The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-03-08
70 the Farmers.

Lie tluS LAS COuS loi pieP"Ao'AoA
and setting the size and proportions O
our different crops, and an inter
change of opinions on our varied ex
periences will be entirely proper ane
helpful to US who live by the yield O.
our fields. Our experiences has full,
taught the cottontot that his theory
of all cotton and with it buy his every
need has fallen to the ground, anc
the experience of US who have here
tofore practiced the "all cotton and
corn" droctine has about also met
it's doom and worked its eventful
cou-se to the grave. The idea Of
corn as an all sufficient and best
means of feed for our stock and fam
lilies we now find is an expensive
feed and is fraught with many draw
backs. In looking around for sub
stitutes to take the place in part for
an all corn and cotton features on
our farms ma,y will present them
selves, some helpful and wise, others
deceptive and alluring.
Oar people are being more fully
convinced year by year of the folly Of
looking to the government for relief
in this try ing hour. The paramount
issue of the hour" they are now as
sured is not 1.-The free and unlimited
coinage of silver" and the establish
ment of banks of issue, and that an
other city of refuge must be sought
in all our business relations, and of all
the men on earth we, the farmers of
this nation, have the least right to CON-
plain of hard times and money panics
and PROSTATE conditions. In 1916
We had the free and unlimited coin
age of silver and banks Of issue and
an honored Democratic government,
pure and simple, and yet cotton went
down in New Orleans and Charleston
to (38) three and three quarter
cents per pound, even lower than
in 1898, and three million bales
in 1876 and about eleven millions
in 1898. Cotton at 81 cent and our
banks and Golfers loaded with money!
. Like Nicodemus many ask, and very
wisely, Sir, how can these things be?
The agricultural condition of the
South was such that the State of
Alabama borrowed millions of dol.
lars for its farmers to tide them over
the swelling current and today about
six million dollars of the bonds are
unpaid and still hang as a debt over
the State and it's citizens are yearly
paying interest on them. But we
e that a change is needed and is re-
CURED and he is wise who heeds the
warning. 1 see, and I am glad to
see it, that many think of going into
rice culture and stock raising, and
i. also some into the tobacco industry.
But these also are attended with
their allurements and dangers.
1t is rot the object of this article
to defend the Republican doctrine Of
protection over our rice and sheep
raising and other farm products. I
accept that as ii is and assume that
wool has risen from 10 and II cents
per pound to 20 and 25 cents per
pound and rice in rough state from
40 to SO cents per bushel to $1.0O
and at easy sale. Thousands of
acres OF our worn out and quilted old
fields can now be made to pay a very
handsome income from mutton and
wool and furnish thousands of tons
of the finest fertilizers on earth for
our farms. The beautiful blades tf
grass that we strive hard all summer
to kill and muti!ate will, if left
quietly to grow, raise more money
il beef, pork and mutton and wool by
far than We car get for the cotton
when made and housed, and We can
have a nice margin besides in our
compost pens if We can muster
energy and thrift to use them prop
erly. 1t is better for US and much
easier TO do to make one hundred and
fifty bushels of corn on three acres
than it can possibly be to raise it on
thirty acres, or even on fifteen acres.
1t is cheaper to raise a bale or oyer
per acre than to a raise a bale on
three acres. A farmer who runs a
fifty acre farm and buys bis butter,
flour and bacon would do a wise
and proyident act if he would give
up twenty-five acres to his COWS,
sheep and hogs. The remaining half
would raise him more cotton and
corn at half the lisk and cost and
the family would enjoy the great lux
ury Of the change. There is no mer,
chant Or banker who could run long
doing business in the improvident
silly manner that we do. And that