Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-04-21
The Country Home
BY MRS. w. III. EELTON
Farming Troubles in the West


collapse with cotton losses, but we
do not have a monopoly of all farm
depres sions in the south. There
comes a story from the west that
proves the general losses; and echoes
the wall as to drop in prices. The
COW men ana sheep men on the big
western ranches have bee' 1T hard.
Although we have ~ pay a big
price for the steai. we get from Chi
cago and st. Louis, the men who
raise the beef meat get very little
for the beef cattle on foot. Cattle
men are usually large borrowers of
money-and they borrowed when
stock commanded high prices. (When
the prop fell out of the cotton mar
ket these borrowers We're also left
high and dry.) 1t is said the banks
are not calling in their loans and
forecloslng on the stock because cat
tie have gone down in price and the
bankers couldn't take their cows and
sheep over and feed theme them
selves for market. For instance, a
big cattle raiser loaned a big lot of
money to ranchers The rancher
could not pay when the note fell due,
20
head of cattle to his own ranch.
Then other ranchers went over and
proffered all the cattle they had
raised. The lender of the money
said. II don't want your cattle. I've
40 place 20 keep them" DO as you
nate rancher. Il can't pay you and
they are all I've got to pay with.
They are yours" En-!
The money lender tells a reporter
he has more than $50 invested in
each COW he took over and can't get
bid of $50 where they are at. Rail
rates are too high to take any
chances and there you are.
lot of sheep to Chicago. After he
paid the freight and sold the sheep,
he had exactly 80 cents left. 1t
nigh easily have been $S2 on the
on the federal reserve banks. The
banks have the money in hand and
do not relieve the cattlemen of the
west; A story was told of a Texas
ranchman, who owed his banker
money he thought his plant and his
stock were worth twice that much.
The banker told him he would have
to reduce the loan one-half this year,
1921; 1871 UCant 90 It 81 was the re-
OO0," rejofned the banker. All
right" said the cowman, take the
whole outfit, everything, and if you
can sell 1t for $4,000, you are well
come to it." The banker declined
stands, The sheep men are. if pos
sible, in worse fix. One shipper
offered to give a whole train load
away in Kansas City to pay cost and
tween the deflation in money and
high rail rates, the whole thing has
gone to Smash.
The shoddy manufacturers have
done a thriving. business in war
of a wool suit is naturally so high
that common buyers can't afford
anything, but the shoddy.
This is the story of cows and
sheep. All over the union. Every
my own little farm that the renters
wouldn't pick 1t. After a while
some of them hired picking at war
prices and then they flung back
the cotton on the pickers, just as
they flung back their renting, con-
landlord woman. So the next corners
who are willing to make "a try" are
hauling out the thrown away cot
ton in the seed and fltnging 1T broad
cast on the cotton fields. 1t re-
sembles a melting snow scene from
cotton! People would build If lum-
Der was not so high, but what can
you do when it costs nearly as much
as the mill stuff is worth to have
1t shipped to you.
Telephone rates have continued to
go up The signs are ominous. Some
one of the coming days, the people
who cannot make a living by farm
ing, will conclude to let such things
as telephones alone. If there were
some lineal descendants of the old
Boston tea party eXtant, there
would be a "quittance," when such
public utilities cost more than they
come to-" A boycott in several di-
rections might pay in more ways
than one. Rail rates, telephone rates,
gas rates, ct al, are entirely out of
proportion with farming rates. Our
people have done without in times
past, and they can do without again
in time of dire necessity. Some o,11ey
and then the public utilities will see
where "they are at" ere long.