The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1909-03-18
COTTON OR LIVE STOCK.

Messrs. Editors: / agree with Mr..
French that barnyard manure is the
cornerstone of good farming; but
the trouble in our system OF farming
Is that wa haven't the stock 10 make
the manure, and with the exception
of dairy cattle we can't see the profit
mers the other day and said to him,
Mr. c., you used to keep large
flock Of sheep (they were fine South
raising. them?"
He replied that the price of mutton
declined and 1t didn't pay. But,
he said, "the price of mutton is good
now, and II you are scarce OF labor
it would pay you to raise early lambs
for the market"
/ replied, "Mr. c., labor is plenti-
full in my section"
well then" he said, cotton will
pay you better"
Now, Mr.. Editor this is the rea-
son for the scarcity of stock in the
South. The farmers believe that
there is more money in cotton, and
until they are convinced otherwise
they will continue to raise cotton to
the neglect of stock. A number OF
our farmers have tried the beef
/
profitable. Our market for beef cat
tie is not good, and we can sell our
surplus hay and corn at good price
| think our experiment station
farms might take up this matter
and show where the profit lies in
stock raising in connection with gen
eral farming.
Mr.. Massey may be correct in de-
nouncing our system of farming
without stock raising, but the aevr-
age farmer is not going to change
unless he is convinced of profit in
keeping stock | believe the South
will some day become a stock raising
section, but the farmers can't be
driven into the business. They can
be led into it, however, by showing
them that it is profitable.
JOHN MCDOWELL.
Editorial Comment.-It rather
strikes us that about the only evi-
dence needed that stock raising is
profitable in the South is to be found
lin the experiences of the men who
have tried it. If our correspondent
has read how Mr.. French has built
lup his farm and made money by the
raising of stock-if he has read the
recent articles by Mr. Shuford, by
Mr.. Moye, by Mr.. Stribling, by Mr..
: Murphy, by Mr. Dunville, and by
many Others-he must certainly adj
NIT that there are some men in this
section who have made stock-rais-
ing pay.
And it passes our comprehension
how any one can talk of markets for
stock products being had in the
South when the North and West are
shipping us butter and beef, bacon
and lard, horses and mules all the
tine. We cannot get Chicago prices
for cattle, it is true; and it is also
true that in most cases we could not
get the prevailing market prices fol
our cattle if we had them at Chicago.
simply because they are not good
enough to bring them.
We have never yet seen farming
section where the farmers who were
making the most money were not,
as a general rule, the men who were
raising stock. No section has ever
built up, under ordinary conditions
permanently profitable system OF
farming which does not have stock
raising for its cornerstone. Does
our correspondent really think that
we cannot grow feed for live stock
as cheaply as can the farmers of 9th.
err sections? We ship our cotton
seed meal to dairymen in Pennsyl
vania and New York, Holland and
Denmark, and they feed it to cattle
make money and enrich their soils
while we talk abou tcotton bears and
see our land gradually depleted. In
all frankness, it does seem to us
that no man can seriously consider
the comparison between the profits
of the Northern and the Southern
farmers which we have recently pub
lished without realizing that we are
on the wrong track. .
If a man finds cotton growing
more profitable than cattle growing
let him grow cotton by all means.
The chances are that If the ordinary
cotton farmer quit growing cotton
and went into the cattle business his
last state would be no better than
his first. But before any man de-
cides which of the two will pay him
better, he must take into account the
effects of the two industries upon his
soil By combining stock and cotton
we can make money out of both.
Neither Prof. Massey nor any 9th
er member of our staff has ever tried
to drive anyone into a different sys-
tenn of farming; but we have been
doing our best to lead the farmers
of our territory into more profitable
lines of endeavor by telling them