The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-09-02
FARMER AND PLANTER.
The PROBLEM OF THE HOUR.
What Can BE Done I'm the south:
suggestions for Farmers and
Others to Ponder Well.

What can be done in the south? Al
most anything you wish to do. We do
not propose to give you an array of
millionaire figures. That has been done
so often and so well that most men are
somewhat familiar with them.
But what do these figures and the
facts prove? The figures show that
earth, grows in our forests, runs in
our streams, turks in our mines,
sparkles in our sunshine and flashes
in our atmosphere.
The facts show that now and thu
man is making money, but the great
masses of our people are poor and
seem to be getting poorer. Is there
contradiction? Is one or both wrong?
What is the truth?
We find almost inexhaustible mines
of almost eve-y known mineral. Our
forests bear countless millions of the
most valuable timbers.
TEze has not been found any limit
to 1t.e productiveness of our soils, or
the variety of the products they will
produce. Our agricultural possibilities
seem to be in their infancy, and yet we
contribute more largely than any Sec
ton to the marts of mankind. We
have every variety of soil, mountain
and delta and all between.
Our wasting water-powers can turn
the machinery of the world.
Why are we not prosperous and
wealthy and happy? Very many things
enter into the answer to these queries.
The destructive track of war; the up
heaval of our labor and social sys-
tens; the undeserved abuse of north
ern papers and speakers; the inefii-
cheney of our present labor, etc.
But we are inclined to think that
more than any other one thing the
lack of practical industrial education
is the chief trouble. Our children, like
ourselves, have not been taught to APP
preciate our opportunities or develop
our resources.
We have been waiting for something
to turn up, hoping for somebody to
turn it up. We have not tried to turn
the thing up ourselves. We have not
grasped the thought that we could
turn it up. We have seen our vast wa
ter-powers plunging on oceanward and
have not felt that we could or should
harness them and utilize them. At
the same time we have seen our cot
ton shipped to New England, to Old
England, to France, to Japan, to any
and everywhere, to be twisted into
thread and woven into cloth, and
much of it brought back to us to
wear. We could have done that twist
ing and weaving. If one-fourth of the
boys graduated in literary courses had
been graduated in mechanical studies
we would have done that twisting and
weaving.
We have seen carload after carload
of corn and flour, and bacon and beef,
and hay and cattle brought in and
sold to our people. We have seen mil
lions and millions of money go out
to pay for these. s.;s ste
We have thought this all right. This
was and is all wrong. Southern soil
and southern labor could have pro-
duced all these. Why did they not?
Wrongly taught. Our young men were
more familiar with the roots of Greek
and Latin forms than the roots of
ccrn and wheat and oats and hay.
II half of these college graduates
had been taught thoroughly in the
science and practice of sensible agri-
culture, they would long since have
shown us how to prevent gullies and
grow crops; how to pillow deep and
shave corn to sell and corn to keep
They would have been pioneers in the
paths of progress and led us out of the
wilderness of dependence Into the
sunny land Of independence.
They would have shown us 35 years
ago what we are now slowly learning,
that we can be prosperous and happy
by growing at the south what we have
been buying from the north and west.
would have taught us, that it
is more honorable to be out of debt
and drive pillow than be in debt and
not know how.
What the south can do: She can feed
and clothe her own population and
ship out enough to make her rich and
happy. What we need is to teach our
children how to do this. We can spare
enough cotton and corn, and hay and
cattle, and berries and peaches, and
watermelons and canteloupes, and
beans and cakes, and tomatoes and POI
tatoes, and grapes and peas, and on
ions and turnips, and squashes and
raJishes, and plums and oranges, and
lemons and pineapples, and rice and
sugar, and sirup and hundred more
vegetables and fruits to bring per-
petual stream of ready cash flowing
south instead of north, east and west.
What we can not do: We can not be