Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press., 1927-03-24
By CLIFFORD WALKER
Governor of Georgia


ton to the people of Georgia, should
give some brief outline of the amaZ-
ing discoveries made by the Georgia
Association party, of which l was a
member, in our tour of south Georgia
last week in behalf of the Cow-Hog-
Hen plan of diversified agriculture
and live stock raising. Our party Wis
tied Ashburn, Tifton, Moultrie, Val
dosta, Quitman, cambridge, Albany,
Arlington, Cuthbert and Columbus
and was given full opportunity to see
conditions at first hand. We talked
with farmers, both landowners and
tenants; with leading bankers, busi-
ness men, county farm demonstration
agents, public officials, editors and
other well-informed citizens.
l want to say with all the emphasis
at my command that wherever diver
sifed farming and live stock growing
has been practiced under the Georgia
association plan, conscientiously and
thoroughly, there is genuine prosper
ity, larger bank deposits, smaller
bank and other indebtedness, whole
some optimism and every evidence
of prosperity. 1t can be stated as
fact defying all questioning that this
program has proved itself fully and,
when tested from every standpoint,
demonstrates that it is the type of
agriculture which will make all parts
of our state prosperous and happy
when put into effect.
1t is, of course, impossible within
reasonable limits of space, to relate
all that we learned.
saw a tenant farmer stand in
the balcony of the court house, at
Ashburn, erect, confident and inde-
pendent, and tell how by following
this plan he had made money far past
his hopes and was we'll on the way to
farm ownership. His employer, Mr..
John Evans of Turner county, large
land owner, told how he had made
from ten to eighteen per cent on his
investment in those farms where the
tenants, at his instance, had been fol-
lowing the Cow-Hog-Hen program.
To give contrast he recited the finan-
cial distress of seven of his tenants
who had insisted on following the old
one-crop system of cotton.
Deposits Increase
At Tifton, H. H. Tiff told US that
in the last year bank deposits had in
creased somewhat more than $780,
900, while indebtedness had decreas-
ed between two and three hundred
thousand dollars. He attributed this
to the Cow-Hog-Hen diversified live
stock program of agriculture and his
testimony was borne out by his fell
low citizens, farmers, merchants and
bankers alike.
Every man whom we met at Moul-
trie was vibrant with the story of the
success of diversified agriculture and
live stock raising there in Colquitt
county. l was thrilled by the recital
of W. C. Vereen, whose large banking
interests is we'll known, as he told
how the bankers of Moultrie were
willing to back, and were backing, !
every farmer of character and capa- |
city who decided to go into this mod
ern, sensible way of agriculture. l
asked him a direct question and re-
ceived an unequivocal reply that not
a dollar had been lost by his banks |
on any loan to such farmer for this
purpose. The story of H. Mcdowell, |
head of the Swift & Co., packing |
plant in Moultrie, revealed to all of
us as never before the possibilities of |
hog raising. We were shown mo-
ton picture, in addition to observing |
actual conditions on various farms,
which portrayed the mighty result of
the diversified plan. All forms of !
diversified crops, dairy and poultry |
products, hogs, beef cattle and truck |
are produced in Colquitt county.
I think it most significant that the
people of Arlington and Cuthbert, up
on hearing that we were in their
insisted that the party |
should come to their towns even
though a full schedule made more |
than a brief visit impossible. They |
wanted information about the plan. |
Such a spirit is evident throughout |
the state now.
A German farmer who came to the
of Valdosta few years |
ago with $25 in his pocket, now is
worth $4,000, by his own testimony,
as a result purely of his farming ac-
tivities, and he has never raised a |
sprig of cotton. An Iowa farmer,
who is raising hogs in that same Sec
ton, told us that the mortality Of
hogs was 40 per cent less in Georgia |
than. in Iowa.
Fortunes Made
E. ]. Perry, banker of Bainbridge
in Decatur county, told US of a case
which had come under his personal
observation of a man who had come
to his county twenty-five years ago
and borrowed $500 with which to
start farming operations. This gen
tleman died recently leaving an es-