The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1892-03-24
ALLIANCE Department.
MARIETTA JOURNAL rs The
Official Organ Of the Farmers Alliance
of Cobb County.
NEEDS OF THE SOUTH.

Auo ouudI dSSmSHG VI the OOuCn
in the present juncture is what
might be called an embarrassment of
riches. The section has made two
phenomenal cotton crops, and the
two largest outputs of raw iron in
her history in two successive years.
These products happened to fall up
on seasons of dullness in their lines
over the world. The Asiatic and
African cotton crops were, in 1890,
large, in 1891 full average. The
spinning trade on the European Con-
tinent and in England was in
transition state, owing to changes in
revenue laws in America and Eu-
rope, and this mewhat Stacked the
production of fabrics. So it turned
out that all American cotton over
$500, 900 bales in each of the two
years noted was surplus. Supply
exceeded demand by quite million
bales of $50 pounds each. The nat
ural result of low and unremunera>
tive prices followed; and while the
sales of an 8,700,0O00-bale crop one
year and a 9,000,000>bale crop the
second year, have brought big mons
ey, they give no margin to the pros
ducer. The larger number of the
latter who make cotton their sole
crop have been made poor through
the very plentifulness OF their pro-
| duct.
The iron men of the South made
their great yields in years when all
the rest of the country did the same
| thing. AS is the case of the planter,
the iron master finds himself forced
to sell his iron at cost, or barely
enough margin to maintain plant
and keep going.
Itpasses without proof that such
industrial methods bring embarass-
ment and poverty. They furnish
practical demonstration that the
South must diversity her Industries
all along the line or become bank
rupt. The section must get rid of
the wasteful tenant farming system,
that has been a dead weight on its
progress for quarter of a century.
Small farming Of the intensive order
by farmers who own the ground
must be taught and encouraged.
Better cotton and less of it must be
the policy until the world grows up
to larger use and hence larger
requirement. More food crops,
making cotton side venture for its
cash quality, and finally more and
more cotton mills of all kinds for the
production of every sort OF fabric.
Better care Of lands; better shelter
for stock and tools; more complete
utilization of waste materials for
fertilizing-in short, both industry
and intelligence for the farming in
dustry-these are the requirements
of the hour if our agricultural popu-
lation would free itself from debt,
and become in the true sense indie,
pendent.
Another matter the South pays
too little attention is the raising OF
enimals for food, for farm work and
the carriage. In this respect we are
badly in arrears. A large percent
age OF our meat, of our horses and
mules are bought abroad millions
yearly 60 to states of the Central
North for farm animals, and other
millions for beef and bacon that
ought to be raised chiefly in the ter
ritory north of an east and west line
drawn from the Atlantic to the Rio
Grande through Atlanta, and south
of the Ohio river. No other equal
territory in the world is so well
adapted to the cheap production of
cattle, horses, mules and swine, as
this, but it don't raise more than
halt it consumes. While this section
ought to supply its own wants in
these lines, and all needed in the
cotton belt, SO called, it really buys
largely from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois
and the Northwestern States beyond
the Mississippi. All this must be
changed before the South, as a
whole, can called prosperous.
In the iron trade we have lust
l. Il