental, he is in
truth the very lord of the soil, ant
whenever the inequalities of society
are properly adjusted he will rank az
SUCH To gain his proper position o
pre-eminence, however, must largely
be the result of his own labor.
The gods help those who help them
selves, and the farmer must rise from
his present position of unjust servility
to at least an equality in the share O.
the good things of earth by first adopt
ing rational means for its own improve
ment. The same fundamental bushes,
principles that govern other men ant
other occupations apply to agriculture
as well, and it is by strict adherence
to these principles that the farmer mus
mainly expect relief.-Dick Naylor, il
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