The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-05-13

preservation of Irish and sweet pota.
toes, tomatoes, beans and onions.
For the first time, we believe, the
Farmers National Congress is TO
meet in the South. Treasurer Rey-
nolds outlines a quite attractive pro,
gram for the Macon meeting in Do
sober, and we hope that q large mum
Der of the best Southern farmers
will attend.
1t looks &c if the fertilizer trust Is
to get control of the German potash
industry then, it is said, of the cot
ton oil mills. And the farmers, dis
organized as they are, will pay the
bills and plod on. Wouldn't it be
refreshing to see a little more trust
smashing after the order Of that
which brought jute bagging low?
Two-thirds of the States appro,
priation for rural school libraries
has been exhausted, and the entire
appropriation could be used at once
but for the provision prohibiting
State aid TO more than six in any
one county. At the Greensboro
Educational Conference we heard a
school superintendent say: "We
have seven of these libraries in my
county, and twenty more could be
established at once if State aid were
available for others as for the first
six"
There seems TO be general misap-
prehension as TO who Is responsible
for the requirement that poll tax
must be paid by May 1st in order so
entitle the citizen TO vote. One of
the leading papers of the State has
just published an editorial abusing
the General Assembly of 1901 for
passing such a law and predicting it's
repeal next year. It is not, how
ever, an act of the Legislature, but
a provision of our recently adopted
Constitutional Amendments, as a
reading of Section 4 will show
About six weeks ago we published
the report that commercial fertilizer
sales in North Carolina up to that
time were about Is per cent. smaller
than for the corresponding period OF
last year. But sales during April
we're unu 'ually heavy, and Commits.
sioner Patterson now says that there
will be very little difference between
the quantity used by North Carolina
farmers last year and that used this
year. He adds: "The sales of fer
tilizers for cotton T smaller, but
are made up by those for tobacco
and other crops. The increase in the
sale of tobacco fertilizers is large"
Is is a matter of common kuowl-
edge that the trusts and their lead
ers r finding 1t much less easy to
get along with the strenuous Mr..
Roosevelt than with the afable Mr..
Mckinley. And further interest is
added to the situation by the threat.
ened candidacy of Mr.. Hanna, who
is as clay in the hands of the potter
TO the great combinations of capital.
These combinations fear to rebel
openly yet, but there is no mistaking
the fact that their influence is with
their Ohio man and will, if possible,
force him to the front as Roosevelt's
successor.
Three famous novelists, Frank R.
Stockton, Bret Harte, and Paul
Leicester Ford, have died within the
last month. Stockton and Harte
went to the grave in the fulness of
years and in their life work there Is
that appearance of order and com
pleteness which it is natural for men
80 Covet. But Ford was a young
man and the excellent work that he
had done was regarded only as a.
pledge of yet better work to follow.
There ia an ~unspeakable sadness
about his death-killed by his brother
while yet in the morning of life and
with $50 little done, so much to do"
His most popular work was "Janioe
Meredith" but we regard it as infe-
rior TO THE Honorable Peter Sterl-
ing"
Last week we published a we'll
written story of Wade Hampton's
areer In this issue a no less inter
esting sketch of the late Cecil Rhodes
is printed. For our part We enjoy
no kind of literature more than
biography-exoept autobiography
and we hope that this feeling is
shared in some degree by our read