The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-08
THE BIRMINGHAM AGEHERALD, WEDNESDAY, ]
WORLDS WORK MAGAZINE
 PRAISES WOMAN'S ACTIVITIES
Mrs G. H. Mathis of Gedsden is Farmer-One of the Kind That Knows How to Make the Business Pay, Even
 During Present Agricultural Crisis

a story on per cent money for farmers,
 and in it's lead refers to the work of
 Mrs G. H. Mathis and her activities in
 this and other states looking to the bet
 torment of agricultural conditions of the
 south The story which speaks for it.
 self, is here given in its entirety.
 Mrs G. H. Mathis of Gadsden, Ala,
 Is a farmer-one of the kind that knows
 how to make the business pay. As a
 striking exception in this respect to the
 average Alabama farmer, she was dis
 covered sometime ago by the state agri-
 cultural department and the state bank
 ers' association. They told her it was
 her duty to let every business man and
 every farmer in Alabama into the secret
 of her success. She yielded to their en-
 treaties. And now she divides her time
 between her own business and going
 about teaching first-hand the lessons of her experience. One of the most im- portant of these lessons is this: With good ground to work, if you want to know what think of this rural credit business, it is that the only kind of credit we need is better blowing. We need to farm las if our farms owed us some thing, instead of just scratching around to get little cotton. Why, we in the south have gone off at perfect tangent on cotton growing, and how on earth we ever got the notion into our heads is more than I know"
 The kind of agricultural nonsense about which Mrs. Mathis talks so pointedly is not peculiar to Alabama. It is found all over the south. There is, indeed, more or less of it in every section of the country. That is one important reason why we have a rural credits problem for Con- gress to grapple with, as it intends to do during the present session.
 TWO KINDS OF CREDIT This problem is twofold. Like every other business, agriculture uses two kinds of credit; short-time. personal cred- it, which furnishes the working capital for production purposes; and long, time credit, which furnishes the capital for the extension and improvement of the farmers permanent plant, the land. Both kinds depend, of course, upon safe farm- ing. but safe farming is the more es- sential to establishing the farmers per sonal credit. The class of farmers who are chiefly poor business men is the one which pre- sents the acute situation on the personal credit side. It is the one that is con- pelled either to supply it's needs by high ly expensive credit trading at the local store, or to pay the highest ra -es for money borrowed at the local bank In Alabama, for instance, it is the class that is largely responsible for the average in- terest rate of 10 per cent or total cost of 12.4 per cent, reported by the depart ment of agriculture as the charges con- nected with short-tine loans on personal security under normal conditions in that state.
 This is the class of farmers to which Secretary Houston of the department of agriculture was referring in his recent statement before the joint congressional committee on rural credits when he said:
 They are not people who have well established characters which commend them to lenders of money. They too ire quently have little or no collateral and are not good farmers. Some of them I may be fairly good farmers, but not good business men; and too often al l the close of the years operations they have little or nothing left over, and ] move on to some other community | T think there is general legislation in 1 addition to financial legislation which | will help solve this rural credits prob- 1 lem. We already have many agencies 1 that are helping to solve it. All the work l of the department of agriculture of the land grant colleges, of the state depart ments of agriculture, and of the better farmers is aiding. These agencies are bringing about more profitable agricul- | ture and better distribution. These things are essential for the solution of rural credits"
 MT. Houston might well have added to this list of agencies the American Bankers association and the various state bankers associations. The prac- tical results of their cooperation with the farmer are everywhere to be found. To illustrate, take the case of Alabama again. The state bankers association declares that the campaign in which Mrs.
 Mathis was such an active participant last year saved the state as much as S20O00,oO0, which can be reckoned as the basis of s1Oo0O0,00O more credit.
 SENSIBLE FARMING
 Every year there is greater apprecia- ton of the fact that, as MT. R. L. Ben nett of Texas aptly expresses it. "any excess acreage in corn or wheat or hogs or cattle or cotton or tobacco is spec
 ulation on weather. labor and market,
 and is periodically an unsafe credit risk ["
 MT. Bennett. by the way Is the man who conceived the idea of adopting the
 crop rate sheet for farmers applying
 for bank credit. The banks had long required rate sheets of merchants. He
 believed it just as desirable and neces-
 sary that they should be required of
 farmers, and prepared a form which has
 been adopted by many of the Texas
 banks, on recommendations of the Texas bankers committee on agriculture. This farm rate sheet is based upon the
 following general rule:
 "The planting of not exceeding 50 per cent of the cultivated land of the farm
 in one crop, and the planting of suffi- cient acreage of the land in food and feed crops for maintenance of the fami- ly and stock on the farm, is safe farm ing"
 An essential part of the sheet, of course,
 is blank for a statement of the farmer s
 assets and liabilities. Then there are
 blanks for other data considere necessary
 to determine the credit value of the farm
 itself. MT. Bennett's calculations show
 that the all-cOtton farmer must receive 15
 cents for his crop before his farm income
 equals the income of the cotton farmer
 who also grows his own food and feed
 The latter, MT. Bennett says, could bor-
 row at the bank all the money needed
 in his crop production because it is
 obvious that his farming is safe and prof.
 itable regardless of the price of cotton
 He would, for instance, be considered a
 good credit risk by the directors of the
 federal reserve bank of his district and
 his note or draft. if offered for redis-
 count, would stand on a par with that of
 l.,cs AY-..