The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1899-01-13
WILLIAM HAS A WORD FOR GEOR.
GIA FARMERS.
ADVISES THEM TO HUSTLE" MORE
D'Sers'hcntion Of Crops Is Suegested-A
Facetious Drummer's Monkey
Story.

"ith TWO Dales or cotton and sold 1T
for cents a pound. This was his en-
tire crop, and he was complaining bit
terly to one of our merchants and said
that the farmers would perish to dea tn
In another year if there wasent some
change for the better. A mischievous
drummer, standing by, said: "Well,
my friend, you must quit raising cot
ton or else buy some monkeys to pick
it ont. Over in India and Egypt they
make the monkeys pick their cotton.
and that is what's the matter. A
monkey will pick thousand pounds
day and he feeds on the seed. So it
costs hardly anything over there to
raise cotton, and our farmers in Mis-
sissippi and Texas have sent over for
a hundred thousand monkeys, and
they will be over here in time to pick
the next crop and the price will go
lower still, and if you don't get you a
monkey or two you had better quit
growing cotton, for you can't compete
with monkeys" The old man took it
all in seriously and said: "Well, what
is a poor farmer to do if he hasent got
the money to buy the monkey?"
"Grow something else," said the
drummer. "Grow corn and wheat and
sorghum and potatoes. Plant apple
and peach trees, raise chickens and
eggs, and yearlin calf or two to sell
Get up soon and stir around lively
and make every member of your family
work. Work at something, for if ycu
don't you will perish out. Go back
home and take new start. Don't sit
down and grumble and blame some
body else with your poverty. Quit
cotton until you can buy half dozen
monkeys"
The man went back home and circr-
lated the monkey story, and for ten
miles around the one-horse farmers
have sworn off from raising any more
cotton. That's what they tell me- They
sny that before the war the poor man
cou'dent compete with the rich mans
nigGers, and now since he has lost his
niggers he is buyin' monkeys to take
their places, and the poor man won't
have any chance at all.
OF course there is no truth in this
story. hut there is good deal Of phi
losophy. New methods, new plows
and new machinery are the monkeys.
and if the poor farmer does not work
early and late he will keep poor 7
know some country women who make
more money on their chickens and
eggs and butter than their husbands
do on their cotton and wheat. Little
things we'll nursed count up more than
big ones. The thrifty farmer always
brings with him something to sell
when he has TO come to town. Some
fowls or eggs or potatoes or n shote or
some fruit in its season. There is
good home market for all these little
things. In fact, if we leave out cot
ton everything the farmer grows
brings about the same old prices of
ten years ago, and everything he has
to buy except coffee is much cheaper
now than it was then.
Everything that is made of cotton
is so per cent cheaper and everything
made of iron or steel or tin is 100 per
cent cheaper. Beef and pork and
chickens and turkeys and eggs and
wood and potatoes and apples and
peaches have not come down nickel
in ten years. Labor is little cheap
er, not much. We still pay the same
for cooking and washing and work in
the garden. If anybody has reason
for complaining of hard times it is the
town people, who have everything to
buy. The farmer who is not in debt
and owns his farm is better off than
he ever was and the prudent renter
can pay rent and make money farming
But Of course there is large class
of shiftless, unthrifty people who will
not succeed at anything, and they
blame everybody for it but themselves.
Cobe says that the Lord had to make
poor folks to keep rich folks in money,
and 80 Cobe is content in being poor,
for it is the Lords will. 7 know folks
who have never planted fruit tree
and who will not even plant a garden.
Poverty makes some folks shifty and
others indifferent and despairing.
There is an old negro woman comes to
our house every Saturday and brings
us gallon of big hominy-old-fash
ioned I've hominy, and it is luxury.
We pay her l s cents for it and she has
seven other customers. One peck of
corn that costs her 10 cents makes
four pecks of hominy, for which she
gets 81 20, and that makes her good
living.
read in the last Home and Farm
about successful experiment in
growing ginseng, and if I was farm
er would try it. This was in Ken
tucky, where man planted it in q
we'll shaded forest of beach and dog
wood and gum trees, and it grew both
from the seed and the roots that he
planted and gave him n good crop. Its
o<
that it could be grown in this noun
toin rnninn tho fn6fhillS