The news & observer., 1904-12-11

our better sense made US a one crop
country. One crop farming the world
over is rarely or never prosperous
farming. And unfortunately our crop
-cotton-has been made pawn OF
the most gigantic gambling system
that the world has ever seen. The
result is that the natural fluctuation
of values caused by the preponder-
ance of supply and demand is vastly
increased by the finesse and strategy Of
the gamblers-the bulls and the bears.
No one who has watched the swing
of prices can doubt that in the main
this swing is governed so as to give
the best end of the bargain to the
buyers and the smallest end to the
sellers of cotton, the farmers.
Then what is worse still, we have
caught the infection and have largely
become a gambling people ourselves
Negiectng that diversity Of crops es-
sential to sound huspandry and to
which our soil and climate is so emf
nently adapted, again, again and again
we stake all on cotton. Nor as gamb-
lers do we stop there. The human
mind is so constituted that only with
the greatest difficulty, if at ALL can
it think or believe opposite to what
it wishes. Knowing that under pres
ent conditions our welfare is so large
ly dependent on high cotton. wishing
it to be high and hoping it to be
high, and inoculated as we are with
the gambling virus we buy futures
we bet on high cotton. In fact We
can't bet any other way. Who ever
knew a man to bet against his side
in any game? In this way alone mli-
lions of dollars are annually lost IN
the South. l have it at the mouth of
several well informed cotton dealers
~ in Snlfn
nually loses more money by dealing
in cotton futures than she makes clear
on her cotton crop. Startling thought
but probably true.
If gamble we will and it seems
gamble we must, the rational step
would be for the cotton planters to
combine, regulate the acreage, and sell
futures at a fair price. They could
thus so control the output that fu-
lures would always bring d fair
price. Then if prices went UP they
would have a profit on their futures:
if prices went down they would have
a profit on the cotton. But this would
call for perfection of organization
among farmers which now seems al
most impOssible of attainment. Still
Agricola is learning fast. and he may
in the not so distant future realize
what power dwells in him through
preponderance of numbers and taking
a lesson from his fieecers may learn
to be sharp himself He may at least
learn to reasonably control the acreage
and the work of marketing.
Meanwhile lets begin to look to 9TH
er things-as we invariably do when
cotton gets low. But lets try not TO
forget them when cotton gets hign
again. as we have invariably been do
ing. Lets bear in mind that of all the
countries of the world nature seems
to have intended ours for diversified
farming and in fact for general diver
sity of interest, manufacturing, agrt-
cultural, horticultural. etc. Our SOIL
is not ,on the average as fertile as
that of the West. But our climate
compenSateS for any inferiorlty of son.
Much of the South and especially
North Carolina is so situated with a
sea on one end and the mountains on
the other, that ruinous drouth is al
most impossible. Not within the old
est living memory has there been
total failure of the crops of this State.
Probably there has not been a year
since the State was settled when good
tillage would not have made a fair
crop. I know of no other region in the
world which can say this. We can
easily make all that rational beings
need-all the. corn and meat and with
the proper selection of soil all the
wheat. A better stock raising, fruit
growing, or silk raising land cannot
be found. Our water power is be-
yond computation. This should be
utilized not only nor indeed chiefly for
the manufacture of cotton, but for the
making of the endless kinds of wooden
ware and wooden implements, iron inn
plements, leather manufacturing and
countless other lines of manufacture.
But being cotton mad, all these
things have shrunk into paltrlness
into things too small for our big at
tention Everything seems small to
the gambler except the game that he
is playing. Growing cotton, betting or
high cotton. is the mania that alb
serbs us. And so much to our harm
that | firmly believe that it would be
better for the South if nature had de-
MED her cotton, had so tempted her
climate, and commingled her soil that
not a lock of this great white curse
could grow within her borders.
Instead of looking with alarm at at
tcmpts at developing cotton growing i'll
/ other countries of the world, | believe
that it would be better for us If it
/ could be there developed to such an
| extent that we were forced to dis
continue our one crop system and a.
vers:fy our farming. For it seems that
we are so welded to our idol. that only
| force can tear us from her shrine.
@. w. BLACKNALL.
! Kittrell, n. c.