The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-10-30

which to fatten live stock-conditions
would change in a financial way for
the farmers of the cotton growing
States.
In many counties the farmers who
raise cotton have been forced to turn
to live stock raising because of the
boil weevil. They are putting up
fences, silos and barns. They know
that the only way to wipe out the boil
weevil plague is the starvation pro-
cess. It is sure one. Where there
is no cotton, there is no boil weevil.
But the boil weevil, as one Columbia
editorial writer has pointed out, is a
blessing in disguise. He has simply
forced many farmers to raise stock
and once they get to making live
lihood through live stock cotton will
become thing of the past as COM
modify to depend upon.
Cotton is bringing good prices now.
The great message any wise business
man can send to any group of farmers
is: stock your farms with cattle and
hogs!
1t is a simple matter to borrow
money on your improved farm lands,
providing you can show that you
mean business with the loan. But it
is sorrowful to see a farmer founder
in debt simply to produce another
huge cotton crop which will not half
pay of the loan he negotiated to grow
it. This sort of business has and
will continue to keep the South in
poverty, while other States of the
Union flourish. Texas, the largest
State in the union, does not gamble
in cotton. Why should South Caro-
Ina, Georgia, Alabama, and other
Southern States continue to do so?
In reviewing. the situation, one bus
mess man from New York, who is
lending thousands of dollars to agri-
culturists throughout the South, said:
81 find that the average man grows
cotton-not because he believes in it;
not because he is sure that it will
clothe and feed his family-but sim
PLY because his grandfather and his
father grew cotton
This condition is fading-fading
slowly, however. 1t should be speed
ed up. Time changes everything.
What grandfather did. and even what
the young father of today is doing.
will not do for his sons to perpetuate
when they are grown men in the fig
urative tomorrow. There was time
when, if men had illustrious fore
fathers, the simple fact that they
we're scions of aristocrats made their
rags royal rainment-but today pow
erty is a crime, even though your
forefathers may have been kings.
Therefore, the farmers of South Caro-
lima, Georgia, Alabama, Missippi and
other States should, if they have not
already done so-pay some attention
to the message each year from
Washington to diversity the crops.
The department of agriculture spends
thousands of dollars per annum on
experts to do the thinking for the
farmers of the nation, and help them
where help is needed. These experts
have come, from time to time, direct
to the farmers of the South with the
same old message:
Cattle, hogs and grain, as we'll as
garden truck, can be raised in the
South as easily as it can anywhere
else in the union. The idea that moth
ing can be raised except cotton is all
wrong. The South is just as rich in
soil as the West. Turn your eyes
westward if you desire to see where
great and consistent prosperity -four
ishes all of the time among the cattle,
hog and sheep raisers.
Every Southern farmer should take
heed of the message from Washing
ton to diversity the crops of the
South; to raise live stock, and DO
other modern things in farming. And
the farmer who needs money to build
barns, silos, buy live stock OF all
kinds, and construct fences can easily
get the cash through the private and
federal farm loan systems. And live
stock raising will enable any farmer
to pay off the loan in a surprisingly
short time.
Farming has become a fine art OF
business. Not every man can be
farmer-not a successful one,. and
only those who keep ebreast of the
times can expect to reach the greater
goal of prosperity and success.-C.
H. Barron.