The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1892-06-25
ARMER AND PLANTER
THE COTTON PROBLEM.
There Ii Only One solution, Says q Missis.
sippi Planter.

A circular recently sent oui by New
Orleans cotton firm is attracting good
deal of attention among farmers in the
lower valley. This circular is printed
below under the title "A Plain Talk
About Farming" Mr.. Il. F. Holiday.
OF Prairie Station, Miss, recently sent
IL to the Aberdeen Examiner, with the
following remarks:
"All the resolutic:s that all the cotton
planters conventions can pass from now
until doomsday will not affect the price
of cotton. You can not "resolute" or
legislate anybody into prosperity. The
individual may form resolutions that z
carried out will help him, but no cotton
convention can enforce the resolutions
it adopts.
"The proprietor or landlord as you
call him can not loaf all the year and
turn his farm over to a lot of dead-beat
tenants who will work only enough to
afford pretext for drawing rations-
about ninety days in the year-and rab-
bit-hunt and trifie the rest of the time.
ANY crop produced with as little eff
fort and attention as characterizes cot
ton planting with free negro labor in
this country is bound to be cheap.
II am planting this year with the ex-
pectation of selling the crop at the prices
now prevailing, but intend to ''live at
home" and have my supply depot on the
premises.
THE negro has one Of three things to
do under existing conditions: Go to
<,f<H o. to-
in many instances it will go hard with
them to have to come down to real. solid
six-days-in-thc-week work after having
enjoyed all the long years since the war
in lazy ease at someone else's expense"
The following is the circular referred
to which appeared as communication
in the Grenada Sentinel, and is from the
pen of prominent lawyer and farmer
of Grenada county, Miss:
A PLAIN TALK ABOUT FARMING.
The recent expressions given out at
the meetings of the cotton growers as
sociatious at jackson and Memphis are
liable to mislead a great many farmers
These expressions go on the idea that
there is an overproduction. This is an
erroneous idea, not borne out by statis-
tics There is not more than two and a
half bales per hand produced by those
engaged in cotton production. This,
then, is not more than half crop, and
small one at that. 1t will be seen,
then. that there is really an underpro-
duction of not only cotton, but also of
corn, meatsand other edibles No
country under the sun can feed
such labor, furnish mules and feed
and tools, and live on this sort of
crop, even at 10 cents for cotton. The
average number of days worked by the
negro laborer in the country will not
exceed ninety days good steady work.
No work is pretended to be done until
the LIST of March, and in July the crop
is ''laid by" and nothing more done un-
til the middle of September or LIST of
October, and picking ends by Decem-
Der 1 to Is. Take off Saturdays and
rainy days and you have about three
months work to get Ave bales; the
Landlord is out land, mule and feed.
and the feed and clothing of the family
that makes Unusually about seven in
the family.
The whole crop does not more than
pay the expenses of the squad that
raises it-leaving the landlord with
out cent. Now. when it is remem-
bered that less than 5 per cent.
of the cotton country in the United
States is in cultivation, the production
in the future can readily be seen. We
must have more work, more cotton and
corn to the hand. There is no suc.,
thing as regulations. Like every other
merchantable article, it must and will
regulate itself. We ought, with the
labor now employed in the cotton fields
of the south, to produce $4,000, 00C
bales, and plenty of corn, meat and
everything else to eat. We are support
ing too many oilers. The white people
have as a rule gone to town and virtual.
ly turned the country over TO the
negroes. A negro can raise cotton, bu,
can not without intelligent direction
produce corn. Ten years hence sale
of cotton told of as high as ten cents
will hardly be believed. The natur
al increase in cleared land and new
land in the prairies of Texas taker
in will amount to at least fifteen pei
cent. The present crop will be fully
1900, 900 bales and no prospect of one
ever being smaller When cotton gets
so cheap that it can not bear freigh,
burdens to distant points the factorie:
viii move to it.
Every farm should be self-sustaining
Raise plenty Of corn, meat and mules
cows and sheep, and in addition pro
duce with the same labor three times a.
much cotton per hand as is raised now
1t is perfectly clear that with scent
cotton we can't buy everything, espe
cially when we produce only half &
crop. But there is as much money il
scent cotton, if it is produced on you
own meat, bread and mules, rs Their,
was in 15-cent cotton made on corn
meat and mules bought at a profit o
from 100 per cent. to grand larceny