Lower coast gazette., 1914-11-21
SATURDAY. NOVEMBER q 1914.
Farm Independence.

II JIG q q IOOluoSAC WIG VIVIAN fH">"~
ally irritable all over. If one has a cut finger
he is astonished to find what an important part
that finger plays in his ordinary life when he
finds it unusable for a hundred things that he
never knew he used it for. These show the
close interrelations of the human body. The
forty four years of peace between the Germans
and the French and the hundred years Of peace
between English speaking peoples have deyel-"
oped a sense of security in the United States
and in Europe that now we suddenly find threat
ened. We find our general avenues Of trade
blocked off and many Of our people find that
provisions have advanced to extraordinarily high
prices and the staple articles that they them
selves produce have fallen to extremely low
prices. The lessons that the farmer should
learn from these experiences is to be as indie
pendent on the farm as possible of all outside
sources of support. Within our own experiences
the great West has grown up from uninhabited
prairies, from inhospitable woodlands, where an
area large enough for a garden was difficult of
obtaining. The farmers of the West sixty years
ago fought all these battles with nature and
succeeded and have built up the great states
such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa
and the great West beyond in a way that sur
passes the comprehension of the average nan.
These farmers built for themselves in the
beginning log houses, with little leanto sheds
for their horse and cow and began life at the
ground level as it were and gradually built
themselves up to richness. These lives were
filled with hard work, but the farmer was in
dependent. He would get his start on the land
by money that he had earned as a laborer, or
otherwise before he settled on the land and
there he with his neighbors would build the log
houses in combination, he returning in due time
to his neighbors such help as they extended to
him in building his house. These log cabins and
mud chimneys did their part in the building up
of the great West and 81 the fields broadened
and the crops increased and some money began
to be accumulated. the fields were made all the
larger and in due time better house would be
built, more animals would be utilized and the
large farm would be evolved from the wilder
ness whether from woodland or prairie.
In the Southern States it was found more
than a century ago that the alluvial lands of the
Mississippi River in the southern half Of Louis
lana and all along the Gulf coast for consider
able distances either way were we'll adapted to
the cultivation OF rice and of sugar cane. In
1860 there were 14O0 little sugar houses in op-
Grafton in Louisiana. Many of these were lit
tie horse mills that would turn out from Is to
40 hogsheads Of sugar a year, worth perhaps
$40 per hogshead, the whole crop of sugar
amounting to pephaps q thousand dollars to
which may have beer, added $500 to $500 worth
Of molasses. These men were successful in
these ventures, successful because of the COM
paratively high prices prevailing for sugar, the
fact that sugar was q product in great demand
throughout the civilized world, the production
OF which was largely limited to the West Indies.
Where the lands were too tow for sugar cane
rice and indigo were produced a century ago
and finally indigo was abandoned and rice cul-
ture to some extent was continued until the
present time, while sugar cane quickly became
the dominant crop in southern Louisiana and
has been its chief production for the first GEN.
fury Of its existence as q state in the federal
union.
In our alluvial cotton countries a similar one
Ciop iuuu0tIy grew up ana III the nu country
of Louisiana a still greater area was settled by
farmers with but little capital. They, too, found
tnat the quickest road to wealth was to produce
cotton which because Of its better quality and
peculiar adaptation to Louisiana lands was the
most available crop.
Our farmers who engaged in these indust-
res quickly lost their independence. Their anx.
iety TO secure wealth led them to a rapid ex.
penditure Of all their profits to increase their
area OF lands in cotton and to depend largely
upon the local capitalists and merchants for
support each year until the crop they raised be.
gan to pay foritself.
For years in Louisiana the gradually lower.
ing prices Of cotton and Of sugar have indicated
the absolute necessity for diversified aRricuI-
ture, even in these lands Of ours that are 80
well adapted to their special crops. The one
ITEM OF Indian corn was imported into Louis.
lana BY the steannboatloads right along. wear al.
ter year, and rapidly sold to the country to 20
to the cotton planters and the sugar planters.
who were 30 engaged in their own respective
cultures that they had no time to give to the
corn crop and when they did plant corn. it was
always the last pig in the bunch, and hence m
treated, never well cared for and the results
were always unSatisfactorv and pavo tn tho