The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-05-06
A PARTING WORD TO EH1eRANTs.

are 66V1uB NOE6u O6EO44An JUSO ~"
for the newer lands of the West. We
have recently published several
State News items to this effect. One
of these items, published two weeks
ago, concluded with this sentence
CATER they have tried the West,
they realize what a great old State
they have left" All of which re-
minds us quite forcibly of a poem of
Sidney Lanier's that we stumbled
upon a week or so ago when looking
up selections for our series of great
poems. This particular bit of verse
was written in Georgia nearly thirty
years ago, but it is in every way as
applicable to North Carolina condi-
tions in 1902 as 1t was to Georgia
conditions in the '7O's. And we
hasten to say that the poem is in
tended especially for farmers, and
we hope that those of them who
make it a rule to read nothing that
rhymes will break their rule for
once. Inc poem
THAR's MORE IN THE LAND THAN THAR
Is IN THE MAN.
I knowed a man, which he lived in
Jones,
Which Jones is a county Of red hills
and stones,
And he lived pretty much by gittin'
of loans,
And his mules was nothin' but skin
and bones,
And his hogs was fat as his corn
bread pones,
And he had bout a thousand acres
O. land.
This man-which his name it was
also Jones'
He swore that he'd leave them old
red hills and stones,
Fur he couldn't make nothin' but
yallerish cotton,
And little o. that, and his fences was
rotten,
And what little corn he had, hit was
boughten
And dinged of a livin' was in the
land.
And the longer he swore the madden
he got,
And he riz and he walked to the
stable lot,
And he hollered to Tom to come thar
and hitch
Fur to emigrate somewhat whar
land was rich,
And to quit raisin' cook burrs,
thistles and sioh,
And a wastin' Their time on the
oussed land.
So him and Tom they hitohed up the
mules,
Pertestin that folks was mighty big
fools
That nd stay in Georgy Their life
time out,
Just scratohin' a Twin, when all of
EN- mought
Git places in Texas where cotton
would sprout
By the time you could plant 1t in the
land.
And he driv by a house whar a man
named Brown
Was a livin', not fur from the edge
O. town,
And he bantered Brown fer to buy
his place,
And he said that bein' as money was
scAoe,
And bein' as sheriffs was hard to face,
Two dollars an acre would git the
land.
They closed at a dollar and fifty
cents,
And Jones he bought him a Vaughn
and tents,
And loaded his corn, and his VIM
men and truck,
And moved to Texas, which 1t tuck
His entire pile, with the best of luck,
To git thar and git him a litsle land.
But Brown moved out on the old
Jones' farm,
And he rolled up his breeches and
barred his arm,
And he picked all the rocks from
off n the groun',
And he rooted it up and he plowed
it down,
Then he sowed his corn and his
wheat in the land.
Five years Gid by, and Brown, one
day
(Which he'd got so fat that he
wouldn't weigh),
Was a sittin' down, sorter lazily,
To the bulliest dinner you ever see,
When one of the children jumped on
his knee
And says, "Yan's Jones, which you
bought his land"
And thar was Jones, standin' out at
the fence,
And he had no Vaughn, MOI mules,
nor tents,
Fur he had left Texas afoot and cum
To Georgy to see if he couldn't git
sum