The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1915-07-29
THE SOUTH'S GREATEST
ECONOMIC BLUNDER

THE SOUTH'S GREATEST
ECONOMIC BLUNDER
Cattle and horses, sugar and sy
rup-fnished products in general
are the surest means of setting Flor
ida on the road to permanent and
increasing wealth. The production
of raw material to pass through sew
eral hands before it reaches the
point at which it is condensed into
some finished commodity-paying
commissions and freight bills for
the handling of the waste as well as
the useful parts of each product
then paying the middlemen's prof
it's and the freight on part of these
commodities on its way back to the
hands of theoriginal producer may
add to the general volume of bust
ness of the country, but it is at the
expense of Florida. AS the Pro-
pressive Farmer of Raleigh, n. c.,
says:
at is an axiom that no nation has
ever become rich simply as pro-
Queer of raw material, and the same
principle largely applies to farming.
The people who get rich are not
those who produce lumber, but
those who manufacture it into fur
niture. The region that becomes
richest is not that which produces
iron, but that which manufactures
1t into tools and machinery So the
great need on the farm is to market
stuff in as nearly the finished form
as possible and reach as nearly as
possible the ultimate consumer
/ Those farmers in the long run are
most prosperous who market not
hay and corn but hogs and cattle
and sheep. Likewise those dairy
farmers profit most who do not
simply produce milk, but market it
as butter through their co-opera-
i tive creameries. In hog-raising Sec
lions Danish farmers have found
that the thing to do is to market
bacon and sausage through their
cooperative packing houses. Our
canning club girls everywhere are
proving that with proper manage
ment it pays better to market fruits
and vegetables as canned goods
just as corn club or one-profit boys
are being very appropriately CO...
verified into pig club or 4Tyo-nrof,
boys-who make one protit CROWN.
the corn ana lien another prof
from feeding it,"
) The whole South is guilty Of thi
species of economic blunder, bu
Florida perhaps more than any 9th
J err state of this section. Not onl,
do we send raw phosphate across tn
seas to be manufactured into fer
tilizer and buy a part of it back a
advanced prices, but our people ar
, guilty of other wastes which serv
to keep money flowing out of tn
state unnecessarily. Capable O
| raising luxurant crops of the great
est variey of forage plants know
in any American state, possessing
climate which allows of grain
practically all the year-yet W
send millions of dollars annually on
of the state for meat, butter, chees,
n cream and eggs.
s Florida is an ideal state for tn
g raising of sugar cane, but it's cit
e zens in general are content to hu
Q sugar and syrup produced beyon
: its borders. The fruits and vegt
s tables the agriculturist allows to g
o to waste in his fields because NJ
s marketable in it's raw state woul
# if used rightly add another and PEI
haps surer profit to his shipment
d of fresh produce to Northern MAJ
i kets. The fruits and vegetabl,
: wasted on Florida truck farm
u whenever prices in the great ma
e kets fall below the level whiC
a marks profit to theraiser would,
n canned or preserved, go far towaI
r driving the Northern canned goo,
: off the Florida grocers' shelves.
? Notwithstanding that there q,
many legumes among the wild
l. well as the cultivated plants of IL
n state, the average Florida farm
l. buys all his nitrogen to repleni.
y the stock which his soil hard
lie holds long enough for the benefit
one following crop because of Il
r deficiency of the humus in the sc
3 which, together with the nitroge
N the plants would help supply
ID Times Union.
81 Old Knee Joint.