The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1921-05-12
TELLS OBJECTION
TO MONEY CROPS

TELLS OBJECTION
TO MONEY CROPS.
All Had a Little Money, Good Homes,
Good Buggies and GOod Horses:
Never Had Accounts to Pay i'm The
Fall; Made Their Supplies Instead
of Buying Them.
tBion H. Butler in Raleigh News AMI
Observer
/ have never yet become reconciled
to that expression. money crop"
Perhaps because it was a new Ono to
ME when 1 cam to North Carolina, or
perhaps because 1 am not friendly
toward it on general principles. Il
seems to me that it is Il discriminat-
ing thing. for any thing that is
made on the farm or garden should
BE- money crop as much as any 9TH
er If we want to make it such Years
ago published a country paper in a
small northern village. and the viii
lage was surrounded by thrifty
farms. That paper was steady
money maker as long as / was inter
ested there, and it is still thriving.
for the farmers were as dependable
as the bank. From time to time they
would come in, pay their subscriptions
and ] never remember sending out a
statement 10 one of them. The stores
liked to advertise with us because
the farmers who read the paper were
good patrons of the stores, and bust
ness flourished in the community. In
our printing office on Saturday night
we made out checks for every bill
that had come IN during the week
and Sunday never dawned with an
account due in that shop. We dis
counted every bill.
! But the farmers made no money
crop, and if they had been asked
about money crops they would not
have known what was meant. The
community made no Gotten. no to
bacco, no wheat for sale on any bis
scale, and looked back to those day.
1 can hardly say what those farmer:
I did to build up such a thrifty rura
neighborhood as they were, for the!
all had little money, and gooC
homes. and good buggies and goot
horses, and an organ in the parlor
cattle on the ranges
Didn't Need Money Crops.
To begin with they did not neet
money crops like the farmer doe:
who makes a money crop, for they
never had time accounts to pay iI
the fall when the money crop came
off. They had no fertilizer bills wait
ing for their distressed product. They
owed nothing for supplies, and thai
is another word 1 never heard in con
nection with farming until came
into the money crop belt. In The sec
tion I speak Of the farmer made his
supplies instead Of buying them, and
he also made supplies for the folks
in town, and a few loads of hay fol
the mine mules at the neighborhood
mines and some oats for the horses
to sell to the mine stores in the coun-
ty, and butter and eggs and along in
the fall you would see farmer drive
in with a wagon load of big red G.p-
pies that he would SELL out to us town
folks for a dollar a bushel. and they
were worth the money. The farmer
made a little wheat for his own uses
and generally when he brought a
grist of ten or fifteen bushels to the
mill to be ground he let the miller
have little Cf it for cash. He
brought some corn in that way. He
brought in a bunch OF turkeys alone
about Thanksgiving day and Christ
mas, and a good turkey sold for q
hnf 40
'lage stores We're good for whatever
in trade he wanted, so the women
folks usually came along TO trade fol-
little coffee and sugar, and some
dry goods, and miscellaneous plund.
er. and in the spring those who haG
maple trees on the farm made molass
es and sugar and folks in the village
and in Pittsburgh liked to have a few
gallons OF il, for it was good. 1t sold
for a dollar a gallon. A dollar was a
staple coin in that village. and il was
a pretty big one at that. In the fall
the farmer brought in an occasional
hog that he had left above what he
needed at home, and it sold readily
to a town man, or perhaps two fam
lies would take 1t between them We
all lived pretty much on what the
farmer brought in to sell us, and al
the newspaper shop we took turkey
or bushel OF apples or something
Of that sort just as readily as we
took dollar and a half for the pap
er. In long box that held about six
or eight bushels we dumped the ap.
piles and when neighbors dropped in
they frequently helped themselves tc
our apples as we did when we Went
to their places.
Paid Cash