The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1914-09-22
GRAIN CROP WILL
SAVE THE SOUTH
Commissioner Watson Issues
Plain Call to Farmers.
MUST FORGET COTTON.
Will Lead Out OF the Fipan-
cial Wilderness.

Everything in the world right now
is in an abnormal condition. The
European war, in its effect on South
ern conditions, is producing a revo-
luton. And so. the regular weekly
bulletin of the bureau of marketing
is giving way on this page, in this
hour of distress for cotton, to a plain
call to the farmers of the S e to
speedily line up on the only clear
path that leads out of the financial
wilderness.
Forgetting our trouble over cot
ton for the moment, and assuming
that somehow or other we are going
to be tided over the next six months,
let's appeal to reason and business
common sense and look at the golden
grained opportunity that is sitting in
the shadow on our doorstep-the
vision of a new, well-balanced agri-
culture and two real money crops for
1915, where we have had only one
before.
Let's forget cotton for a moment
and realize that to plant cotton for
1915 is like planting jimson weed
so far as money for IL is concerned.
If not the cotton that we alone
know as our money crop, what?
Grain-something to eat, of course
Why?
The decrease in the demand for
cotton is more than offset by the de-
mand for foodstuffs now, and 1t can
not fail to grow in intensity. The
world must be fed. Aside from the
present harvested American and Can
adian crop and what South America
can furnish, there is no prospect of
the world producing anything to eat
When the present available grain is
consumed-and 2O,OOO,OOO men are
under arms in Europe, all now non
producers, the fields OF their coun-
tries lying idle-that section of the
world-and the only one-that can
first furnish oats, wheat, rye and
barley and then corn. is the section
that is going to get the harvest of
gold-money. By reason of climatic
conditions the cotton belt states can
get off great grain crop months
ahead of any other section of the
world and send it to starving Eu-
rope, and she can on the same land
in the same year, do the same identi-
cal thing with corn! This is no
theory; IL is plain truth. Such a
policy, quickly pursued, such an op-
portunity. rapidly seized, right now
will not only bring ready wartime
prices" cash by June 1 and again by
October Twice in the same year
show the Southerner something he's
never realiZed-that grain and corn
are actually money crops, but it will
automatically, as Mr. Edmunds eX-
presses it, contribute to the mainte-
nance of a reasonable price for raw
cotton, and the success of the policy
Will fix upon an enduring foundation
the systematic marketing of cotton
toward which the South has been
striving for more than a decade" ="
And when 1915 ends, If cotton is not
forced to a sacrifice In the next six
months, then the farmer or the
South, will have the cotton also to
let out on the market sanely and
reasonably. General planting OF
grain now is sane; if followed by
corn planting, as it must be, it will
of itself tend to keep down a mur-
derous cotton acreage to be further
sacrificed Wholesale planting of
cotton in 1915 would be nothing
short of insanity and suicide.
So, the advice that must of econ
omic necessity be given the farmer
now is to plant oats, wheat and rye
on every available clearned acre of
land, except what ought to be put to
burr clover and such crops to care
for the hogs, for the hogs and poul-
try must play an important part ir
the new farm economy rising from
the deprivation of money and credit
with which to buy meats and other
food.
Plant the grain as early as you
can get 1t in to get the early harvest
and larger yields, avoiding the dry
May that always comes and to pre-
pare for the early corn to follow.