The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-11-17
AGRICULTURAL.
General Remarks and Advice.

General Remarks and Advice.
 In travelling around among the fruit and vegetable growers, I find a great deal of complaint and dissatisfaction with the past seasons experiences in marketing their crops. I find many truck growers associations so badly demoralized that 1t will be almost impossible to join them again for growing any perishable crops for shipment to northern markets. This Is of course an unwise view to take of the matter, for there is and always will be a demond for frst-class article, and the grower who will educate himself to grow only good goods and then inform himself when and how to market ms crops, will always get pay for his labor.
 Our growers generally are ready to charge over-production as cause for the low prices and demoralized condition of the markets the past season. This is partly true, but by no means all of the cause. Let us look into this subject lit- tie, and as we do so, l think that we will find that our bad season all over the south, the excessive rainfall had very much to do with such result. Weather conditions were unfavorable for all fruits and vegetables, so much so indeed that they were badly damaged and rendered
 
 when grower could cultivate his crops to any advantage, and many crops had to be harvested from among weeds and grass and a water-soaked soil. As stated, this condition prevailed all over the fruit and truck-growing country of the south In many instances the growers thought that the best to do would be to hurry their crops to market as fast as possible, thus hoping to get clear of them at some price. This was a great mistake and resulted in failure and in crowding markets until shipments would not bring enough to pay the freight charges.
 I was in one of our great markets and saw the conditions in which these ship ments came in Cars of strawberries came
 in from which the wine was running in streams, and cars of peaches that had been pulled and packed wet all rotten be- fore reaching the market. One peach grower admitted to me only the other day that he shipped peaches from which sam pies had been taken in the evening and had routed the next day. Yet he expected the peaches in the car to reach a dis tant market ip such a condition as to pay him for his labor of growing and shipping Thus crowding the markets with poor goods had more to do with the low prices than did the matter of ver-production. We admit that there was an over-producton of class of goods that no one wanted or could use. Now let us look at the facts as they existed and take, first,
 The Potato Crop.
 We are willing to admit that If the sea- son had been favorable that we would have had an over-production of early po- tatoes. Our readers will remember that I warned them last winter and spring against rushing headlong Into the plant ing of large acreage of potatoes. Ir f.l. .f were on hand in the northern markets that this was not the year to plant po- tatoes, so I advised our growers only to plant a small acreage and not to plant with the expectation of getting fancy prices. The potato crop of the year be- fore brought good prices and every grower who had good stock made money. So 1t was but an easy matter for growers to rush into potato growing the past season. Then, in addition to all this, came the agitation for a reduction of at least 20 per cent In the acreage of cotton and this acreage taken out of cotton growing had to be put into something. and the potato seemed to be the most promising of any other crop, and a crop that promised quicker returns than any other So many farmers without stopping to investigate the conditions of the markets rushed into potato planting, many of them having to buy seed on credit I have in mind one association who bought 1500 bushels seed potatoes, paying high price for them. They also bought cotton seed meal on credit to fertilize with. Now the result of this experiment was that this associa- ton dike many other9 could not afford to dig their potatoes, so they routed in the ground.
 Many of these new potato planters had never had any experience on potato growing and the result was that a very large crop of almost worthless stock was produced. The season being a bad one, helped to make bad conditions worse, and the markets were choked down with poor stocks. I saw potatoes come into market in cars that were rotten when they reached the market, but some one had to pay the freight Many growers seemed to think that all they had to do was to grow and ship north and the money would come rolling back to them. They seemed to think that the markets of the north can take everything offered them and at such prices as the grower will be well paid for his trouble and labor Our south ern growers need to study the market de- mands more closely. On the other hand. what about the dealers In our large mgr kets? They keep well posted and know when to buy and when to sit down and wait for consignments. What Is stated here will apply to the peach and straw berry crops of the past season. as well as potatoes
 This all goes to prove what we stated last week. that our growers must be better informed and educated, that we must have some united action that some betters methods must be adopted or else growers had better quit the business. Taking into consideration both the grow CTS and buyers side of the situation, J am fully satisfied that what is needed is an organization with full powers 10 in- spect and reject all fruits and vegetables not suitable for shipment, and which if shipped would only demoralze the mar kets and bring to the grower only freight bills. as was so often the case last season. would like to call the attention again to the great increase each year in the acreage planted to fruits and vegetables and ask Is this not enough to awaken us to the fact that better crops must be grown and that better methods for mar keting these crops be adopted? Again, vvOyild q sk ia it vvica for o,lr proWars to