The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-04-23
SOUTH AWAKENING TO POSSIBLE ITES
 AS NEVER BEFORE. SAYS MRS MATHISl
  andF Farmers Ar ooperaing
By MRS. G. H. MATHIS

carry the thought of better methods to 1 the people. Last but not least are the bankers and merchants who finance the l whole proposition and therefore have 1 the weightiest and most telling in | fluence in securing ready consent to | changed methods.
 COTTON FOR SURPLUS MONEY There is no disposition on the part of
 the bankers to try to force the people
 to get away from a one-crop system of | agriculture, but there is a persuasive 1 force in the financing end of every prop osition that is never ignored by the
 thinking people, and a ready acquiescence i is secured with little criticism. Feed our l selves first and grow cotton as a sur plus money crop, is the advice given the | farmers.
 | system of credit is extended in the | south to the small farmer and to the
 tenant that is not extended in other sec | tions of the United States thereby en-
 abling the man to begin farming on a very small capital or even upon no cap
 ita at all. An honest working man has | abundant opportunity to get start ir
 the south, if he will farm with intel ligence.
 1 Scarcely one-fourth of Alabama's agrj- cultural lands are in cultivation. We haven't the population for them and have never had. The rural population be-
 ing engaged to great extent in the
 culture of cotton, which crop requires
 more people to cultivate it than any other crop, 1t it must be tended by hand labor
 and harvested by hand labor, therefore | the population is centered upon a com paratively small area of the cultivatable i land.
 This statement would apply with equal 1 force to any other cotton growing state, and while cotton has furnished the world With cheap clothing, the margin above | the cost of production and the selling
 price has been too small for the pro- i ducers to accumulate wealth While each
 individual realized this yet there was no 1 general effort made to divert the people rom cotton growing or to persuade them
 10 become self-sustaining first and then
 grow cotton as a surplus money crop 1 only.
 MUST FEED OURSELVES
 The European war and the low price
 or cotton in 1914 brought the south to
 a realization of it's error and from every
 source now there is coming decided ef-
 fort to lead the farmer from a one-crop l system of agriculture and to lead him
 lnto diversified farming and into self help
 ana independence. We will never be a
 one-crop people any more, for that too easily puts us completely at the mercy
 or the outside world. We know now and
 realize that we can be absolutely 1nde- l pendent and still grow some cotton and 1 Tor the future that will be our method
 or agriculture We realize that we can grow too much cotton, and that a small | crop brings a better price than a large crop; this fact, together with the pres- ence of the boil weevil, making the crop | an uncertainty, is fast leading us along better and more profitable lines.
 1 Our bankers have been our friends in the past and have given us credit when we had little security to offer, only the certainty or the cotton crop making it possible for them; but they are not de- serting us in this changed condition. bIt | py word of advice, persuasion and patient counselling they are helping immenseIv l to create public sentiment so strong
 that there will be a way opened up for the farmer and market for his products that will be more than offset for the decreased cotton production
 EASY TO GET AID The tenant or small farmer in the south can secure assistance from the banks to the extent of from $25 to $10O to helr finn make his crop and on 25 acres of land he can pay 1t back at almost any tune that he chooses when he has the money. The interest rate for such a snort loan is not excessive, when the
 length of the loan is considered. and its size ana the weather conditions and judg-
 ment or the farmer are all figures in
 the certainty. The small farmer receives
 more credit in the south for the security
 he has to offer than a man receives in
 any other occupation; that is given him
 because he is producer of wealth and
 because the soil and climate can be de- pended upon to bring results if the man
 Will only work. There is nothing quite
 so sure as farming in the south. Misdi-