The Bossier banner., 1893-05-04
FARMER AND PLANTER.
WORDS OF WISDOM
From North Carolinian to His Brothe
Southern Farmers,

in regard to the necessity for decreas
ing the cotton acreage. But in the face
of improved prices the effort to accom-
plish this reduction will doubtless fail.
Men are generally so constituted that
they learn only In the bitter school of
experience. There was last year con-
siderable reduction of acreage becattse
the low price at plan ting time and the
prospect of continued low prices dis
couraged planting. The low prices also
had the effect to reduce the amount of
fertilizers purchased for this crop, and
this, in connection with bad season,
80 reduced the crop that rise in price
was the natural result. Now hundreds
and thousands are abusing their luck
because they did not plant more
and fertilize heavier last year.
All who take this short-sighted view of
the case will invest in fertilizers for
large area this year. Already there are
signs of unusual activity in the fer
tilizer trade. This is very evident in
North Carolina, from the increased
number of tax tags called for from the
agricultural department The past
winter has been an uncommonly severe
one, and the usual consequence is that
next summer will be a good crop sea-
son. The inevitable result will be
big crop of cotton and prices so low
that only the large growers, who have
capital in the business, can stand it.
The great majority of cotton choppers
have so little capital in their work that
they can not live on margin that
large grower can keep going on. The
low price of cotton was beginning to
have its legitimate effect in compelling
farmers to grow other crops besides
cotton, and to that extent was
really a blessing in disguise. Now
the prospect is that a big crop
will be planted, debts incurred for
fertilizers. and all will once more gam
BILE on the chances of getting enough
out OF the crop to pay all these bills and
buy all man needs to eat and wear.
This kind of farming is gambling pure
and simple, and, like all other forms of
gambling, the chances are against the
gambler. With a large cotton crap
and low prices, the merchant and the
fertilizer dealer will get the profit
while the planter gets the experience.
In farming, as in all other forms of
business, it is the men who steadily
pursues systematic course and never
'1ose their heads" that succeed in the
long run. 1t is good rule to touch
cautiously what everyone else is med
ding with. This is eXemplified every
year in the truck-growing business
Let crop be particularly profitable
one season and the next year all the
growers rush heavily into it and brake
down the market SO that heavy loss en-
sues.
In 1891, here in North Carolina, the
early crop of Irish potatoes paid we'll
Last spring everyone planted largely
of them, and the result was that in
much of the truck section not more
than half was dug. This season seed
potatoes are scarce and high, and the
acreage will doubtless be largely re-
duced, and good prices will be the rule,
and next year the gamblers viii rush
in again. The man who goes on from
year to year with carefully-planned
system of cropping, with a view to in
creasing the productive capacity of his
land, and never allows any momentary
excitement in any crop to unbalance
him, will usually strike it well on some
one or more of his crops, even if one of
them is Improbable.
The man who assigns to cotton only
its legitimate place as a money crop,
and plans systematic rotation of
crops designed to promote the yield of
his money crop, and at the same time
increase all others in like manner
can make those crops pay the expenses
of his farming and then have his cotton
literally money crop, profit crop
But he will never do this while his land
will not produce n half bale of cotton
per acre, only eight or ten bushels of
corn per acre, and only few bushels
of oa is. The man who can not grow
cotton at a less cost than six cents per
pound will, in the course of a few years,
be compelled to quit growing cotton at
all or learn to order his farming so as
to grow it at less cost.
The present advance in cotton will
quickly disappear with big crop this
year, and those who risk everything on
q
their chances with this crop will prob
ably make disastrous failure. Fence
your land, grow pease for hogs
and cattle. Make permanent
pasture of Bermuda grass and
Texas blue grass to feed sheep
and cattle at all seasons. Make
corn, oats and other crops, not onlv
enough to keep you but have some to
sell. Keep your land ut work growing
some useful crop that will build it up
and feed stock at the same time. in
stead of imagining you are resting"
it by allowing it to grow weeds one
season to bother your crops next year
There is no theorizirg about this, it
will work out every time. 1t has
worked out in the south with everyone
who Systematically adhered to good
farming. When man, as one of our
friends did twenty-three years ago.
can buy a farm of several hundred
acres on credit when he was fifty-
seven years, and by systematic culture
of only sixty-acres of this tract has now