The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1901-06-19
LAND SHARKS FIXING FOR PREY.

LAND SHARKS FIXING FOR PREY.
The Virginia Chemical Com
pany, known as the fertilizer
trust has been buying up the
cotton seed oil mills Of the At
lantic Oil Mill company, whose
headquarters are at Sumter, and
before the next season opens ii
will not surprise Us if the other
mills are gobbled up also. Then
farmers look out for further in
crease in fertilizer prices, and
whether or not the other mills
are gobbled, the trust will regu-
late the prices, Of seed to be
bought, and fertilizer to be sold.
We have not been expecting the
Virginia corporation to reach
out into the country to grasp
control of the cotton seed oil
mills, but we have been on the
lookout for the mills to formu-
late some kind of an understand
inc with regard to regulating the
prices to be paid for seed, and
the price to sell meal. Of course,
the Combination would fix a lower
price for seed and a higher price
for meal. That is what combi-
nations are for, and corporations
are organized to give financial
strength to the combines to crush
out opposition, and then monop-
olize to the extent of squeezing
the last cent out Of the people
possible.
Whenever you see number Of
men putting their money in a
joint stock arrangement the OBJ
iect is to make money, and If
there exists any obstruction 10
control, their combined capital
will squeeze the obstruction by
forcing it to do business at dead
loss until the owner must either
sell out to the corporation or
quit business, then when in pos
session of an unobstructed field
the corporation puts in its work
of making back with big interest
the money it lost in forcing the
obstruction out Of its way, and
the longer the monopoly lasts the
more will the people be the suf-
fererS.
There is only one way to pro-
tect ourselves from the clutches
of a combination of capital; and
that is to refuse to patronize such
schemes. If the combination
undertakes to rob the farmer by
giving him q low price for his
seed, the farmer should not sell,
but should put his seed back in
the ground from whence they
came, and if the combination un-
dertakes to extort a high price
for fertilizers, don't buy, even if
the crop is shortened thereby.
What is the use of working in a
burning sun to enrich lot of
bloodsuckers who conspire to-
gether to rob the people, and it
is robbery to stop free and open
competition. The farmer is
forced to put his product on the
market, and take what the de-
mands will give him, there is no
such thing as combination with
him to name a price, but with a
combination of joint stock COM
panies, or corporations, common
ly known as trusts, the price IS
named and forced.
The prices our farmers were
forced to pay for fertilizers for
the present crop, cannot be paid
with a profit at the ordinary
prices for cotton, and even if
cotton should go as high as eight
cents, we cannot see any profit
to warrant the prices for fertili-
zers; then, where is the sense in
a farmer wasting his substance
in a proftless task. 1t would be
better toilet all lands that cannot
Be worked without fertilizer lay
idle, than to put nine cent fer
tilizer into an eight crop. The
farmer who can make his crop
without the use of commercial
fertilizers will be the man who
can look you in the face an in
dependant man, and can snap his
fingers into the faces of, and defy
combinations and trusts. He does
not have to scorn his manhood by
groveling in the dust of humilia-
ton to ask for mercy to save his
corn crib or his home, but what
he has made, little though it be,
it is his, to do with as he pleases.