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CAROLINA!
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Farmer
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Vol. VIL—No. 11.
RALEIGH. N. C., MARCH 13, 1913.
One Dollar a Year.
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TAR HEEL SKETCHES.
BY J. Z. GREEN.
The-city man’s idea of “good farm
ing” seems to be for the farmer to
produce bumper crops so that prices
will come lower and lower to con
sumers in towns and cities. The oth
er day I read a lengthy editorial in a
city daily paper purporting to show
that the cause of the high cost of liv
ing existed in the fact that farmers
are not producing enough. In the
advertising, columns of the same pa
per I noticed the following retail
prices quoted in a grocery advertise
ment;
“Best granulated sugar, 4 1-2
cents a pound.
“Fancy potatoes, per peck, 18
cents.
“Fancy yellow onions, per
peck, 15 cents.
“Quaker oats, three large
packages, 25 cents.
“Three large cans tomatoes,
24 cents.”
If you can see any “hig;h cost of
living” indicated in these prices, you
can beat me. And remember, these
are retail prices that include the add
ed broker and jobber and wholesale
commissions, retail profits, high city
rents, etc. It would be interesting
to trace it back to producers of these
food products and find out how hard
low prices on these products hit them.
There is one item quoted above that
is destined to be lower, if the farm
girls’ tomato clubs keep on doing an
extensive business, unless these brave
and energetic girls begin to protect
the marketing side of their business.
* *
It is remarkable how quickly peo
ple lose sight of real farm life con
ditions after they move to town. I
heard a town lady say the other day:
“It’s so nice to live in the country
where your chickens, eggs, and vege
tables do not cost you anything.” Do
not cost anything! :Well, doesn’t
that jar you? Is a farmer’s time and
labor worth anything? The gross
market value of the farm products
would not give to the members of the
families who labor half the average
wages paid for labor in towns and
cities. And this reminds me of a
whole-page article in a recent issue
of a Northern city agricultural pa
per giving account of what was term
ed a remarkable record of a farmer
—a model farmer. The total output
from his farm footed up about $1,-
400 in one year. An itemized ex
pense account was produced, and the
writer made the statement that it
was all done without any cost as to
labor—the man had four boys who
helped with the work and he didn’t
have to pay out anything for labor!
That certainly affords relief as to the
expense account, but it’s mighty hard
on the boys. About one hundred per
cent of those farmer boys will prob
ably move to town later on.
* * *
At Asheville and Hendersonville
the members of the Union insisted
upon a lecture in executive session
only. They seemed to feel keenly
the need of confidential advice as to
how to go about establishing con
structive co-operation, upon which
the life and usefulness of the organi
zation depends. “We don’t care so
much about numerical strength,”
said a member. “Too much of that
kind of strength seems to be un-
wieldly. We have more than enough
members now to start co-operation,
and at this stage you will not get the
outsiders interested by public dis
courses, but you’ve got to show
them.” And that member’s idea is
everlastingly right. Sermonizing
alone has never yet saved a disin
tegrating organization. Only tangi
ble constructive work will produce
lasting results. And that’s why the
boys in the ranks want something
definite and practical—want to be
shown how to proceed to establish
real constructive co-operation.
DC « i|c
“I have never in my life advised
farmers to buy commercial fertil
izers,” said a traveling fertilizer
salesman the other day. Further re
marks from him indicated that there
existed a doubt in his mind as to
whether the average farmer gets any
net profits from the use of commer
cial fertilizers, when applied to lands
that are deficient in vegetable mat
ter. If a correct statement could be
produced, it would probably show
that farmers lose more money in
North Carolina by the injudicious
use of commercial fertilizers than is
made on lands that are in right kind
of mechanical condition to make the
* «
Regardless of the well-written ad
vertisements of fertilizer mixing
companies designed to convince the
farmer that he cannot properly mix
his own fertilizers at home, I find
that in every section of the State the
best-informed farmers prefer their
home-mixed product, and have been
mixing fertilizers at home. No
amount of persuasion will convince
them that it is better and more eco
nomical for them to use ready-mixed
fertilizer, when it is a matter of very
simple mathematical calculation for
them to figure out the saving of from
three to seven dollars per ton that is
made possible by home-mixing. If
every farmer in the State would do
his mixing at home it would amount
to a saving in fertilizer accounts in
North Carolina of approximately $3,-
000,000 annually. And if farmers
who do not have the cash to pay for
their fertilizers in the spring would
borrow the money and make cash
payments, the saving would amount
to another million dollars. When
farmers develop into better business
men they will wonder why they have
all these years been so stupid as to
permit a waste of four million dol
lars annually on just one item in the
cost of production. “Better Business”
must be applied. Without it there
isn’t any prosperity in sight for far
mers.
*=111
use of commercial fertilizers profit
able. I saw dozens of wagon loads
of guano being hauled out from a
station between' Raleigh and Wilson
last week and within a few hundreds
yards of the station farmers were
burning the corn stalks ahead of the
plows in the field—burning some
thing the soil needs more than any
thing else and buying soluable plant
food stimulants that cannot be used
profitably except on lands where
corn stalks or something else has
decayed and has been mixed with
the soil. Notwithstanding the gos
pel of better farming has been
preached over and over again for a
quarter of a century, quite a large
per cent of men on the farm still
persist in robbing the soil. But they
are learning. Improvements that
can come only through the slow pro
cess of education cannot be develop
ed rapidly.
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