Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-07-24
less Of anxious toll and more blue sky
Then there is Joe Hobby.

Then there is Joe HOBBY.
Joe Hobby. as the Country. Gentleman
tells rents a fifty-acre Turner county farm
HE has always been a renter and had al
ways been, until the change came in Turner
county, dependent on the supply store for
his living. Now he has five cows, three
good brood sows, and more than two hun
dred laying hens. These provide living
and something extra each month. "Thers
was no chance under the old system he
said. 1T was just an endless circle of get
ting in debt paying up when the cotton
was picked and starting in debt all over
again. But I'm on a cash-paying basis now,
and hope some day to own a farm. But
If we had to go back to the old kind of
farming, I'd quit"
In forswearing that cold kind of farming"
the county turned from a Slough of Despond
toward the Detachable Mountains. But the
better way was not to be won without hard
thinking, hard working, and neighborly CO.
operation. Turner's natural resources are
not extraordinary, nor were It's difficulties a
whit less stubborn than those which every
trail-blazer and builder needs must encoun-
ter. How 1t conquered obstacles, how it
avoided or retrieved mistakes, how 1t trans
lated AGRICULTURAL science and business prin-
ciple into work-a-day practice and profitable
result is told by the Country Gentleman in
rich detail. Suffice it here to touch briefly
upon the farming system on which the new
order is based, and upon the excellent spirit
of cooperation by which wonders have been
achieved
The Turner County Prosperity Program -
now famed afar, is standardized to one
horse farm of forty-seven acres as follows:
Ten acres to corn, velvet beans, or North
ed with peas or hay; four acres to wheat,
followed by Spanish peanuts watermelons
or divided with tobacco; three acres to
sweet potatoes and cane; twelve in perma-
nent pasturage of carpet grass, Dallas grass
and lespedeza; a vegetable garden; from
two to five mich cows; two good brood
sows, and flock of hens This general
plan (adapted, of course, to particular needs)
served not only an escape from old err
rors andNlls, but also as means to new
wealth, new freedom, new forward-go 1t
meant, as the Country Gentleman says, put
ting the farm on self-supporting basis, pro-
viding the bulk of It's food and feedstuff,
and bringing in steady income that would
enable the farmer to operate on a cash
footing. And 1t offered chance to lay up
a reserve, both in the bank and in fertility
of soil. Moreover 1t gave both the farm
and the farmer year-round work"
i AS to cooperation, the life current of all
true progress, note the following advertise
ment, inserted in the Wiregrass Farmer by
five of the county's banks, acting Jointly:
I'VE will lend money to buy pure-bred
chicks. The Turner County Cooperative
Sales Agency's big hatchery is now in op-
Grafton They will take off about three
We need every chick this big incubator can
turn out for the next five years, in Turner
county. We desire to encourage every farm
er, his wife or his children to buy these
chicks as they are Matched, and to get in the
chicken business with pure breeds. If you
haven't the money now to buy, we will be
glad to lend money for that purpose on easy
terms to deserving farmers, their wives and
children" In like spirit was the Turner
County Farm Bureau supported in it's pro-
motion of cooperative selling organizations
and facilities therefor, such as warehouses;
live stock pens, and aids to efficient farm
marketing. Not mine" and yours" but
OURS" became the word in every mouth,
the sentiment in every heart, the purpose
in every alert citizens will. Astonishment
breaks forth from the writer of the Country
Gentleman's story, Mr.. E. H. Taylor, as he
tells Of ''the suhordination of self-interest
to the good of a cause" He found a con-
Germ that dealt in feed supplies advising
farmers not to buy but to raise their own
feedstuff! YET under guidance of the new
program and by grace of this good spirit
the countys wealth and buying power have
so increased that mercantile business pros
pers never aforetime HeIpfulness, like
T.