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Farmer
—7
Voi. vn.—No. 10.
RALEIGH, N. C., MARCH 6, 1913.
One Dollar a Year.
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TAR HEEL SKETCHES.
* *
“Some city folks are prejudiced
against the Farmers’ Union,’’ said a
Buncombe County farmer. “They
seem to think it has come to tear
down somebody’s business.’’ Under
present conditions, with business in
terests in entire control of commer
cialism and government it sounds
like a huge joke when these special
interests pretend to be afraid the
Farmers’ Union is going to put some
body out of business. More than
half the farmers of North Carolina
have been put out of business so far
as the ownership of lands and homes
are concerned. When you come to
think about it in the light of facts,
it would seem that farmers are the
folks who might consistently raise a
little racket about being “put out of
business.’’
^ *
I arrived in Raleigh at 2 o’clock
the other night, accompanied by Ed
itor Beasley of The State Journal,
and also of the Monroe Journal. We
found the hotels full with lodgers,
and also the lobbies were partly filled
with indifferent, sleepy-looking folks.
Mr. Beasley remembered where a
friend lived in the city and excused
himself, after a visit to all the hotel
clerks. I rang the door-bell vigor
ously at a private boarding-house
without getting any response, and
BY J. Z. GREEN.
Over at Albemarle the other day,
in a county meeting of the Farmers’
Union, the retiring President, Mr. J.
E. Crook, was presented with a gold
medal as a tokeh of appreciation of
his services as President of the Stan
ly County Division of the Farmers’
Union, which position he had held
since the beginning of the organiza
tion in his county. He declined to
serve longer, although strong pres
sure was brought to bear to induce
him to continue in that capacity. He
has rendered faithful service with
out any remuneration except that
sense of duty that made him active
in the service of humanity and he
well-deserved the token of apprecia
tion. I am told that when a political
party wanted to “strengthen up the
ticket’’ last year by placing Mr.
Crook’s name upon it as one of the
candidates he positively refused to
permit it to be done. If this is true,
Mr. Crook deserves another medal
for manfully declining to be side
tracked with a political office.
then tried to see how much noise I
could raise by knocking the wall in
the hallway with my pocket-knife. I
didn’t raise the proprietor, but got a
response from an occupant of a room,
who suggestively Informed me that
he was a guest at that place and
knew' nothing about any unoccupied
beds there, except: one in his room
that was reserved for a commercial
salesman. It was .Dr. H. Q. Alexan
der, President of the Farmers’ Union,
and upon being recognized I had no
trouble in getting ^is consent to oc
cupy the idle bed. i When I began to
snore a little the Doctor couldn’t
stand that kind of noise and came
over and shook me to keep me from
snoring. I yielded to his wishes and
stopped the racket. In a few minutes
the Doctor himself was “sawing
gourds’’ in characteristic country
style. .So “turn-about is fair play,’’ I
turned the job of snoring entirely
over to him and didn’t disturb him.
If Wilson’s new administration, with
a good patronage distributing ma
chine, were located at Raleigh, I
could understand why all the hotels
and private boarding-houses have
been filled to overflowing for three
w'eeks, but I am somewhat at a loss
to understand what is causing the
rush, unless Raleigh is the place
where initiatory steps are taken to
reach the Federal patronage coun
ter where the thousands of postmas
terships and other appointments are
to be handed out .
* « *
Buncombe County Union and Ashe
ville Avill make a pull for the sum
mer meeting of the Farmers’ Union.
Asheville would be an ideal place for
the meeting. But it would be a rath
er long haul for the eastern dele
gates. How'ever, there is nothing of
very much importance for the consid
eration of the summer meeting, and
if Asheville should be selected the
counties might limit the number of
delegates below the constitutional
allowance if their treasuries are not
well supplied with funds for pay
ment of expenses. Whatever the
Executive Committee may finally de
cide upon, Asheville and Buncombe
County Union will bid for the con
vention to assemble in “the Land of
the Sky” beyond the Blue Ridge.
♦ * *
“With so much perishable fruit
and vegetable products, and no mar
keting system, you people from the
middle and eastern section may won-
Early last spring at a county meet
ing at Old Fort, in McDowell Coun
ty, a lawyer wanted to make a few
remarks. His line of thought car
ried him to the high cost of living.
“What you farmers need is to pro
duce more of the necessities of life.
Why, I have been paying ten cents a
quart for snap beans.” He then fig
ured out how profitable it would be
to raise snap beans. But his beans
came from Florida and w’ere out of
season here then. “I’ll raise snap
beans for him by the car-load for two
and a half cents a quart, if he will
agree to take them in season here,”
said a practical farmer. These city
and town folks who figure out nice
profits for farmers (if they will farm
“right”) are honest in their calcula
tions. They really think it can be
done. And the "diversification”
preachers honestly believe that di
versification will cure all the troubles
with the cotton farmers. If farmers
living in sections where they do noth
ing else but diversify cannot sell
their diversified products profitably,
the cotton farmer cannot reasonably
expect to find a gold mine along the
diversified route.
00^0001
der how we get along,” said a moun
tain farmer last week, “but that’s
easy—we get along by doing without
a lot of things we are compelled to
have.” Mr. B. F. Yoakum, a well-
informed railroad man, estimates
that 100,000 car-loads of products
annually rot in the fields for lack of
profitable markets, which means a
loss to farmers ,at fair prices an av
erage of $350 a car, or $35,000,000.
A Mitchell County farmer said last
summer; “We have a million bush
els of apples in this county and the
greater portion of them will rot in
the orchards.” Every year large
fields of cabbage and other vegeta
ble products may be seen rotting in
the fields in the eastern part of the
State. And yet the one idea that
seems to predominate with city peo
ple in regard to farming is that far
mers are not producing enough,
hence the “high cost of living.” We
are living in hope that some time, in
the course of years, these people will
wake up to see that the trouble is
not so much a lack of production on
the farm, but a lack of a scientific,
systematic and economic system of
distribution, and will begin to assist
in applying the remedy by establish
ing closer relationship with the pro
ducers.
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