The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-05-28
Fertilizers and Their Cost.

The quantity or fertilizers bought
this spring by the farmers of the State
is unprecedented. Com pared with same
date last year, it ia about double, and
is nearly 30 per cent. ahead of any pre-
vious year.
Estimating cotton at cents, and
averaging the fertilizers at low cash
price, it will take $780, 900 bales, or
about one-third of the whole of last
years crop, to pay this years bill for
fertilizers alone. Unfortunately the
same general policy has been followed
throughout the South. Applying the
rule to each individual farmer, how
can be suppose it to be a wise and safe
plan to pay out third of one years
crop for fertilizers to be used on the
next? Where are, the other expenses
all to come from, such as stock, farm
implements, cost of cultivating and
picking, toll for ginning and baling,
marketing, ETC., to say nothing of a
fair margin ofcompensation on his own
time, labor and investment, with which
to make necessary purchases for his
family supplies, and to meet other ex-
penses.
What the outcome is going to be no
man can f.retell; but if it shall result,
as some predict, in the biggest cotton
crop and lowest price the country has
yet seen, whom can we blame but our
selves? Experience taught US the folly
OF the old system, and the success of
last year proved the wisdom of the
change. Every farmer is free to act
for himself and must manage his own
business; but until the farmers as a
class learn to conduct their business
on business principles, until they cease
to be prey for every sort of agent
who wants to pick and puck them, and
above all until they learn to be indie
pendent by keeping out of debt and
providing their own home supplies,
they cannot be prosperous, and there
will be no remedy for the evils from
which they suffer.
Last year farmers worked on a diff
ferent line. Less fertilizer was bought,
more corn and bacon made, cotton was
more truly ''surplus" crop, and the
result proved the wisdom of the policy.
Decreased production resulted in better
prices, and with an abundance of
homemade corn and meat and "truck,"
the farmers were better off than for
years past. Why not have continued
the policy that produced such good re-
suits? We would at least have been
sure of food and clothes and have avoid
ed debt, that fatal foe of the farming
interest.
Two million five hundred thousand
dollars-nearly all of it going out Of
the State-will not cover the amount
invested by the farmers of North Caro-
lima in fertilizers for use in their spring
CROPS.
Most of this will be used in more
or less haphazard sort Of way on cot
ton, and after the crop is made the
land will be in no better condition,
while the farmers are taking chances Of
being in worse.
They are taking the risk of cotton
going high enough to pay back this
enormous outlay and profit besides.
1t is sort of gambling on fertilizers
and is not true farming. It is the same
old policy, which proved so ruinous in
the past to many man who followed
it. How much has been bought On
credit is not known, but fortunate will
he be who has no crop lien nor fertili-
Ter bills to haunt his dreams, and who,
having made his crop on cash basis,
with bountiful supply of corn and
bacon, can look with calm confidence
on whatever results may befall.-Ag-
ricultural Department Bulletin.
Something new at II. Thomason's in
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