The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-05
GREAT CHANGES WROUGHT
There Are Now Factories All the Way From DanVllIe to Atlanta, a Dis tanee of Four Hun
 dred Miles.
BY FREDERIC j. HASKELL.

l WHO Sllll Illl IH6 ntldSs ub Cdi
 linas have a great area of fertile agri-
 cultural lands. For more than cen
 tury these lands were devoted to the
 cultivation of cotton, tobacco and rice with Just enough of wheat and corn to
 supply local and immediate needs. Today North Carolina has SO0,0o0 few CT acres in cultivation than in 1S60 Yet North Carolina farmers are in better condition than they ever were, and raise larger crops, although the state last year imported s26, 000.000 worth of az ricultural products which might have been produced at home. South Caro- lima also has felt the drain of the mills upon her farms, and It's total cultiva- ted area is less than it formerly was. Yet South Carolina last year got more money for it's cabbage and lettuce crop than the total revenue of the state amounted to when 1t seeded from the Union in 1861.
 Fifteen years ago a small farmer made ten bales of cotton on his place. He raised enough of vegetables and corn to supply his family with all nee essary food except sugar and coffee. He bought his implements, his mules and his fertilizers, as well as clothing and everything else he used, from time supply store" When his cotton crop was ready for market he hauled it in, two bales at time, over a bad road to the town. The ten bales brought him $500. If he happened to be thrifty and careful the bill at the store would amount to $295. Then he would get his s5 in cash. and that would be all the money he would handle from one years end to another's. If he was careles sand thriftless, the store bill probably would be ss15, and there was a nest-egg of s15 debt to start the next years bill
 Take this same farmer today. He still raises but ten bales of cotton, but
 with his food-stuff he raises other things on the same piece of ground, The cotton mill has brought a big buying population to the nearby town. Good roads have been built-by convict la bor-and it Is easy for him to go to market. He has planted him a truck patch, and the truck patch has freed him from slavery to the store" Fifteen years ago there was no one to buy the truck. no way to get 1t to the town if there had been a market Now a boy or girl can carry a load of vegetables or chickens or eggs or fruit into town without any trouble. because the roads are good.
 The weekly or semi-weekly trips to market with garden truck in the sum mer. and poultry even through the winter. bring In enough money to keep the expenses of the household going f0 bup clothing and pay incidentals. When the cotton is ready for market the farmer takes in his ten bales at one load and gets for if, not $500 as he did fifteen years ago. but twice that amount. He probably owes $250 for fertilizers and implements. He has $S50 in cash, and Is on an Independent basis. The increase in price of cotton alone would not have done this for him. If he had depended altogether on cot ton, as he used to do, the ten bales would have brought twice as much, but of the 5000 he would have owned $590 to the store" and $10 would be his cash return on a years work. Such is the fate of those who have not taken advantage of the newly opened mark cts for truck"
 The factories have done all of this, practically all within the last ten years. The humming factory towns were then sleeply country places where all the truck needed was grown in the gardens behind the houses-colonel judge. major or negro, it was all the same. Chickens were town broke and fed on the streets, while hog meat fat tened on watermelon rinds left on the ground a that forum of the people the court house yard.
 The same town now has 2O0o mill hands who must be fed from the coun- try. commission merchant is there to buy truck to ship north, for the factories have made better railroad facilities. Whatever can be raised on
 the little farm may be sold and what ever is sold for ca sh is. under the cir cumstances, almost clear profit. It may
 be seen from this statement of condi- tions why 1t is that the small farmer is not enth husiastic about encoura gin 2 | immigration. He has seen goodly
 number of the farmers go into the
 mills, and that reduction of competi-
 tion has had it's share in the increase of
 the price of cotton, he thinks. Some ! great flnanciers agree with him. He is
 too glad to have steady market wh.~l will give him the necessary cash to meet daily expenses. to contemplate
 with pleasure any system which in the | faintest way suggests a return to the
 slavery to the long time credit store. | An interesting feature of the revolution
 being wrought by the industrial move | ment in the Piedmont section of the Carolinas, irginia and Georgia, is the
 passing of the old credit system. In
 the old days settlements were made
 from Christmas to Christmas and the heavy hand of debt was laid upon every
 tiller of the soil be he small farmer or | large planter The typical condition of
 small ten-bale farmer under the old | system Is sketched in the foregoing Eff | teen years ago the large employing plan l ter fared but little better. He hired ne-
 groes and white men to work his fields.
 paying from s5 to s1o a month with a | bushel of meal, twelve pounds of bacon
 and a gallon of molasses for nations" " | All of this came from the store When he | sold his cotton his store bill would prac- | tically always cover nearly the whole | amount, often would exceed it. Many a
 man who had a great plantation has been ruined by this long credit system, neces- sary as 1t may have ben in the beginning. 1 knew of one man who never thought l to six the price. Anything that was want ed came from the store. He lived in com | fort, and was believed to be prosperous by nLs neighhors and his family. Yet the store bill was never quite cancelled by the sale of the years crop and every few years little farm had to be sold to enable the planter to square accounts. In sections where there are no mills, and the towns have not called on the country for supplies of garden truck. this system still obtains. although con