The Bossier banner., 1891-10-01
FARMER AND PLANTER.
ARE WE SLAVES 2
A Pertinent Query Put by a Wen. K-ow 1
Agricultural Writer.

Agricultural Writer.
1t makes a rejecting man sick at
heart to contemplate the present con-
dition of the great mass of southern
farmers. There is trades paper pub
lished in the interest of house carpen-
ters which has for it's motto these ap-
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 large portion of the agricultural
masses. They toll increasingly from
early dawn to sundown 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
only are kept for home consumption.
All the best peaches are sent to town.
Likewise all the eggs, butter and poul-
try the overworked housewife may Ue
able to accumulate, while she 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
discomfort and bitter complaints from
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 outcry
against our lawmakers and our gov
ernment. 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 outcry 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
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, thev
would soon be independent and the
richest agricultural people in the world"
This is the whole matter in a nutshell:
the southern farmers are slaves to
''King Cotton" They should plant cot
ton-mOst of them shouldn't it should
be a 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
vineyar ard are more deserving of
reward. No member of society is
more important to the general
welfare than the farmer Instead
of being slave and menial, he is in
truth the very lord of the soil, and
whenever the inequalities of society
are properly adjusted he will rank as
such. To gain his proper position of
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 servilitv
to at least an equality in the share of
the good things of earth by first adopt
ing rational means for its own improve
ment. The same fundamental business
principles that govern other men and
other occupations apply to agriculture
as well, and 1t is 10y a strict adherence
to these principles that the farmer must
mainly expect relief.-Dick NayIor, in
Home and Farm.