The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1897-03-20
FARMER AND PLANTER.
A PRESENT PROBLEM.

Now Shall Farmers Produce Crops Under
Existing Conditions Without Loss
EXTRACT from an address by John Dymond
president Louisiana Agricultural association,
at the annual meeting at Baton Rouge
suggestions as to how we.shall be
relieved from our agricultural depres.
sion are easily made, but actual rem
edies are hard to find. We must re-
member that all the world is now
one common field. The time was, and
within my memory, when a local
drought in an Ohio country would ad-
vance the price of wheat. To-day
drought, food and freeze may come to
annihilate crops of wheat, of cotton
ana OF cane, and yet prices may fall
The telegraph, the railway and the
sseamship make all the world one,
and ifwheat be low-priccd in the Black
/, sea 1t can not sell high in Chicago; If
cotton be low-priced at Bomba it can
mot sell high in New Orleans; if sugar
zoe held high in Hamburg telegram
may bring thousands of tons from
Java or the distant Philippines, and
Louisiana be left to mourn over her
neglected produce.
DO we not see, then, that we are
engaged in an Industrial war? If En-
gland wants wheat she may ordinarily
buy 1t where she pleases, from the
wheat fields of Hungary or Russia.
whence the supply of Europe has come
Tor thousands of years; from the plains
"t india or the pampas of Argentina,
while the wheat farmers of our great
west must meet all these in active COM
peton. This is Industrial war, war to
the knife, and the knife to the hilt.
In the conflict some must fail, some
must fall. Who will survive? The
Httest. of course-those most able to
meet the requirements of the times.
Now, let us ask ourselves if we
shall survive in this contest. Are we
The abiest agriculturists in the world?
DO we know what is best to do? Are
we familiar with all the solved prob
lens IN modern agriculture, and
are we utilizing this knowledge?
Are we struggling with ana studying
the mysteries yet about us, seeking
TO solve them? Not yet; we have
mot yet learned all this, but we are
here, earnest seekers after truth,
striving to dispose Of the difficulties
about us; striving for better methods,
Tor better results. By your aid here
In this annual meeting, by the rela-
ton OF your experiences and conclu-
sions we shall hope, each of us, when
we return to our homes, to be better
able to meet and to solve the agricul-
tnral problems that confront u.s.
Few persons are aware of the i'm.
perative necessity for the adoption of
better agricultural methods The
trouble with many of us in the past
has been that we have been able to
live, to make some money, notwith-
standing our antiquated, wasteful
methods. When this society was cr-
gained ten years ago sugars. sold at
54 cents that sell at 81 cents now.
This would seem crushing decline to
meet, but somehow we have met it,
and are about as able to succeed now
at 81 as we were .then at5A cents.
This teaching Of our Sugar Planters
association. of opr sugar experiment
station, and of our sugar school.
Now, to what school shall we go
to learn to produce without loss four
cent cotton and two-cent rice? This
problem seems unsolved, though re-
cent writer reported in the columns of
the Picayune claims that he can sue
cessfully produce three-cent cotton.
The fact of the matter is that,we don't
know what we can do until we try.
Necessity is the mother of invention,
the mother of effective and economic
methods. We have learned how to
produce sugar more cheaply, and we
can learn how to produce all our crops
more cheaply. That is what we are
here for. The special papers that will
be read to you here by gentlemen
familiar with their various subjects
are directly to the point. They know
whereof they write and speak. The
incidental discussion of these papers
will bring out information of great
value, and will thus educate us all |
rapidly in the right directions.
Before closing this address and
taking up the regular business of the |
meeting, Ishould say that .apart from
any desire on our part to solve the ag-
AiSuAtuAaA PboOlCtus oH OuuQ 10, we lluQ |
that If we do not do it others will, and |
we shall be left behind in the march of |
progress. About us everywhere in ag-
ricultural circles we find earnest eff !
forts making to disseminate sound ag-
ricultural data. Experiment stations,
schools of agriculture, agricultural |
fairs, conventions aud meetings are |
the ORDER Of the n a = evervvvhere ~
Zone of the most successful plans |
for the dsse mination of agricultural |
knowledge In the other states has
been through farmers Institutes, meet.t
ings held in various .communitiest
where expert agficulturists, men who |
have won their reputation by ac-
tual results, in the employment |
of the agricultural department.,
deliver lectures on their specialties, in
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