The Opelousas courier., 1894-03-31

SOIL, ItI lLuLltuSo WOOulduuo uHO WHuoA
her imperial domain of waving
nothing of her yellow fields of rice and
corn, give to the husbandmen untold
opportunities for attaining a compe-
tence as we'll as a fortune.
All it requires to attain the hoped-fOr
is diligence to business, industrious
habits, economy and a measur OF per.
severance and tact in the affairs and
management of the farm or plantation
with q full knowledge of the business
required.
10 raise all cotton is suicidal.
To raise all rice means bankruptcy.
To raise all cane may end in failure.
Given the same amount of capital to
two men Of equal ability with the same
amount Of land Of equal fertility-equal
in the amount Of labor bestowed-the
one raises all cotton he buys the grain
and hay for his teams, meat and bread
for his help. At the end Of the first
year he balances his books and finds
the greater figure on the debit side.
The next year the debit is greater still,
aud at the end of the third year he is
obliged to ask his merchant for advan.
ces. The merchant tells him he will
advance him but he must give him q
mortgage Ou GHc ldllI' Az tuo Cuu VI
ten years he finds he is hopelessly In
volved.
The other diversifies his crops. He
plants cotton, it is true but he plants
an equal number of acres OF corn. In
the corn he plants peas at the rate OF
one barrel to 5 acres. He plants a field
of oats wheh the oats are harvested IN
April or May, he plants the same ground
to peas. He mows the peas for hay or
turns in the hogs to harvest them. His
barns are filed with hay of some kind.
He has a bin full of oats, and his cribs
are bursting with corn, the king OF all
cereals. He has a pasture or several
pastures for stock, horses and mules,
and raises his own horses and mules.
He has several pastures for hogs alone,
and he changes them from MI pasture
to the other, only to give them more
luxuriant feed Of oats or rye or peas or
chufas. Always plenty of green feed
summer or winter. He changes his Ole
fields to pasture and after a few years
from pasture to field. Where he has
corn and peas this year the next be
plants to cotton. Part Of his pasture ne
plants to oats and peas each year, and
SO he keeps alternating and changing
his fields and crops until he has brought
his land to a great fertility, growing
lighter and richer and more productive
each year, while the land Of the all-cot-
ton raiser grows poorer and poorer and
less productive each year.
Show me a farmer who plants as is
suggested above and | will show you a
farm without a mortgage.
| have often heard it said, and that
too by intelligent men, that we can buy
our meat cheaper than we car buy it ;
but it is a great mistake. 1t is true
that corn costs a little more here than
in the west but we have advantages
Of climate apd health and other advan-
tages that more than compensate for
the increased price of corn ; and I
speak from experience, having raised
hogs in both countries, that 9 prefer to
raise hogs in Louisiana at western
prices.
The same thing may be said Of cattle,
horses and mules; only the difference
in favor Of Louisiana 10 these animals
is far greater. The hog is the poor
ming a plantation iss we'll known. An
initiate the hog and you ruin the south.
The negro can no more work without
the aid of the hog than the locomotive
can run without steam.
Secretary Morton discourses on the
hog in his speech before the Swine
Breeders Association in Chicago last
summer Tread extract page 27). You
say we can't raise pork in Louisiana 7
Why, my dear Christian friends, you
give me a herd of Poland China hogs,
plenty of green oats, peas and clover,
plenty of good water and shade with
clean quarters and some corn, and the
way they will multiply and grow and
wax bigger will astonish the hog him
self.
Farmers, raise your horses and mules;
grow corn, oats, peas, hay and potatoes.
Kindly intimate to your wives that they
a make just as good butter and cheese
as the world affords. Raise plenty Of
cattle and hogs, and raise all the cotton
you wish. Diversity your products, but
don't diversity your politics. Stand by
who have left US q rich inheritance Of
wisdom and knowledge. Don't join in
the general cry Of the calamity howlers
that the country is going to the demni-
ton bow-wows.
Be true to yourselves and to mi an
other. Let us ask no more than we are
willing to cOncede to others.
Let us remember that there is no kind
of money, no kind of taxation, no pow
ers or functions Of government but
what have been tried, adopted or aban-
doned, and discussed in all possible
ways with complications and modifca-
lions without end, for more than 1000
years, by the wisest and best men the
world has ever produced. That moth
ing is new in the way of taxation and
government methods. Let US initiate
the brilliant Pentecost and come back
to sober reas0n and hard sense. Let us
not forget that the present hard times
are the natural result of more than q
quarter of a century of vicious class
Observation-Disclosures born of hate and
favoritism-and that time isQequired to
heal the existing evils.
Let us follow the teachings Of Adam
Smith in his Wealth Of Nations. Let
US not deny the precepts of our own
houn and jackson. Let us have faith
in the honesty and patriotism of the
eminent men at present at the head of
the national government. Let us give
them a reasonable time in which to ex-
tricate the government from the tolls
and snares with which it is e%nvironed;
and when the grass is green on the
northern hills and the flowers and the
birds make nature joyous and beautiful
once more, our troubles to a great ex-
tent perhaps will have melted away in
the forgotten past.
It is true that our condition as farm
ers is not as prosperous as we would
have it or as it ought to be. But it
might be worse and It has been worse.
/ can remember when the wages of the
northern laborer was only 6 to s dollars
per month without board. When the
Illinois farmer hauled his wheat in his
Chinuro For IN onnfo nor huohol Whnn