The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1899-02-08
BILL ARP's LETTER.

Net long ago one horse farmer
from the baekwoods came to orr
town wi,h two bales of cotton and
sold It for Eve cents pound. This
was his entire crop, and he was cor.-
planning bitterly to one of our mer-
chants and said that the farmers wonld
perish to death IN another year if
there wasn't seme change for the
better. a mischievous drummer,
standing by, said .Well. my
friend, you must quit raising cotton
er else buy come monkeys to pick it
out. Over in India-and Egypt they
make the monkeys pick their cotton,
aud that IS what's the matter. A
monkey VIII. pick thousand po 1nds
a day and feeds on the seed. So
Il costs hardly anything over there
90 raise cotton, and our farmers 10
Mississippi aud Texas have sent over
FOR . hundred thousand monkeys, and
they viii be oFers here 10 time TO pick
she next crop and the price viii go
lower stiIl, and If you don't get you
s monkey or two ..7ou had better quit
growing cotton. for you can't com
pete with monseys. The old man
took all IN seriously and said !:
Well, what IS a poor farmer to do if
he hasn't got the money TO buy the
monkey ?s'
Grow something else, !. said the
drummer Grow corn aud wheat.
and sorghum and potatoes. Plant
apple and peach trees, raise chick
ems and eggs, and yearafn calf or
two to seal Get up soon and stir
around lively and make every mem
ber Of the family work Work at.
something, for if vou don't you will
perish ont: 60 back home and take
q new start. Don't sit down and
granbie and bIaiae somebody else
with your poverty Quit cotton until
you can buy half S dozen monkeys 2
The man went back home and
circulated the monkey story, and for
ten miles around the one horse farm
:ers have sworn off from raising any
more cotton That's what they tell
me They say that before the war
the poor man couldn't compete with
the rich man's niggers, and BOW
since he lost his niggers ne is buyin'
monkeys 20 take their place, and the
poor man wont have any chance at
an
OF course there ID no truth IN this
esory, bat there is q good deal of
philosophy New methods, new
plows, and new machinery are the
monkeys, and if the poor farmer does
not work early and late hs will keep
poor. know some country women
who make more money on their
chickens and eggs and bnster than
their husbands do on their cotton and
shest. Little things well Dursed
count up more than large ones. The
thrifty farmer always brings with him
something 70 sell when he has to-
come 10 town Seme fowls or eggs
or potatoes or 8 shoas or some fruit
II its season There is good home
market for all these little things In
fact, If we leave ous cotton every
thing 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 il.
was then Everything that is made
of cotton is so per cent cheaper and
everything made of iron orsteel or
tin is 100 per cent. cheaper. Beef
and pork and chickens and turkeys
and eggs and wood and potatoes and
apples anel peaches have not come
down nickle in ten years Labor
is 5 little cheaper, nos much. We
still pay ahe same for cooking and
washing and work 10 the garden If
anybody has atgeason for complaining
of hard times tits the sown people,
who haye everything to bHy The
farmer who is not in debt and owns
his farm is better off than he ever was,
and the prudent renter cap pay rent
and make mobey farming.
But, of course, these is. q large
class of shifsless, unthrifty people,
who vii; not succeed at anything,
and they blame everybody for it
bet themselves Cobe says that the
Lord had to make poor folks to keep
rich folks IN money, and so Cobe is
contented IN being poor, for it is the
Lords will / know folks who have
never planted fruit tree and who
viii not even plant garden. Pow
.erty makes some folka shifty and
others Indifferent and .despairing
There is an old negro woman comes
20 our house every Saturday and
brings us gallon of big hominy-
old fashioned lye hominy. and i. is q