The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-08-01

the way Hill Ferguson addressed com
 pany of Birmingham's leading citizens at lunch at the Tutwiler on yesterday. He
 was trying out some new market charts
 on the crowd.
 The meeting was called by President
 Frye ofN the committee on agriculture and marketing of Birmingham to hear
 the suggestion that it was time to con-
 slider the wisdom and propriety of turn ing the organization over to one of the
 established civic organizations.
 The committee in the two years and
 more which it has been at work has rem dered a real service, not only to Birming- | ham but to the cities in it's territory by
 bringing them closer together. It has been the means of letting the leading
 citizens in 70 adjacent towns meet some
 of our most progressive men representing
 the business and professional life of this community.
 a | as the secretary of the committee, but gave up the place to enter the service of 1 Uncle Sam During his connection with l the government A. S. Leath filled the | position most creditably. On the sign. i ing of the armstice, the latter soon after resigned and the former entered once
 more on his duties, and has been quite tfo | things.
 ] I have been closely connected with the committee since it's organization, and l have never seen a more faithful set of | committeeman. It means something ! when men like John H. Frye, H. M. | Beck, Murray Brown, HillFerguson, J. D. | Moore. G. B. Mccormack. l.. Pizitz,
 James U. Smith and Frank s. White were | willing to serve month after month, not in a perfunctory but in an active man. ner, giving both time and money to it. These being the members of the execu- | tive committee.
 | have never known T. P. Hays equal when it comes to getting busy men to go | out on trips. He astonished me by being able to put teams out in all directions when the campaign was on. If you will stop and consider it is no easy thing | to convince leading bankers manufac turers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, preachers or retired capitalists to get uh to catch early morning trains, knowing 1 full well that they would have to return ! on late night ones. And yet this is what ! he did week after week and month after
 month until the 70 towns were covered. Now it was fun for me and Capt. Frank l s. White enjoyed it. Often we went to- gether, but frequently we had to go out with teams unaccustomed to public speaking or making arrangements about halls and then getting crowds out to | hear the message. A few of the teams would go to a town and if everything 1 had not been arranged would get discour- aged, and l couldn't blame them. It is a i bit disconcerting to land in a strange | place and to find that the local commit
 4ae had overlooked the date or been too busy to look after the matter of audi torfum and publicity
 l In one of the meetings at the Southern l club member of neglected team asked me the question: What do. you do, doc | tor, under such circumstances" I re- piled that If the committee failed to come l |. I iltlt lad nd
 mounted the courthouse steps if it was l at county seat, or got me box and | stood on prominent street corner ano
 began talking and curiosity would soon
 get me an audience, and that the only
 way the citizens could escape my message
 would be to leave town But the average
 business man has not learned the art of 1 ''soap box" oratory.
 Too much emphasis cannot be made of the fact that the city or town is under l a great responsibility to the farmers in
 the surrounding territory, to afford a market for agricultural and live stock products A town that does not culti-
 vate it's agricultural trade is functoning
 only half way, when it's merchants fur nish the farm trade with machinery and supplies and pays little attention to talk ing the farmers produce and distributing it to the markets of the country. Every thing the small-town merchants handle or which is sold directly to farmers or | business people must be paid for largely I from the soil. If the farmer is losing
 money by poor marketing methods, ha
 buys less goods from the merchant and
 the merchant in turn buys less in Bir- mingham.
 It would be difficult to estimate the number of millions of dollars lost by Alabama farmers each year. due to an undeveloped system of marketing farm products. This condition is having its
 effect on the distribution of trade in northern and central Alabama, and is ab-
 sorbing from the producers that portion of their legitimate income that should be } used to purchase and erect modern agr-
 cultural appliances, adequate farm stor- age facilities and better homes.
 It is estimated that the loss on sweet
 potatoes alone in 1918 amounted to nearly
 Sl0,000 GOO, due to lack of storage houses