The Prescott daily news., 1917-04-19
INCREASING THE FOOD SUPPLY

of every citizen to both do and say
 something for the good of the coun- try. The mere saying" is not worth much alone, but it is the doing" that counts. Now, the writer is not in a
 position to be an actual doer of things with his own hands, but he is
 in the position to help by argument,
 persuasion and warning, and instruc-
 tion, to the best of his ability, to in- duce those who have the means and
 opportunity, to produce and do those
 things that are very greatly needed at this time.
 Sometimes it seems discreditable to
 the southern farmer that it requires a great national crisis like the present
 situation, to wake him up, and, though we may be reluctant to be- lieve it, yet it is true nevertheless.
 The propaganda of crop diversif-
 cation in the South, or Let the South feed herself" in other words, is
 by no means a new thought. The
 same thought was urged with just as much vehemence and eloquent logic 25 years ago as it is today, and the appeal has been unceasing all through
 the years, but with scant results We hoped that the God-sent boll-weevil
 would do the work that eloquence and logic failed to do Indeed, our friend
 the boil weevil did accomplish much, but the federal government taught us
 hom to make cotton in spite of the weevil, urging diversifcation at the
 same time, thinking thereby to save us forever from the menace of "all cotton" but the government authori- ties were mistaken. The lure of the Iabnormally high values of the recent
 past was too strong. It required world wide war and with a world
 wide food famine staring us in the face to drive home the lesson.
 Now, if all the unanswerable logic, all the vehement eloquence, all the
 instruction, all the convincing de
 monstrations, all the dearly bought
 lessons with the consequent suffer- ings caused by the invasion of the
 boil weevil, and all the publicity re- sultng therefrom had really been
 needed by the southern farmer, the timely, urgent, and almost desperate appeal launched by the federal gov ernment through its numerous agen- lcies, led by Dr. Carl Vrooman, assist ant secretary of agriculture, would not have been necessary. The South would have been able, not only to feed herself, but to assist very large Ily in sustaining the nation in this time of national peril Now, brother farmer. let's get right down to busi- ness. It is a little late in the season.
 but fortunately not too late. Do 1t now" must be the watchword. It will soon be too late to make ade- auate provision for the future
 It is profoundly imperative that
 we wake up to this fact: It is not cotton to make clothing that the world is crying for, but it is food food for both man and beast We cannot eat cotton, and while cotton will sell for money. and money will
 purchase the necessities of life; but if the necessities are not to be had, the money will do us no good. If 1t
 becomes necessary, we could patch up last years old clothes and dispense with automobiles and all the many luxures we now enjoy, but we cannot
 do without food and live, The old saving that He who maketh two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before is a benefactor to his race" contains more truth than
 poetry. but it probably applied to
 normal times Today the man who
 makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, is more
 than a beneficiary. He is truly patriot
 Did you make 20 bales of cotton
 last year on sixty acres? Then plant
 to make 20 bales this year on thirty acres and devote the remaining thirty acres to feed crops Something like
 that should be the principle every one should immediately put into practice, Plan to make two bushels of corn to
 where you made one last year; two bushels of potatoes (both sweet and