The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-27
Cotton Enrminr.

writer in the Prairie Farmer from
South Carolina, gives very pessimis-
tic account of the farming there. So
far as many sections of the cotton belt
are concerned, the account is perfect
ly true. Depending on the cotton crop
for everything else they need, for feed
for mules, and for the mules them
selves, for meat for the family, for
flour and meal, with the capital of
the farmer. the soil rapidly diminish
ing, and the cotton farmer year after
year merely to pay for these things
and for the fertilizer which is needed
more and more as the clean cultivated
soil is washed away, gets poorer and
poorer, while the people who furnish
him food, clothing, mules and fertil-
izers, get rich; and all the time he
fails to see that the cause of his pow
erty is the one-crop idea and the liv
ing on his capital, the soil, which is
cdntantly getting smaller, while he
strives to keep up the ration of three
bales of cotton to every steer fed. But
while this is still true of large sec
lions of the cotton belt, there are
certainly many other sections where
the leaVen of improvement is working
and the cotton farmers are really
farmers formerly kept this smoke
houses in Chicago now have a surplus
of cured homemade hams and bacon,
and homemade bacon is no longer a
rarity in the grocery stores of the cot
ton country. l have seen a South Car
olina farmer, one who really farms,
selling smoked bacon by the wagon
load. And the men who are thus i'm
proving and are farming for cotton,
a fhnCp XUhn the M and
study their profession and are grow
ing more cotton than they formerly did
on fewer. acres. The men in South
Carolina who raise from one to two
bales of cotton per acre-and there are
many of them-are not the men who
depend on the cotton crop for every
thing else They are feeding stock,
raising lambs for the early market
and growing the crops to feed stock
of all kinds. These men are growing
more numerous every year. and they
are TO the manor born, and not new
Corners; and such is the awakening
among the young men that they are
crowding into the agricultural courses
of study at the colleges of agriculture.
At the North Carolina College, where
a few years ago there were but
dozen or so students in the agricultural
course there are this year 129 agri-
cultural students. When these men go
out to the various sections of the
state, whether farming their own
lands or managing for Others they will
form nuclei from which improvement
will spread. These 1873 students would
have been 200 or more had the college
had room for them, and with increas-
ing facilities these colleges will be a
power in the South in agricultural ad-
vencement. The writer has observed
the advancement in the South closely
for the past fourteen years and knows
that vast advance has been made
| in that time There is no section
of the country where there is a more
| earnest desire to improve than in the
South, and the Experiment Stations
are continually being called upon for
help and advice, and in at least one
| of them this correspondence with the
! farmers of the state constitutes the
| leading work in one department There
| fore, while there are all over the cot
ton country men almost hopelessly
| down in the old ruts, the young men
! on the Southern cotton farms are
| forging ahead. and will soon place the
! agriculture of the South on a plane
with modern methods. For years back
| the South has been sending to the
North the flower of the youth in great
| er numbers than she has received
| farmers from the North. But the sta
| tistics show a change in this re-
spect. The young men of the South
are more and more inclined to stay
| and build up the South not only in
! agriculture. but in every industrial
! line. The cotton mills are swarming
all over the South and 80 per cent. of
the capital in them is home capital
and more and more of them are being
managed by young men trained at
home. There is no need for looking
OK the agriculture of the South with
| evil forebodings, for there is much to
| cheer those who are spending their
lives in its improvement. The South
ern farmer is fast getting there
! Practical Farmer.
Yes! just in proportion as he dis
couts the appearance on his farm of
the Mexican Boll-Weavil aud loses no
| time in establishing good pastures and
meadows, just so soon will be get there
and the sooner the better.