The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1915-01-10

while beets. rice, fiaxseed and buck
wheat make up a total of $4,000, 00i
more. He therefore estimates the crol
value at $4,000, 100000 and the ANNA
products sold and slaughtered at So, 500,
| 000, 900.
| Let US consider few of our handi.
caps on account of lack of diversifa
| ton.
u. Lack of diversification keeps oul
farm values from to 65 per cent under
their actual value. This should appea
| to every land owner.
| 80. Lack of diversifcation INJURIES OH
credit with the banker, the manufac-
turer and the merchant, and causes the
borrower to pay a higher rate of in
terest. This is because the speculative
| chance of failure is so great where only
one crop is grown and where the farm
er has to buy his foodstuffs in order &c
make another crop.
70. Lack of diversification causes us
to depend upon some one bank, firm OIL
individual to furnish many of us with
supplies in order to operate each sue
cessive year Most of these supplies
could be produced at home for fully sc
per cent less
"a. Lack of Investigation robs us OF
. our independence, lessons our incentive
destroys our initiative and will ulti-
mately not only cover our crops but
Trouble Is Ignorance
I'VE had just as well be honest with
ourselves and call our trouble ignor-
ance. We cannot believe otherwise, as
our southern farmer is energetic and Is
ambitious to prosper. He is vitality in
terested in accurate information
knowledge, after all, is but the dissem-
nation of the valuable things discov-
cred and put into practice by others
If we can utilize an idea that has been
tried out with success by another, it
does away with the necessity of ex-
pertinent and the chances of failure.
The north and west are prosperous
agriculturally today because of diver
sification, and we have but to profit by
their example. The western farmer by
being self-supporting at home can hold
his farm products for the best mark ct
prices. This is one of the fruits of
diversfcation.
zone acre of good land will produce
80 bushels of wheat. 80 bushels of wheat
will put up six barrels of -four. and six
barrels of flour will feed family of
six one year. Every farmer has this
acre somewhere about his home, but
our Alabama farmers buy their flour
milled from wheat grown in the west
with money received from low priced
cotton.
SOME eHeTBetlc eullOT III lnlS state
has said: That the Alabama farmer
rises in the morning and washes his
face in a Pittsburg basin, puts on a
suit of clothes made in Chicago, eats
bacon for breakfast produced in the
west, puts on a Philadelphia hat and
drives a Missouri mule to an Indiana
pillow, in order to make enough cotton to
pay for these things, of all which could
be produced at home.
THE crop Investigation movement
is for the purpose of quickly going be-
fore the people of this state with lit
erature and good speakers and dissem-
mating information that has been gath
cred from the successes of others. We
expect to be in the midst of this move
ment by February l and expect to have
the cooperation and financial support,
if necessary, of every good citizen in
the community. 1t is not only patriotic,
but 1t is a blessing to many thousands
of our farmers and business men. There
is not one, who will not be benefited
and it Is expected that the governor of
our state, our commissioner of agricul-
ture and our educational heads will
lend us their assistance in every pos
sible way"