The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-03-05
THE LACK OF LABOR
MAY GUT ALL CROPS
GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA AND
ALABAMA REPORT SERIOUS
SHORTAGE OF HELP.
A DISTRESSING SITUATION
PREVAILS in SOME SECTIONS

Question of Cotton Acreage Is Up in
the Air. Different Authorities
Hold Different Views on Amount
That Should Be Planted.
The southeast is growing more
and more concerned over the actual
and prospective shortage Of farm la
Dor. Winter is not quite over, but
spring has sufficiently advanced for
the farmers to begin preparing their
lands for planting. Usually, when
trees are budding and when fruit
trees along the southern border are
in full bloom, as they now are, much
more blowing has been done than is
the case this year. This is due, in
some sections, to heavy rains and
freezing weather of winter; more
generally it is due to lack of plow-
men.
In South Carolina, Georgia and
Alabama, especially, the situation is
nothing short of distressing. From
every quarter of South Carolina
comes the cry made by Berkeley
farmer, owner Of splendid farm,
who says he doesn't see how he can
even plant a crop unless he can get
help. He says he has tried hard to
employ labor and cannot get even
one man. In Georgia the situation
is so serious that j. J. Brown, COM
missioner of agriculture, is working
on a plan to get the government to
detail farmers who have been drafted
into service and are now in training
back to the farm until they are ready
to go to France.
Commissioner Brown has just fin
ished a comprehensive investigation
in other states of the South and re-
ports conditions truly alarming" all
over the section. A concrete example
may be cited in Alabama A few
miles northeast of Birmingham, in
the neighborhood of Village Springs,
there is a fertile valley some ten
miles long and three miles wide. Vir-
tually every foot of this land was
cultivated last year. One of the lead
ing farmers in this valley reports,
ertaking careful census, that no
more than ten plows will be available
in the thirty square miles this year,
unless labor that is not now in sight
can be secured.
The thing which renders the short
age of farm labor at this time more
acute is that the government is likely
to call all the men, white and black,
who have been placed in class 1 be-
fore the spring blowing and planting
are finished. This will result newt
ably in reduced acreage not only of
cotton, but of the more essential food
and feed crops.
Concerning the cotton acreage for
1918 the facts may as we'll be fac
ed. Arkansas reports an exodus of
farm labor to manufacturing plants,
in addition to the young farmers,
black and white, who have been draft
ed into the service, and with no sub
stitute labor in sight. Mississippi,
Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South
Carolina and North Carolina report
the land either water-soaked or I'M
turned; this, even where adequate la
Dor is available would mean moderate
acreage and late crops, and late cot
ton crop means weevil destruction.
North Florida, in the sea island grow
ing section, reports the farmers as
tearing it will be waste of time and
money to plant cotton where the Wee
VII has appeared. Tennessee reports
that tho OY,lxr oh e..
age in that state would have been
open weather in January and Feb
iruary to allow preparation of the
land. In eastern Tennessee, not a
1urrow has been turned and it may
De March before the land is dry
enough to pillow.
Aside from the questions of labor
shortage and the boil weevil all sec
lions of the cotton belt are not agreed
as to 1918 acreage. /. N. McCollister,
president of the Louisiana division
OF the Farmers Education and CO.
operative Union of America, urges
an increase of food and feed crops,
out opposes the reduction of cotton
acreage, on the ground that the
world must be clothed as well as fed.
andrew j. Fleming, secretary of the
farmers Union, with headquarters
n Atlanta, is urging the farmers of
georgia to plant at least 10 per cent.
Tess cotton and more foodstuffs, on
sne ground that we are going to need
IpOJodstutfs more than cotton. A. 0.
Ppi9Iock, collector of internal revenue,
atlanta, is so fearful that high-priced
cotton viii lure the southern planter
inJo the fatal error Of neglecting
II1Iodstuffs that he is working on
pan PIX to have the government require
S Sil southern farmers to plant on a