Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-06-23
THE WAY TO FIFTEEN CENTS COTTON
'Plain Talk In Plain Language to Plain People,"

Don't do this on my advice, for am
not giving any. l only tell you that
others have followed this plan within
my personal observation and have won
independence by so doing.
If you own no land, you should be
more careful than ever to grow enough
of everything else but cotton as a ten
liant, so that you may be sure Of a liV-
ing, Independent Of the storekeeper,
and able to drive the demon of debt
from your roof tree. If the big plan
ters near you are growing cotton as a
sole crop, don't bother with cotton at
all, but raise the stuff they need and
must buy It's a fine thing to have a
sure demand at cash prices right at
your door. If you have cotton and do
not wish to sell, believing in better
prices later on, and your obligation be-
comes due, you will no doubt be able
to deposit your cotton in a nearby
Farmers Union warehouse, borrow
against it and free yourself from the
first Indebtedness. OF course, you are
one of the F. E. and C. U. Of A. No
small planter or tenant farmer can af-
ford not to avail himself of the ad-
vantages Of cooperation offered to
members. Large planters, ditto.
If it should chance that you are not
a member, your first step toward sue
cess will be in becoming one. If you
are as good and true as the union
do.
Mule Sense.
If a planter can, by selecting his land.
high grade seed and fertilizer and
carefully and thoroughly cultivating
the plant, secure as much cotton from
seven acres as he would from ten
handled in the average way-what
you think of him If he insisted on the
full acreage and the oldfashiOned
methods?
Every county in the cotton belt will
show the investigator both classes; the
new man who plants the seven acres
in modern fashion and the "old timer
who religiously-or fanatically-plants
ten acres, Just as his father and grand
father did before him. The seven acre
man gets more net cotton Of higher
grade than his ten-acre neighbor, and
saves the cost of seeding and fertilizer,
blowing, cultivating and picking on
three acres of ground. He plants
some crop necessary to make his farm
self sustaining on the three acres, and
at the same expense as his neighbor,
has the product Of three acres as an
extra profit
The seven-acre man is we'll to do,
lives well and has money in the bank.
The ten-acre man is poor, lives the
life of a slave and wears the mortgage
yoke of debt around his neck until II
| is so chafed that he can not stand
erect.
This illustration applies equally to
the large planter who owns hundreds
or thousands of acres, the small farmer
who owns but few acres, and the
renter who makes his crop as tenant
The tenant class and the small far
mer suffer more from this reckless dis
regard of the fact that two and two
make four than his landlord neighbor
He needs the product Of the three
acres more in proportion than any
other class Of cotton growers, and, as
he is dragging the piow while the mule
is behind it, driving, he does not and
will not see or understand it.
He believes that the world is wrong
and everybody is against him, where
as he is the only stumbling block in his
own path. If such a farmer could sep
arate his spiritual essence from his
physical body for a few hours, sit
meditatively on a stump in the field
and watch the msdirected steps of his
tired frame, how he would "cuss out
that fool farmer" over there, mechani-
cally and monotonously grinding out
his strength mentally asleep.
Pioneers and prairie schooner pirates
in the new country may be excused
for seeding all the land they can
break up for the first year or two in
order to get a home started. The
rankly rich soil, virgin to the plow,
will grow almost anything in profusion;
no fertilizer or extra cultivation is
necessary; it is like gardening in
compost heap. He can make money
on a price basis that would show a
loss to the farmer in a settled country.
His chief expense is for seed. His
labor is his own and that of his fam
lily. If he requires help it is only be-
cause the harvest is too great for him
to handle. And still, this is only true
for a few brief years. The cream is
soon SKINNED off.
But the cotton grower Of the older
states is the evolved product Of from
five to eight generations of farmers,
who have titled the same fields. BY
this time he should be the most ac-
complished agriculturalst in the coun-
try. There are some, to be sure;
enough to serve as object lessons. But
seeing the value of example the rank
and file have refused to pattern after
it, and for the most part prefer the OBJ
solete methods they have inherited:
they still farm by main strength OF
bone and muscle, and leave their
brains fallow.
Don't call this picture dope dream
or the view of a dsorted vision. l
wish to God it was not so true as it
u.s. People are beginning to wake up,
and gradually commencing to take the
nOurishment offered by science, but
they are only nibbling small crumbs