The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1911-12-14
Be q Farmer Next Year.


Whenever cotton gets very low
there are always lot Of people to
cry out, "Quit raising cotton" and a
lot of farmers who begin looking for
some other crop "to take the place
of cotton" Now, we do not believe
that the Cotton Belt farmer should
quit raising cotton or that he needs
another money crop" to take it's
place. Cotton is the greatest money
crop that Southern farmers, as a
class, can grow. For the man who
has been growing cotton all his life
to quit all at once just because
prices are low and plunge altogether
into some other branch of farming,
is anything but a wise policy. The
cotton farmer doesn't need to get
unduly excited because cotton prices
are low. Cotton was profitable crop,
even this year, to some farmers; it
will be a profitable crop for long
time yet if farmers will only give it
chance. There are great many
changes sadly needed in our system
of farming, but there is not the
slightest need of panic-stricken
rush to untried lines of work. The
kind of farming needed next year is
exactly the kind of farming that was
needed this year,-the kind that the
Progressive Farmer urged,-and the
kind that good farmers here and
there all over the South are doing.
Cotton is low this year, because
our farmers went wild last spring
and planted the biggest cotton crop
in the history of this country. Prices
had been high for two years, and
they forgot that cotton crop OF
medium size almost invariably brings
more than a big one. They forgot,
too, that the entire dependence upon
single crop, no matter how good a
crop it may be, is an unsafe policy.
For all these years the Progressive
Farmer has been urging Southern
farmers to reduce their cotton acre
age, to farm their lands in system
attic rotation, to grow more corn
and hay and other feed crops, to
keep more live stock, to give more
attention to building up the fertility
of their lands, to reduce the cost of
production by making larger crops
to the acre in short, to farm so as
to make their cotton real money
CROP" a surplus crop, instead of
having to sell it to pay for fertilizers
and mules and feed and supplies"
and clothing and everything else they
need. All this we still believe was
sound advice then and now, but it
does not follow that it will pay the
man who does not understand hog
raising or dairying to rush into these
businesses, or that the man who has
had no experience with truck crops
should change all at once from cot
ton planter to a trucker. There is
no great change needed, except the
change from the present miserably
wasteful cropping practice to a ra-
tional system of general farming;
and when this change is made cotton
will still be the great staple crop of
the South.
Do not be misled, either, by the
advice some people are giving to buy
no fertilizer next year, or by any OF
that sort of stuff. What you want is
to have every pound of cotton you
produce next year produced at the
least possible cost. The way to do
this is to make just as much cotton
as possible on every acre planted.
Reduce the fertilizer bill by reduc-
ing the acreage Put half the land
you expect to plant to cotton in
peas or soy beans or potatoes or some
other crop, and then plant your cot
ton on good land, plant good seed,
fertilize literally, cultivate we'll with
improved machinery.
Whenever Southern farmers get
to the point of making the fertility
of their land their first considera-
| ton in the planning of their farm
| work, and when they get to real
farming with systematic rotation and
| diversifcation, they will not plant
every available acre in cotton one
year because prices are high and then
hunt a substitute crop the next year
because prices are low. And then
| cotton will be a profitable crop every
year to the man who uses good farm
ing methods, and big crop will not
have to be sold for less than a small
one just because the farmers are un-
able to hold and market it in a busi-