The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-12-15

trial emancipation. Cooperation can
control the average and enable US to
profitably market our crop Cooperation
can build us local factories and enable us
to shore in the profits of manufacturing
giving us a home markets for our to-
bacco as we'll as other farm produce.
The remedy that we most need is in the
hands of the farmers they will awake TO
the situation and have the desire and the
nerve to take advantage of it., as the
living force of a strong aggressive or
ganization will be more effective than
any special legislation.
BY organization in every township, re-
liably crop statistics can be gathered
which it is now practically impossible to
do. The great business concern
spend many thousands of dollars to Sc
cure information little more than guess
work, and are often Influenced favorably
to the interests involved. AS has been
suggested by the Southern Tobacco Jour
nal, the only entirely acurate and salts
factory way of securing agricultural sta
tistics is through legislation requiring
a statement of acreage and condition OF
crops to be given at the same time taxes
are listed. The next most accurate way
co operate with the State and national
Departments of Agriculture in weekly
Icrop reports. These associations, besides
gathering and disseminating information
would serve also as agricultural schools,
and the experience and superior intelli-
gence of one farmer would teach an mex
perienced or less gifted neighbor What
is said of the organization of the tobacco
farmer, applies with equal force to the
cotton, grain stock, truck or general
farmer. A conspicuous illustration of the
need of agricultural cooperation lis the
fight being waged by cotton farmers for
just price for cotton seed, in which
righteous cause it is only necessary for
the farmers to stand together to succeed
Will our farmers remain inert, inactive,
unwilling to help themselves or will they
avail themselves of the opportunities sur
roudng them, and awake to the necessi-
ty of mutual help and cooperation? AS
a scattered mass wanting in concerted
effort, without fixed purpose, many igno-
rant and Indifferent, united only in the
complaint that something ought to be
DONE" we can accomplish nothing; but
acting together, we can secure the legis-
laton that seems remedial. More, how
ever, is to be secured by the moral force
and commercial Importance of such a
welding together of interests, governed
by intelligence, based on accurate knowi-
edge and sound judgment.
Cooperation is necessary to progress
in all enterprises; this is most true of
the farmer whose limited means prohib
it's great OUTLAWS for information that will
determine his course in growing and mar
keting crops. While the farmer in North
Carolina is now suffering privations, the
outlook is not entirely one of gloom, The
prices prevailing for all farm produce are
higher than in some years, and the ne
cessity for Giversification was never more
evident, imperative or more fully real
lied. Cotton, corn, peanuts, tobacco,
meat, in fact, almost all farm products,
are now quoted at prices that should
make next years crop profitable, if regu
lar average crops are planted; the excess
sive production of any crop will be dis
astrous to the producers of that crop.
The price of home supplies is now ad-
vancing so it will be necessary for the
farmer to raise them at home. This
means diversification and more stock, and
corespondingly more manure and a lar
ger crop.
Another deterrent in this State to
planting excessive areas the coming year
is the scarcity Of labor, as in many sec
tions it is being demoralized and condi-
tions aggravated by the nefarious infiu
ences of lying labor agents from other
States, who should be expelled from our
borders.
The last legislature made much need
ed change in our fertilizer laws, which
will be great relief to our farmers The
old law required that brands sold in the
State, whenever any of the following in
gradients were asserted to be present,
should contain soluble and precipitate
phosphoric acid, which shall not be less
than eight per cent; soluble potassia,
which shall not be less than one per
cent; ammonia, which shall not be less
than two per cent.
This created an unnatural demand for
phOsphoric acid, as it required about
eleven hundred pounds of Acid Phosphate,
which is controlled by a trust, to every
ton of this fertilizer, when the soils did
not need it; unntentionally eXacting
from the farmers of Eastern North Caro-
lima hundreds of thousands Of dollars for
a chemical ingredient of which they need
ed little. AS the law now is they can
use what their soils and crops require,
and are relieved of paying this trust trib-
ute. The soils of the Coastal Plain are
deficient in potash, and if the farmers
will use a large percentage of potash in
their fertilizers, they would find it very
much to their advantage and the fertili-
ger companies will make brands to suit
their demands. more liberal use of