The Savannah morning news., 1902-02-10
The FARM AND GARDEN.
MATTERS OF INTEREsT TO AGRI-
CULTUKIST AND HOUSEWIFE.

The Southern Farmer; Has Many
Ups and DOwns-WOuld Not Have
So Many If He Lived Mt Home and
"shOok'' the TOwHs--some Notes
on COrn-Celery Growing in Mid
die Georgia.
The poor ignorant tenant of South
ern soil that for fifty years or more
has been accustomed to growing only
cotton and corn With perhaps now
and then a rneager crop of peas or
slatternly sown eropsof oats, does not
find it so difficult in deciding how he
will place his crops-how to proper
tion them one to the other. He is a
slave to a routine policy that rules
alike in all localities, tile only differ
ence being the character of the crops.
To a greater or less extent he is also
slave to a prevailing custom that
makes the rent payable in cotton. 1t
is only rare that any other product is
stipulated in the rent note. We rarely
hear of one beings made payable in
so much corn or. syrup or hay or po-
tatoes or wheat or oats or tobacco.
1t is nearly always so much cotton,
"middlng cotton" for the one or two
or three-horse farm as the case may
be. AS an average contract it is 1000
pounds Ctwo bales) for whatever one
man can cultivate with one horse four
bales for a two-horse farm. and so on.
Stipulataing that he will plant sulli-
cient of this area to assure enough
cotton to meet the rent, the tenant, of
course is at liberty to vary his crops
on the remainder to suit his own views
of expediency. He may, if he choose,
allot the other half or third to water
melons, and it's speedy natural rota-
tion of crabgrass-the latter to be con-
verted into hay-always an impoverish
ing crop. AS a rule, the greater part
of the land not devoted to cotton is
given up to the easily made crop
corn. The little patch of sweet pota-
toes, 'goobers," sugar cane Tor sorg-
hum) is provided for usually by re-
ducing the corn area so much.
We repeat the tenants decision as
to distribution, owing to these circum
stances, is easily arrived at
1t is not so with the more intelli-
gent white farmer, who either owns
the soil he cultivates or has leased
for term of years. Usually he is un-
der no obligation to plant so much
cotton. He is at liberty usually TO do
fully as he pleases. But as a result
of market conditions prevailing in jan
uary or a little later the farmer of
this class is confronted with a prob
lem that did not exercise the less for
tunate annual renter. This problem
presents itself every season with more
or less force, but now and then ii pre-
sents itself with greater urgency than
usual And il may be said that this
is one of the occasions where more
thought and deliberation than usual
is justified by existing conditions which
in some respects are more marked than
has been the case in a number of
years.
Food and feeding stuffs OF all kinds
are higher at this season than the most
fervent Imagination could have antici-
pated three months ago.
Whats cotton going to do?"
What shall l do?" Is a hyphen-
ated question that resolves
itself into How many acres
of cotton shall plant this wear.
Whether the staple opens at or 5h or
or 7h I'm September, will not affect
the plans OF large number OF small
farmers They can only plant and hope
as they have done for these many years.
Judgment or foresight is an unknown
quantity.
Fortunate is the man who can come
up smiling" 10 the operations of an
other years farming-it may be his
thirtieth or fortieth tussle with destiny:
II may be less; Il may be only several.
There have been many bitter dsap-
poinments 90 Southern farmers OF every
class. Counting the poor African, the
quandon slave or son Of one. with his
lone mule or equally lone steer a.
farmer, what legion Of disappointed
soil tillerF there must have been We
assume bic many failures were ~ many
dk'9pp0intinenfr perhaps not. 3ui Hs
We say, counting this poor specimen
~ farmer and ascending the scale
0f the several ciaFfea worthy ~ being
called "farmcw." AMI hnally including
The gentleman farmer ~ the thirty
fhlrd degree aho lived in town and
made fhf fflu to and from the fafm in
his FHrrlnae nnd pair nf md l0f fhnf
arg Fef ~ udmit fhat genuine dlHap.