The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-06-07
COOPERATION NEEDED.
Farmers Should Organize to Build Cotton OH Mills
and Guano Factories.
Progressive Farmer:

ton of each other, and build guano factories and
oil mills, stop some of the leaks in the farmers
bushel. The farmers of North Carolina lose, each
year, a million dollars that might be saved to the
farmers pocket. In the guano leak alone it is
enormous. Think how the farmers lost in the
year 1908 in one of the commodities Cotton seed).
That should never be allowed to go out of the
hands of the farmers. After it is sold to the oil
mill it goes through the hands of the oil mill man
at a big profit and then into the hands of the
guano men at an enormous profit, and then back
to the farmer in the shape of meal guano at a
profit of from 81 to Sc per ton, and a good per
cent of the meal goes into the hands of stock men
in the West and Europe, and that is a drain ON
our soil and causes our soil to grow poor. Thus
poor soil makes poor farms, and poor farms make
poor farmers, poor farmers make poor merchants,
poor merchants make poor people Door people raise
hungry children, and hungry children make rogu-
ish en-an right ON down the line to the peni-
Tertiary and worse.
So, all good men, stop and think-the merchant
as well as the farmer. The merchant and the
farmer must pull together in order to succeed and
make things work well. The merchants are all
organized for a good purpose, and now, if the
farmers will all organize together and lay down,
what / call negro prejudice against the merchants
and selfish motives, and all pull together, we can
move trust or an other combine that legislation
cannot reach and conscience is not known. So,
/ make an appeal to everybody to put the shoulder
to the wheel and stop the leakage of the farmers
bushe1, that it may be the means of filling many
other bushels and bringing prosperity to our
country and give life to all business.
Take our own county of Robson. Nature has
blessed us far above some other counties, this be-
ing one of the very best farming counties in the
State by nature, and fast becoming so by practice.
We can raise more different commodities than al
most any other county, and it contains more fer
tile land, and some of as fine talent as the world
affords, and, no doubt but that the Lord will re-
quire a great deal of us in return. So "get to-
gether and help paddle our old boat to the landing
of prosperity" First, learn our own duty, and
then do it and make others do likewise. Make
our homes attractive, that we may retain on the
farm that talent which we have been losing and
that has been going to other channels, for the
best of talent has been reared on the farm, and if
that talent had been retained on the farm, great
things would have been the rsult. So make your
first duty to your Lord; second, to your family
third to your farm, and fourth to the Alliance, and
organize and not be ignored any more by the
oil mill trust as you were this year. There are
some facts that I want to call every farmers at
tentlOn to In the county. Did you know we made
over 10000 bales of cotton in 1903, two-thirds of
which amount goes into the hands of the oil mills
making o 10000 bushels of seed, making $500
tons of meal, making 100000 pounds of ammonia
sufficient to make $4,000 tons of meal guano that
cost the farmers five dollars more per ton than
it would have cost them if they could have bought
the meal, acid and kainit and have done their own
mixing? A mixture of six hundred and fifty pounds
Of rooo1 Onaho1f TON Of 1R cent acid three
hundred and fifty pounds of kainit, well mixed, will
d O -:.aI