Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1912-03-06
IOWA AND KANSAS FARMERS
Buy and Maintain Automobiles ut En-
pensc of Cotton Farmers.
(Southern Ruralist.)

(Southern Ruralist.)
During the past two or three years
there has been lot printed in the
papers about the number Of automo-
biles owned by farmers in States like
Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, the So
called Corn States," If you please.
It's fact that no one can honestly
dispute that these Iowa-Nansas far
mers' automobiles were bought and
are kept running by money paid for
their corn by Southern cotton grow
ers.
If there ever was time when the
agricultural interests of the South
needed to stop and look situation
squarely in the face, it is NOW
Most people are blue about the cot
ton situation, especially inc plain COT
ton grave cr who grows }it,e or uuth-
inA ,SESe. Ho is the hard"Mit man,
and he Is going 10 keep OH boinR
hard hit untI he gets this single
crop idea knocked out Of his head.
We don't care what the particular
crop is, but If any section follows
the single crop idea, no matter whe-
ther it be cotton, corn or wheat, thai
section is slave to that crop. You
can't hear the chains rattle, but the
farmer who depends on that one crop
Is a slave to 1t just the same.
AS a section of country, we are
buying corn by the hundreds OF mil
lions of dollars direct. Our meat
bill, largely a product Of corn, adds
other tens upon tens Of millions.
Other hundreds of millions go for
oats, hay, dairy and poultry pro-
ducts. AS plain matter Of fact, the
cotton-growing States are spending
the entire cotton crop each and every
year, and sometimes more, for these
farm products that can all be grown
in our own territory, and at one
third what we are now paying.
There isn't one of these crops tn;
we buy that, If we handle them in
telligently, can't be grown at profit
Of from 100 to 200 per cent. Is there
any "all-cotton" grower who reads
this that will have the nerve to stand
up and say that he can make such
profit on even 15-cent cotton?
We have heard hundreds of times
the statement: 81 can't afford to
grow corn" It's mighty sorry far
mer who can't, for if the Lord ever
made country naturally adapted to
corn-growing, it Is the South.
We have watched this boys corn
club work with lots Of interest.
These boys have had to keep books
on their crop, and know what it
costs. We went over list Of their
reports the other day. Costs ranged
from 10 cents to AZ cents per bushel.
Let's take AZ cents. the high cost,
for a starter.
How many Of you cotton-growing
corn-buying farmers are getting any
Accent corn from your supply mer-
chant? Isn't 1T oftener IS cents to
a dollar cash, or $1.25 credit? These
prices are facts that you have to face
at Settling up' time. Is 1t any Won
der that you have little or nothing
left after paying your debts-thosc
debts being made largely for corn
and corn products, such as meat and
meal? It's true that fertilizer bills
make some "distress" cotton, but It's
more true that the debts you owe
your merchant for corn and corn
products are a whole lot more dis
tressing."
1t isn't often that we can go back
fifty or more years to progress, but
that's where we now stand. Before
the civil war the South did not buy