The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1915-01-02
To the Members Of the Farmers
Union and All the Farmers of the

Union and All the Farmers of the
State:
In notice in the papers of Monday
that there is a movement to induce
the next legislature to repeal the cot
ton acreage law. I wish I could get
the ear of every farmer in the State
to beg that this law be allowed to
stand until it can be thoroughly tested
out by three or five years trial. I do
most sincerely hope that no farmer
will be so determined to show his in
dependence, or to assert his liberty to
do as he pleases with what is his own,
as to go into the courts to set aside
this wise law. I can not believe that
there is single farmer in the State
whose condition will not be better next
November If he lives up to the letter
and spirit of the cotton acreage law,
than If he succeeds in smashing that
law either in the courts or in the Leg
islature. 1t is the most conservative
and sensible cotton reduction measure
that has. ever been proposed, and
bears equitably upon all farmers alike
rich or poor, landlord or tenant. In
my opinion, the only farmers who
have any kick are the few who sell
corn and hay at fancy prices to their
more improvident neighbors. They
will have to take what their stuff Is
worth hereafter, in the worlds mar
ket less the freight. The average
farmer will find his own farm mar,
ket that has been buyer plus the
freight, plus the commissions, plus
the time prices, will absorb all that
he can make and save him these COM
missions and profits that are making
every one but himself rich.
| Besides with less cotton to engross
all his time, if he plans right, he can
harvest oats and wheat 80 to 60 days
before the grain belt and sell at the
highest price in the worlds markets
OF course this means that the thresh-
ers must be ready to sack the grain
right from the field and that the farm
ers have new sacks ready, and have
organized some system of marketing
The biggest work that Clemson has
ever undertaken lies right here, and
no 1,nf 1,0
Washington back DR.. Long to carry
out what l know he has wanted to do
ever since 1 first met him, there will
be sane marketing in South Carolina
next June and July.
Right now is the time to be plan
ming for sacks for this grain. Every
man who expects to have a hundred
bushels Of oats to sell ought to pledge
to use new cotton sacks TO put them
up in; four-bushel sacks for oats and
two-bushel sacks Of wheat and rye
would be about the right size-126
pounds and 120 pounds, respectively
trust that this is a matter that the
farmers union will take up at the
January meeting and we should like
to hear from manufacturers what they
will charge for such sacks. 1 hope
this matter will be taken up at once
and pushed through. Certainly if we
demand that salt. -four, etc, be put
up in cotton, we ought to put our
grain on the market in cotton sacks.
The wheat growers of Washington
through the farmers union sent a
committee to Atlanta for 10000, 900
cotton sacks three years ago and
could not get them. And the hop
growers Of California had to go to
Philadelphia for cotton twinc, when
the mills Of the Carolinas and Georgia
ought to have supplied both.
e. w. DabbS,
President South Carolina state Farm
ers' Union.