The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-12-21
"Old Timer" on the Cotton Problem

Wanderers Rest, Dec. 1.-THE
past week was one of sunshine, still
the cotton is in the fields, pickers
seem very Indifferent, and the prob
lem grows more difficult, for it stands
to reason that where a chance is
open to make Christmas money all
would be eager to make it; perhaps
all have it except the land owners.
Last week we promised to try to
solve the all cotton problem. For
the beginning, will have to go back
to the close of the civil war, when
cotton was worth so to Is cents per
pound, and credit extended to the
farmers to enable them to grow cot
ton, an exorbitant rate of interest
charged that ground all profits out
of the crop, and to make ends meet
the planters grew larger acres, and
the tenants would only cultivate cot
ton, leaving provision crops of all
kinds to the grass, even the vege-
table gardens left to grow in weeds
in many cases.
Soon the habit was formed to go
to the merchant for everything
consumed by the family, and often
the old horse munched on bought
corn and hay, all bought on credit
and at big prices, for we'll knew the
merchant that many dollars so ad-
vanced would never be paid for, and
the thrifty farmers who paid kept
the South from bankruptcy. Each
year labour gets scarcer and more
uncertain, until to-day all of the
best class farm for themselves, with
mules bought on credit, and cotton
is planted to pay for the mules, with
little made to feed the family or
mule, and to the town drives and
brings feed for mule and grits and
bacon for the family.
The land owner does little to keep
his troopers or renters from planting
cotton, and the merchant sells him
fertilizers to put on cotton, not pro-
visions. While the people of the
South do not look on small things
only to jeer, so accustomed are they
to the cotton bale worth from S25
to $10O, that basket of eggs or
bunch of radish or a head of collards
or a peck of potatoes are so small
that to be caught offering them for
sale is to be smiled at if not ridi-
culed. Never the inkling that the
one hundred dollar bale of cotton
cost ten more, or the twenty-five one
fifteen more to grow it. So it was
when cotton brought 100 dollars per
bale, and is still so when bale sells
for 25 dollars.
Now the problem is how to change
this state of affairs, which exists all
will agree. Are we as people will
ing to welcome the day of small
things? Will the farmer with a
bushel of onions or peas or pig or
a squash be looked on as worthy as
the man with seven bales of cotton
driving into town on one wagon
drawn by four mules not paid for in
full perhaps?
Will the land owner say to his ten
ant plant ten acres of cotton and
fifteen in provisions or you can't rent
my land? Will the merchant say
plant provisions enough to do you
and feed your stock and cultivate
same as we'll as your cotton, to hoe
the grass out of your corn, potatoes,
and garden, and I will have a man
around to see that you do it, if not
I can make no advances? Will the
men of large means leave off cotton
in their farming and grow other
crops that will pay just as we'll or
better and can be harvested Oy ma
chinery, and by so doing teach by OBJ
ject lessons that cotton is not the
only money crop and leave cotton
for the little fellow who thinks he
will have to grow it or starve?
All these questions are asked not
in wisdom but to learn if the South
cannot be independent of the specu-
lator. Next week will see what can
be done by cooperation of banks,
merchants, farmers and all concern
ed and keep cotton on a basis that
all may live, for in union is strength,
divided is weakness.
OLD TIMER.