The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-07
VIII IT, shechau.

a barroom and light his cigar with five dollar bill to show what a game sport he was. The act showed what he was. all right. Now, the farmer who burns his cotton. believing that his in- sane act will affect the market, Is in the same class as the man who lights his cigar with five dollar bill.''
 This was a practical, well balanced Montgomery County planter talking. Cotton growing is his business. his pro- fession. his family's support. The price of cotton means as much to him as it does to anybody. But being a sensible man he does not stand for any policy of cutting off noses to spite faces.
 This man Is typical of the Southern co tton raiser. A serious condition, a dangerous condition 1t might be said. conrfonts them. The prosperity of the South and the price of cotton Is so in- terwoven, so enwrapped, that they may not be separated. The Southern cot ton producer is willing to do all in his power to put up cotton. Right now that class of farmers Is asking:
 What can we do to save cotton?' They are pessimistic, for the lack of a satisfactory answer.
 Just one thing is going to put up cotton," said Dr. T. E. Rushing, a prom inent Montgomery County planter liv- ing at Pike Roads. That one thing is a short crop. It is cotton's only hope. If the acreage is reduced, if less fertil- ized is used. If the seasons are bad, if the boil weevil continues to advance, the crop of 1905 will be shorter than the enormous 12,000.0O0 bale crop of 1904. Some one of these conditions is bound to come to pass In fact sev- eral of them may come true. I firmly l haI{ haf 1 Sh nrt = CT crop than that of 1904.
 They talk to us of organizing. We are advised to all enter into a contract to hold what cotton we have. We are advised to all enter into an agreement to cut down our cotton acreage. Elth- CT agreement If faithfully made and faithfully kept would result in a
 higher price for cotton. But those agreements cannot be made and they could not be kept if they were made. They are so impracticable as to be al-
 most impossible.
 How are the farmers in the South : ern States going to be persuaded to enter into an agreement and how are we going to make every one of them
 respect the agreement when 1t is
 made7 What are we going to do with the fellow who figures out that as everybody else is going to plant less cotton he will just plant a great big crop and take advantages of the high prices which are bound to come. And that fellow would form a pretty num- erous class. too"
 There is something wrong about the farmers alent for organizing. In fact he doesn't seem to have that talent. The farmers have been organized be- fore, but some of us are not proud of the things that were done by some of those organizations. No. the hope and solution of cotton Is in a short crop. And we are going to have a short crop. too. not by concerted ac- tion in holding cotton or in cutting down the acreage. but through the
 lack of that perfect combination of circumstances and conditions which made the phenomenal crop of 1904" But this thing of diversified crop
 which Is preached so much to the lfarmers-will it not pay to plant other things than cotton2"
 The answer to this question lawaited with eagerness It would be I knew, an answer fresh from the soil. All about us were the dark brown cot ton fields, robbed weeks ago of their | white beauty. Cotton fields, cotton
 plantations of the rich prairie lands of
 Middle Alabama, stretched to the
 north, the east, the west and the
 south A great modern steam ginnery
 was just cAtside. The answer to a
 question so vital was to come from
 one of the large cotton growers of the distinctly cotton section of Alabama a man who had grown up and spent
 his life in the prairie cotton planta- | tions.
 Diversified crops" said pr. Rush.
 ing, lis preached to us early and often, but the diversification of crops
 in our section Is not so easy a thing
 as those who preach it to us believe
 Diversificatron of crops in the prairie
 section of the State under present conditions is impossible
 Why imposslble?" I'll show you | The land owners hold large tracts of
 lands. They do not cultivate the land | themselves. It is leased and cultiva-
 ted by negroes. The cotton crop is the money crop of the South, but it
 is more especially the money crop of | the black belt. And mark this, it is | the only money crop that the negro
 knows anything about It is the only crop from which the land owner and !, the advancer can hope to get from the | negro. If negro should come to his 1 landlord and tell him that he was
 going to put his land entirely in vegetables, or sugar cane or hay or
 what not-well. he would be asked to
 move on to somebody else's land and
 try the experiment"
 Moreover, as I said before the only agriculture the negro knows is cot
 ton. He has been raised in. cotton and
 his father before him was raised In cot ton. This is practically true of the white farmer, or at least the white farmer of South Alabama. White and
 negro when they raise cotton are tread ing paths they know. Neither of them has the wealth or the capital to go off in new and experimental-that Is supposing it were possible for them to break away from the lease system" |"
 Bear in mind always that cotton is as much as you please about growing on the farm all that is needed on the farm, but no farmer of my knowledge has ever been able to live and support his family without some money,"
 T want to cite you a little circum- stance to show what sort a condition the Southern farmers would have to meet If they went to diversifying their crops We grow good corn here on these prairie lands. Right out there in that building we have corn that we are willing and anxious to sell. Sup pose we were to load our wagons with this corn and take 1t to Montgomery to sell. We'll, we could sell it with some trouble, but if We sold it we would have to let it go at 30 cents a bushel Suppose we had sent those wagons empty to Montgomery to buy corn We would have had to pay 70 hnl