The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-01-23
FARMING IN THE GOLDEN TIME"

ately after the civil war was a picnic.
Those following that occupation,
though having a cinch, little appreci-
ated their opportunities. Few people
on earth were so richly blessed
There were thousands of acres of
state and government lands open to
entry.
The most ordinary farmer-the
freedman recently emancipated-
could obtain credit enough at the
stores to build a little home, buy a
mule and supplies enough to main
tain himself, his family and his stock
| throughout the year.
The merchants found no difficulty
in procuring advances from their cot
ton factors in Savannah and Charles
ton, and there was general squaring
of accounts at the end OF the cotton
season.
1t seems to US that there were more
white farmers-five to one-than
IAClC Oh Z IOO1y' vi COuISS IuSIc wei Z
a great many more colored ones.
We remember that there were
more than one thousand negroes
brought into the county from South
Carolina during single year.
In those days there were no turpen-
tine operators, no big lumber mills,
no phosphate plants. no orange
groves, so everybody farmed.
We had no banks-had no use for
any. Cotton was the coin of the
realm.
We remember hearing Sheriff Gal
loway giving his experience when
first coming to this section from Ala
bama. He settled in Leesburg. He
had no money, but he had a mule and
a cart, so one day he and compan-
ion hitched the mule to the cart, took
few belongings and went down on
the gulf and caught wagon load of
mullet and peddled them out to the
homesteaders along the route-so
many fish for so many pounds of cot
ton-and had bartered away their last
fish before reaching Ocala, and with
in an hour after reaching here they
had converted their cotton into cold
cash.
One could not do that today
At that time Ocala, though having
less than five hundred population.
had four cotton ginning establish
ments, some of which operated as
many as twenty gins.
She had two tanneries. and one of
them operated a shoe factory, and
had as many as twenty men employ
ed manufacturing shoes.
The man who comes to Marion
county to farm today, and who is
without money, is in hard lines.
Stores are no longer run on the credit
system, and he cannot get accommo-
dations at the banks unless he can
furnish gilt-edge collaterals, and only
then for thirty, sixty and ninety days.
Suppose a man comes here today
and has enough money to buy tract
of land and succeeds in buying a tract
as rich as the Mississippi delta, and
he has only money enough to pay for
his land, what is he to do? He must
clear his land. He must fence it. He
must build him a roof to shelter his
family. He must buy mule, and a
COW, a. wagon and farming imple-
ments. Then he has got to feed him
self, his family and his stock until
he gathers his crop-so what's he to
do?
People come here with exaggerated
ideas. They seem to think that a
crop makes itself That if they have
money enough to secure a piece of
land on the installment plan that that
is all that is necessary.
1t seems to us that some efforts
ought to be made to care for these
people in some way until they can
get start.
If We could restore the old system
if we could get back to planting cot
ton, it would be like Paradise Re-
gained
Cotton growing times were good
old days." to say the least
Major General Leonard Wood says
that if our army were to go to war