The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1892-12-15
COMMISSIONER NESBTT'T
81 Monthly Talk with the Farmers
Of Georgia.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. l. 189'

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. /. 1881.
The year of 1892 has nearly passed
away, and as we take a retrospective
view of our labors, our successes and
our defeats for this year we find much
food for earnest thought. 1t is our duty
TO consider and weigh we'll the grave
responsibilities which surround us, and
in making our arrangements for another
year to ask ourselves if our efforts have
been conducted on the right lines? Have
we conducted our farms on common
sense, business principles? Have we
managed in such way as not only to
reap the largest yield from the smallest
area at the lowest cost, but have we
realized the full benefits of this result?
In planting our various crops did we
consult the ever important condition of
''supply and demand" and in disposing
of them did we exercise the business
acumen which enabled us to market
them to the best advantage? Is it not
too much our habit in the hurry, and
often perplex1ty of arranging our bust
ness at the beginning of each year to
overlook these important questions? In
our anxiety we are liable to forget that
the farmers obligations are not confined
to the narrow circle Of his own farm
and home, but on each one rests, in
part the duty Of feeding and clothing
the world. A failure in this can but
bring disappointment 'and suffering to
the busy tQilors in other occupations
and trades, and ALSO those who,
while helping Us, Gre hot pro
ducers, whose daily wants have
to be supplied. 1t is to the
farmers that these teeming millions
turn, not only for their meat and bread.
but for the clothes which they wear, and
the farmers alone can produce them.
This is their supreme right. and thus to
them belongs the lever which moves the
world. Do we realize the magnitude of
the undertaking? Is it not our duty
not only to supply our needs, but to
meet this demand which the world
makes upon us, AMI are we pursuing
system which will accomplish this
work? To understand this question
more thoroughly let us so back thirty
years. At that time there were fields in
every section of our state that, without
fertilizer. yielded large returns. With
ordinary preparation and fair cultiya-
ton we reaped abundant crops of our
staple productions. We had wide ex-
panses of woodland pastures, which
furnished our meat at an almost nOmi-
nal cost, and a contented, thoroughly
controlled labor system. Prosperity
and contentment smiled on every side
Then came the devastations of war
and an entire change in our system Of
labor. After this, from necessity often,
but as truly from mistaken farm meth
DDS, the tenant and renting system
began, and also the pernicious and
false, and should say, easy and elastic
plan of securing advances to the full,
and often more than full value of the
crops under cultivation. These mis-
takes have tended to bring about spec
ulative system Of farming. The ease
with which credit could be obtained on
cotton and the impossibili9y of securing
it on any other crop, and the cheapness
Of our lands have influenced many
farmers to produce a money crop, or
rather what they hoped would be q
money crop, to the exclusion Of those
food crops so absolutely essential to the
success, comfort and and l may say,
perpetuity of our calling. Granted that
this system is the result of our losses
from most destructive war and the
wiping out of old established customs,
it is equally true that it has established
temporary methods which have well
nigh bankrupted us.
Time has effectually demonstrated
the folly Of continuing an agricultural
policy which has brought us only dis
appointment and defeat in the past, and
yet in some cases from apathy, in
others from spirit born of despair.
We see our farmers plunging each year
deeper and deeper into the whirlpool of
ruin, Seeking and gaining the consent
Of their patient and hopeful creditors,
they brace themselves for their new
work, and by increasing cotton, their
only money crop, vainly hope to retrieve
their failing fortunes. This new work
is only new as far as the season is con-
cerne1, i is a new year, but it is the
Same old methods, the same old hopes
the same old efforts to produce a cotton
crop on credit to pay old debts.
No mathematical proposition was
ever more easily demonstrated than &his;
that farmer cannot purchase supplies
on time to make cotton at present
prices. In nine cases out of ten the
losses. are so great that he finds his obi
cations have been increased rather than
diminished by the honest but mistaken
effort he has made to release himself
from the relentless grasp of debt. Let
us resolve on different methods. Ours
is an honorable calling, and farming is
just as much business as selling
goods, OF mining ores and requires far
more study and preparation. Let no
man think that he can successfully
embark in it without some previous
preparation or knowledge of even its
simplest duties. To the man who
farms because be loves it and not sim.
ply because he can gain hard living
by it, who studies business as we'll as
the most enlightened agricultural
methods, who applies the knowledge
gained from the brainwork researches
Of others as we'll as that CLEANED from
his own observation and experience,
who uses brain force as well as physical
strength-to this man, nature opens her
store house and pours out her rich
treasures. In studying her laws we
shall realize that each year we owe
duty TO our land as wen as to cur fami.
lies and ourselves. We shall find that
We cannot continue indefinitely to draw
plant food from the soil, and expect this,
eal to remain In fruitful condition.
Taking even q small quantity each year
wears out and depletes, and while this
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