The Van Buren press., 1898-07-30
FARMER AND PLANTER.
RAISING HAY IN THE SOUTH.
A Crop that is Sadly Neglected by South
ern Farmers and One that Would
Pay Better than Cotton.

Southern farming has many pecu-
liarities-some that it is impossible to
understand For instance: Hay can
be raised in Georgia as well and as
eheaply as in any state in the Union.
/ There is q market here for more than
/ Loco. 600 tons year at $40 ton to the
| grower Georgia farmers in 1896 raised
only $50, 735 tons; but that ON 137, 4s9
acres. They also raised l ,000,0 bales
Of cotton on 5000. 900 acres. They can
make 81 a ton profit on hay. They
said they sold their cotton for what
Il cost them to raise it, and made no
profit on it. Why did they raise
cotton al a loss. instead of hay at
a profit? If every southern farmer
would thoughtfully study that ques-
ton for one month, the farmers hard
times wouldn't be so hard The trou-
bic Is, he won't study at all. He has
got il into his head that farming Is
nothing but manual labor, and that
brains aud intelligent thinking don
count in the business. If they don't,
then farming is the only business IN
the world that they don't tell in, and
that at the ratio of l6 to l.
The true answer to the question
| asked above is: Because the average
farmer has never really thought it out.
| He has hauled his cotton to town, and
sold il at what it cost him, the
merchant keeping part OF
what il brings in payment for
| 10 hntnht the
spring before at Sic ton.
And it seems never for one moment to
have occurred to him that he could
have raised the hay himself on part
of his cotton field at less than one.
fourth of what he had to pay the mer-
chant for il. There is not white
farmer in the south who can not raise
crab-grass or pea-vine hay at cost of
less than four dollars ton; and yet he
raises cotton to sell at what it cost him
with which to buy hay at SIG ton. If
| this ansaction doesn't show lack of
business sense, then it shows want
of all sense. 1t seems a matter of i'm
possibility that any man who gave the
matter even one moments considera-
ton could be guilty of such an act He
would be more foolish if he paid his
neighbor for water instead of cleaning
out his own spring.
We are not now urging reduction
IN the cotton crop, though that would
| increase the price of cotton. Neither
are we now advocating an increase in
the number of live stock kept on the
| ~ .l,n@ What Va
are urging is for the southern farmer
not to buy hay with cotton to feed the
few cattle he raises, when he can raise
the hay for one-fourth what he has to
pay for it.
But is it not enough that he raise all
the hay he can consume. That would
stop the outgo of money, and would
be better than he does now. There is
money IN hav, and southern farmers
should not limit their crop this side of
what their state consumes. Raise
every pound that the home market
will take. See to it that not bale of
outside hay is shipped to your market.
The state of Iowa is about the same
size as Georgia, 1t raises 100000 tons
of hay year, and the farmers there
only get 81 ton for it; the rest of that
Sl6 which we pay for it is added by the
railroads for hauling and by the three
or four middlemen who buy, handle
ane sell it. Georgia farmers raise only
1870, 900 tons year, and they get lit
tie over S11 ton for it. If an Iowa
farmer can afford to raise hay and sell
it for 81 a ton, can't Georgia farmer
afford to raise it when he han get 81 a
ton? The question answers itself.
Though Georgia holds about one
fortieth of the population of the Unit
ed States, it raises only one-three hun
| dredth of the nations hay crop
our share being 100000 tons. And
sparseiy populated Utah and Idaho,
neither of which can grow grass with
| out irrigation, each produces almost
three times as much hay as Georgia.
Even Nevada every foot of whose soil
| is part of the Great American Des-
ert), with only $4,000 population,
lacks only trife of producing twice
! the crop that the Empire State of the
south does.
These facts are startling and are q
| terrible reflection upon southern agri-
| culture; but unfortunately they exist.
Is it any wonder we are poor? Is it
strange that with this condition we
and our stock have worn out and eaten
up the entire cotton crop before it is
| picked, ginned and sold? The only
strange thing about it is that these are
facts, and that we allow them to con-
| tinue such.
Several wears ago there lived about
| FIVE miles from one of the small towns
| in middle Georgia a lazy, piddling
| coon-hunting, one-horse farmer. I'm
| der the stimulus of a new baby in the
family he planted a small ne-horse
crop of cotton and corn. The baby
soon ceased to be novelty and the cot
ton and corn were neglected to grow
up in grass. When August came he
awolxe to the fact that he had a family
| to support and no cotton and corn with
which to support it. In sheer despair
he cut the grass, cotton and all. cured
them for hay, and sold the hay in
the town by the load. 1t was the
| talk of the town that he made more
clear money from the hay than he
would have made from his cotton and
corn crops, if he had cultivated them
every day during the year.
Some say there is no market for
homegrown hay. The local market
may be over-supplied in September
and October; but we have never known
hay to go begging in December, Janu-
| arv Epbruarv and March in nurr Gaor-