Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1922-10-19
Former BarabOo Resident Writes
of the Vagaries of this Agricul-
tural Crop of the South
YEARS OF FEASTING;
THEN YEARS OF FAMINE
Some Go Whole Year on Credit
and Then No Money Is At Hand
to Equidate the Claims

| V. >. Pease, who has been in Texas
since last May, writes as follows:
Texas harvest Is nearly finished. al
though some of the crop will not be
gathered until late in the winter
Down here cotton is the crop, and
when it is picked there is little to be
done until next fall so far as the in.
come OF the farm is concerned. For
more than month teams have been
hauling in double wagon box-loads
OF "seed cotton" that is cotton from
the field as it was gathered; this
goes to the gin where the lint is re-
moved from the seed. The lint is
put in big bales, approximately 500
pounds in bale, and thus it is sold.
For this baled cotton the producer
has received an average of about 20
cents a pound. or 800 a bale. That
sounds like big money, and so it is,
If the farmer is enterprising enough
to make large acreage, and a good
| crop. The cotton farmer is different
from the general farmer. The former
has no other cash crop than cotton;
he goes the whole year on credit,
buying all supplies to be paid for at
cotton harvest time. And then, if the
crop is failure, he has nothing to
pay, unless he is in better luck next
year. | have known of farmers here
who owe as much as $1,500 for family
| supplies, who have paid out this year
and have lots of money left. Some
have been carried as many as three
years. A most ruinOus system.
But there are general farmers in
this section who pay as they go. Not
many, but have come to know three
OF these and they would be good far
mers in Wisconsin. Two of them
keep COWS and ship butter to Long
view city % miles north of Overton,
about as big as Baraboo, and a good
clean town. These men put up butter
in pound prints, just like northern
| folks.
AS a rule the negro is the cotton
farmer. He may own his farm, he
may be a renter. If he owns a large
acreage, as he sometimes does, he
will have a dozen negro renters. And
he makes those tenants work. One
living 10 miles from here has a farm
of 400 acres, with as many as six cab
ins on it, each occupied by a negro
tenant. The boss negro, Henry Shul-
or by name, supplies all these fami-
lies with food and some few clothes
for a year, and then markets the cot
ton crop, paying the bills and turn
ing over to the workers whatever is
left. This negro is a bright man,
black as night, an honorable fellow in
all his dealings. He has invited me
out to see him, saying 81 will give
YOU fine dinner, on china that no
nigger ever has eaten from. and in a
room no niger ever has stepped his
foot into" And so it is, my friends
say. Henry has a big fine house,
with a room for his white guests. He
is proud to have white folks for COM
pany and serves the best he has to
them.
1t will be noticed that Henry Shu-
ler speaks of his black as "niggers",
quite a common remark among the
blacks They do not like to have the
whites call them niggers, but in
speaking Of less fortunate blacks they
always use the word Few white men
bear a better commercial character
'han he, but socially he is a negro,
and there it ends. His word is good
for $4,000 in any store down here, and
he knows it; but when he speaks to
white man he invariably tips his
hat
V. S. PEASE
Oyerton. Texas.