The Little River news., 1920-08-14
Real Reason for SioWness in
 Taking up improved Tools

Why has the Southern farmer not more readily adopted the use Of large. implements and machinery US meals5 of reducing labor costs and incteas- ing production?
 There are many reasons why the Southern farmer has been slow to take up the use of modern labor saving implements, but the chief req son is that he has not had to do 1t, because be has always had an abun- dance of labor at cheap price. lie has had perhaps twice as much labor as was necessary to produce the crops grown, had he introduced cropping system or a system of farming which would distribute the labor on the farm as near equally as practicable drought out the year, and had he used more power and larger labor-saving imple- ments and machinery.
 A large landowner, not living on his farms, was recently asked why he did not use such cultivators for cultivat- ing his cotton as would enable hand to do twice as much work as with the old 0ne-horse tools. His first reply was the old sterotyped one that neg roes cannot use these larger and com plicated implements. When it was proved to him by citing numerous eX- amples that negroes could be shown how to use these implements, when the white man in charge knew how and could actually show them how to oper- ate the new implements, he gave the real reason why more effort has not been made to teach the use of labor saving tools. He said, Why go to all this trouble to teach negro how to operate tools with which he can cul- tivate 40 acres instead of 20? 1 can get family for every 20 acres, so I get mine just the same.
 This is also the most potent reason why labor is becoming more scarce on Southern farms. The laborers, wheth- | VI NIllC ol DldCh, NlIll tDC1i duJlI ed tools and methods, cultivating a small acreage, cannot make enough cannot produce enough-after the landlord has taken his" to induce them to remain on the farms, espec- ialiy under present housing and living conditions and the lack of school faci- ltleS. II We afe to retain sufficient labor on the farms to cultivate our lands, even with the best labor-saving implements, the farms must not only get more, but he must produce more. Unless he produces more he cannot get enough to purchase those living conditions necessary to keep him on the farm
 Of course, small irregular fields, open drainage ,and hillside ditches, gullies, brush, stumps, etc., and the lifelong habit of using small one- horse implements have always played their part in keeping the Southern farmer from readily taking up the use of labor-saving implements; but the real cause is that he hasn't had to- because of the large supply of labor and it's ability to live on small capita production and it's willingness to sub init to a low standard of living
 And now since the war has raised wages and standards of living and brought to the knowledge of all the higher earnings of the city laborers, that which has been the cause of the farmers indifference to the use of implements is reacting on him, and unless he adopts methods by which the farm laborer can produce more can earn more for himself-he is go- ing to continue to lose labor at an alarming rate, until he will no longer be able to get his' by securing hand for ever 20 acres. When the latorer with proper equipment cultivates 40 acres instead of 20 and earns more for himself, the farmer will get as much as when he had double the labor, but unless the farm laborer is enabled to earn m0re-unless we make better farmers and more productive laborers of them-they are not going to stay on the farm Progressive Farmer.