The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1893-04-18
Too Much Diversity.

1t is very popular and widespread no.
ton that farmer ought to diversity his
products. We often hear it insisted that he
should produce on the farm everything
required for the comfort of his family and
the proper management of his farm, that
climate and soil will permit Now we don't
believe i'll putting "all the eggs in one
basket" on the one hand, nor is it wise to
divide the eggs between too many baskets,
on the other. An old friend came to see
us the other day and was telling of his sue
cesses and of his future plans He has
never been q farmer, and has been Il tray
cling man for good many years. He
said that he had saved up some money and
was now sixty years old, but still sound,
hale and hearty; and that his great desire
and fixed purpose was to buy u nice two
horse farm of 100 acres and ''go to farm
ing" He went on to say that he would
plant little of everything" He would
SOW oats and rye, wheat and barley, rice
and buckwheat; he would raise fancy chick
ems, keep bees in patent hives, raise a colt
or two, have a few acres in corn and an
acre or two in cotton. He would have ten
or twelve nice Jersey cows and sell milk
and butter, and may cheesebe; he wanted
some fine hogs, and few goats, ETC. l
promptly said to my friend: Eyes; and you
are going to make q first-class failure, if
you are not carful," etc. Our advice to
him was, don't undertake to do too many
things; don't plant everything or attempt
to produce everything that you think you
will want, or that the market will take
don't put ''too many irons in the fire" 1t
it rather andacious to say anything against
dlyerSfying when it is the staple of so
many addresses to farmers, and the key
note of poHticO-agricultural editorials. 1t
requires degree of courage for man to
tell Il farmer he ought not to grow any
corn, or another that he should buy his
flour, and mother that it will py for him
TO raise pigs. The fact is that it has come
to be the fad that farmer should do
everything, raise everything, plant every
thing, and, go to mill besides"
1t Is very easy thing to give advice,
to reyamp and ring the changes on ''too much
cotton and too little corn" diversity.
But what the farmer needs
is not so much patent advice as he does in
formation not so many suggestions of what
he ought to do, but more details of how to
do it successfully and profitably.
Should u man raise wheat simply be-
cause he must have flour. or shall he pro-
duce tea, tobacco, starch. soap, rice. SUI
gar, plow lines, harness, horse collars,
leather and a dozen other things because
these are all required by his family or nee
essary to his business, and at the same
time may be produced at home? By no
means. The correct rule is for farmer to
produce those staple neCesSaries of life
which his soil, climate and his own per-
sonal aptness OF skill enable him to produce
most prohtably. If farmer has large
family flour and bacon and lard, milk and
butter, chickens and eggs become prime ar
ticles of necessity. If he has any suitable
land for wheat it would be we'll for him to
sow a few acres. If he has but an acre of
land he should keep cow. He is rarely
eXcusable i'll not raising his bacon. He GER
tainly should produce chickens and eggs,
But generally he will find it best, in Geor-
gia, to raise surplus of oats and buy his
flour; produce a little more bacon than he
needs and exchange it for sugar, coffee and
tea; have an excess of butter and buy hats
and shoes for his wife and daughters; sell
a few COW peas and buy rice, and SO on.
And what about cotton? We believe it
would be a safe rule to tax his cotton crop
with the wages of labor and the cost of
fertilizers and let the remainder be the
measure of his clear profits on the years
work. No procrustan rule should be made
by which everything shall be measured.
but a general rule should be followed to
buy nothing that can be produced more
cheaply at home, and to give especial prom
inence to those articles that enter most
largely into home consumption.
L. j. REDDTNo,