Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1915-02-26
The liberalization Another
PhGse.

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Guiding the BEACON, and many
speakers on agricultural matters
have been urging the farmers to
diversity their crops. That d.
versification is good thing seems
to have been thoroughly proven.
1t is a good things for the farm
err and by the same token a good
thing for the county at large in
GLIDING the merchants who sell
to the farmer. Too much has
been said in criticism of the farm
err who does not or who has been
slow to diversity. and nothing
said in criticism Of thsoe merch-
ants who not only have not en-
couraged farmers to diversity. but
in effect have prevented them.
They will speak well Of diversi-
fication of crops and lament the
over-production of cotton. but let
a negro or a poor whiteman whose
only security is his coming crop
ask credit or advancements and
what credit or advancement the
farmer gets will be based entire
ly on his cotton crop. The pro-
gressive poor farmer is thus eff
fectually baked in his wise in
tentions. He must have supplies
to make'a crop and must plant
cotton to obtain supplies.
This policy on the part of many
merchants is as much responsible
for holding the south to the folly
of a one-crop system as the lack
of progress of many of our farm
ers is. 1t is a mistaken idea that
the raising of their own supplies
by farmers will cut down the
merchants profits. The farm
ers will not buy so much meat and
nolasses, but they will have much
more money to spend and they
will spend it with the merchants.
Prosperity is mutual thing gen.
rally, and certainly so when such
'arge classes of the people as the
farmers and merchants of a CIV
IN territory are concerned. The
well-being of the business class
If a community never has a real
basis on the misfortune or hard
ships of another large class of
the community. Wherever you
find a prosperous farming Sec
ton you find every legitimate
business prospecting.
THE BEACON disclaimed any
special knowledge of farming and
now enters a similar disclaimer
as to the mercantile business.
But crop Investigation, as once
before pointed out, belongs to
political economy, and political
economy convincingly shows that
it is a good thing for the farmer
and a good thing for the mer-
chant he deals with. Macon is a
small town is a certain sort of
agricultural section, but it is as
much subject to general econo-
mic laws as if it were ten times
as large and a hundred miles from
a stalk of cotton. The presence
of the negro here does not repeal
or suspend these laws or modify
them; it may have the effect of
making it troublesome to adjust
our local credit system to a
new order of things, but the
result will amply repay for the
trouble.
The negro with plenty of corn
and meat and molasses and some
cotton and cotton-seed money in
his pocket is a much more pro-
fitable customer and a much more
valuable commercial asset to a
community than one buying pro-
visions on credit and getting
mighty little of them, eking out
on hogs which have wandered
too far from their white owners
lots.
In an agricultural community
prosperity goes hand
in hand with agricultural prosper
ity and if the Investigation of
crops by our farmers be a good
thing, our merchants should as