The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-22
The Book of Farming.

Why, yes! A man can no more make a
success of farming without brains and the
proper exercise of them than he can mer-
chandising, banking and the like, breaches
John Coffyfeld in Southern Farm.
great many men engage in these lat
ter enterprises and fail, and thousands
engage in farming and fail Proportion
ately there are a much larger number of
uneducated persons engaged in farming
than there are in commercial pursuits
from the simple reason that a man own
ing or even renting land can carry on
farming lin Way) with very little CAPT
tal-very little when forced to do it we
all know. This writer is aware that there
are several small farmers in his immedi-
ate neighbOrhood that probably will not
handle $50 of cash between this April 10
and the following Sept. 10.
They are buying their supplies from
the merchants to whom they are indebted
for a balance still due on last years ac-
counts. There are altogether thousands
of small farmers white and black OF
this kind in the southern states. Some of
them are men OF good intellect know how
farming ought to be done and do just as
well as it is possible for them to do .'un-
der the circumstances, but great Caesar!
what circumstances they are under.
They are not to be ridiculed for the way
they do things, but get our strongest sym
pathy for the way they have to do things
do it that way or do nothing and starve.
To make highest success Of farming
that is, take land, open it up, and gradu-
ally to improve the property until nicely
furnished home and farm supplied with
all necessary stock is shown as the result
of the farmers work. say to do that
requires the exhibition of just as much
intelligence as any other business re-
quires.
A Young man starting his career should
realize that he must study up for his bus
mess just as much as if he had selected
the law, or banking or merchandising, or
medicine
If he fails to look upon it in this light,
but thinks all that is necessary to do as
he saw his father do, or as his neigh bors
are doing. he is more than likely to prove
a failure as a farmer. He may succeed
partially. There must of necessity be va
rious grades of success.
1t will never, probably, be the case
again in the south when goodly percent
age of farmers attain to 'attiuence, " make
a ''snug little fortune in the course Of
twelve or fifteen years, as was the case
before the war. Ordinary farming, of
course cannot produce these results-that
is cotton and corn land a little grain.
No doubt the time is coming when farm
ing will reward its toilers with greatly
increased profits and bring competence to
a greater number than il is now doing,
but it will be then when a new system
will have replaced the one that has al
most bankrupted the present farming
class, and incidentally the merchants and
railroads more or less throughout the
south
is this writer pessimist2 He has been
accused for several years by some of his
personal friends Of being that very thing.
Holding the opinion for the past fifteen
years that there must be change of sys-
TEN in our farming or ruin in store for
the great bulk Of the farmers, when he
saw so little sign that the
farmers appreciated the necessity Of
change. but were getting deeper and
deeper into the tolls Of system al
ready shown 70 the thoughtful as fatal