Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1923-08-23

Georgia in 1920" | quote from table
II, page % the cost per pound of
producing tobacco from ia farms sit
uated in Pierce, Coffee, Berrien. Viii
cox, Ben Hill, Tiff, Turner, and IT.
win counties. Thirty-s;x of these
farms produced tobacco at a cost OF
10, fifty-nine at a cost of 40 fortv-
three at cost OF 217, seventeen at a
cost of 27.0 and nineteen at cost of
$50 cents per pound. The average in
1920 on the Blackshear market was
27.3S per Id. In this bulletin on page
80 the following language is used:
The total cost per acre for each
group has been average(soto show that
it IS possible to spend more money on
crop OF tobacco than is received from
it. Out of the ia farms studied 50
got less than cost of production for
their crop. This is more than one-third
of the farms. The "A farmers in the
group receiving less than 500 per
acre spent an average of $l29S5 per
acre. On the other hand fair profits
were obtained by those who got good
Yields and good prices.
Tobacco is an expensive chop to
produce. | quote again from page | of
this bulletin:
THE average cost per acre on ia
farms was $l5l.Z5. The average prof
it was $3387.
Two thirds of the ia farmers pro-
duced their tobacco with profit.
The cost per acre was about the
same whether tobacco sold for a low
or high price"
The growing of tobacco is more
or less like growing all other crops
and II there is an overprodhction the
price is gong to be low and if the
overproduct'on is severe the price will
probably not cover the cost even I'M
der favorable conditions.
Experts who have made tobacco
a study all their lives say that our
tobacco here has a most exception
able flavor and good qualities gen
orally and this flavor and general
good quality is attributed primarily to
the soil. There is vast amount of
soil not suitable for the growing of to-
Dacco and the only tobacco that will
pay is a good quality of tobacco. The
growing of tobacco and will never be
a success unless, first the party atempt-
ing 1t is intelligent second, unless he
understands exactly what to do from
the time he starts his seed bed until
his tobacco is marketed; and third,
even though he may be intelligent and
nave he proper understanding if he
is by nature negligent or law he will
make certain failure. Tobacco is p
crop that requires the right sort of
attention at the :trv moment when
TINS attention is nr"i%f "Ls s 1ru..
from the beginrlay ;n,li The tobacco
rs '.hth III ct tht "a = luI,u A lazy,
negligent person his nc chance at al
OF growing tobacco and as | pointed
out before tobacco growing will never
be profitable unless the individual
growing it succeeds in making a good
average crop. Common and poor to-
bacco will never pay the cost OF pro-
odction.
=" ain reminded of what happened
to sweet potatoes in the last year or
two. If you remember it hasn't been
many years since every paper you
picked up advocated the growing of
sweet potatoes and the building OF
sweet potato curing houses. The re-
suit of this was that in few years
sweet potatoes were planted all over
the Southern states and sweet potato
curing houses built throughout these
states. The business was overdone and
last year sweet potatoes were hardly
salable and many curing plants did
not operate at all. We had two of
these plants, but could not afford to
operate them and they were closed last
year.
The farmer in the past has received
almost every sort of advice He has
been taught to believe that storing
his produce and being able to borrow
money on it would solve nearly all o;
his difficulties, but the business OF
the farmer is JUS like any othe- bus
mess and when there is overproduc-
ton there is going to be Disaster and
/ therefore 1t behooves everybody who