The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1909-12-23
Get Out Of Debt.

Get Out Of Debt.
/, ! saw in a daily paper recently
that the ten banks in Halifax county,
N. c., have one million dollars on de-
posit. Now Halifax is county with
no large towns, and most OF this
money probably belongs to farmers.
It has been comparatively few years
since Halifax had even one bank, and
it shows we'll for the increasing pros
perity in North Carolina that she
now has ten banks.
What is true in Halifax is true In
nearly every county in North caro-
lima, and in many other parts OF the
cotton country. North Carolina has
been fortunate this year in having
rather a better crop than most OF the
other cotton States. The country
banks everywhere in the South have
large deposits belonging to farmers,
and this being the case, can there
ever be a better time for the farm
ers to get out of debt and on firm
cash basis?
The man who now clears on his
debts and goes to work to farm right
can easily keep out of debt. He may
not see a great profit in feeding cat
tie in winter, but the cash in spring
will make him Independent Of the
fertilizer man, for he can get what
he needs for a lower price than the
man, who has to go in debt Tor IL,
and he will have the manure to en-
rich his land and make him still
more independent of the fertlllzer
man. ....
I have no quarrel with the manu-
facturers of fertilizers. They are,
and will always be, necessary; but
what we want to see is our South
ern farmers abandon the slavish de-
votion to fertilizers merely for the
purpose of squeezing little more
sale crop from the land and leaV-
ing it worse than before. We want
to see them use the cheaper forms of
plant food that they must buy in
more liberal manner for the increased
production of leguminous forage and
the making, through the aid OF this,
Of more manure from well-fed cattle.
We want to see them having some
thing to sell all the year through
and ready at all times to pay cash
for labor and everything else needed
to make crops.
I know a prosperous section where
the banks are full Of the money OF
farmers and where, when a town
merchant wants to borrow money, he
goes to the farmers for it. And these
farmers have nice homes, big barns,
fine stock, and buy less fertilizers
than the cotton farmers do, while
their lands have steadily increased in
productiveness. Here, on land that
was in my memory considered about
worthless, a farmer made this year
over. 1900 bushels Of corn. on thir-
down crop of crimson clover, and
that farmer invested some OF his
profits in farm in another part of
the county for $4,000 cash, and all
made at farming. -.
That farmer is money-lender and
makes small fortune every year be-
cause he farms and does not go In
debt. He works Seventy-fve hands
on his various farms all summer and
twenty in winter, and If you should
talk to him about two-horse farm
or four-horse farm he would not
know what you mean, for he works
all the horses he needs all the time
and figures on the amount of work to
be done rather than on the number
of acres to a mule.
Now that prosperity has come to
the Southern farmers, why should
they stay in debt and let their money
lie in the bank bringing no interest?
If you have gotten out Of debt, now
is the time to stay out. Instead OF
adding more acres, put your means
into the improvement OF the acres
you have, be they many or few. What
we need is not more land in cotton,
but more cotton on every acre and
fewer acres in the crop and more in
the auxiliary crops that will help US
get. more money at different seasons
and thus keep out Of debt. A farm
ing community that remains in debt
these times is a community that has
not risen to its opportunities. When
I see a farmers wagon backed up to
a supply store and loading bales Of
hay and bales Of cOttOnSeed bulls,
know that there is a man in debt,
man who is simply growing cotton
for the merchant and who belongs
to the merchant and fertilizer man
as much as if bill of sale had been
signed for him. do not need to see
that mans cotton nor his corn, for
should know that the man who buys
feed for his stock has little stock to
feed and little manure to enrich his
land, and that manure of the poorest
quality, like his stock.
But when l meet man on the
road, as l did some time ago, with a
wagon-load of drain tiles hauled by
a fine and well-fed pair of horses, I
know that there is man using his
brains, and a man who has the cash
to spend for the improvement Of his
land; for tiles are cash article and
are not shipped to men who do not
pay their debts. l at once want to
see that mans farm, for know there
is something there to see, and that
he has not patch of corn here,