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Carolina
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Farmer
Vol. VII—No. 13.
RALEIGH. N. C, MARCH 27, 1913.
One Dollar a Year.
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TAR HEEL SKETCHES.
Replying to a correspondent in
last week’s issue of The Progressive
Parmer, Mr. E. W. Dabbs says:
“Brother Davidson writes an inter
esting letter of what his Union is
planning to do, and of the agricul
tural awakening in his county. I
trust his experience may not be like
some in South Carolina where the
Farm Demonstration Work, Boys’
Corn Clubs and Girls’ Tomato Clubs
are so highly developed, and the
Union is dead, or so near so, it has
no influence for good in the com
munity. It has seemed to me that in
some respects these agencies have
done harm. They are all stressing
the producing side of the farm—soil
building and conservation of re
sources. All are stressing individual
effort, all are subsidized by the gov
ernment, county. State, and Nation
al, and by the general education
board, supplemented by contribu
tions by bankers, merchants and
public-spirited citizens, while the
Union that is trying to bring about
business reforms and scientific mar
keting of the products of improved
farming must depend on the small
fees and dues of its members for its
‘sinews of war.’ And because mar
keting to be successful requires co
operation and is slow in showing re
sults, our people become discour
aged.”
Brother Dabbs is right in his con
tention, but it requires some courage
to come out with the truth in that
connection, and if Mr. Dabbs keeps
up that style, some of the other kind
of benefactors and philanthropists
will get on him good and hard.
* * at
The exclusive “two - blades - of -
grass” men have just one remedy
for the poverty of the farmers. When
you tell them that the farmers re
ceive only thirty-five cents of the
consumer’s dollar their remedy is
“Raise twice as much and get 17
cents.’ This class of benefactors evi
dently consider life too short to
bother with such propositions as bet
ter marketing and cutting out use
less middlemen. Just get out and
hustle early and late and produce
twice as much this year as you did
last year, and let the middlemen
alone. You might interfere with
their progress. Mr. Dabbs is touch-
BY J. Z. GREEN.
ing the vital, overshadowing rural
problem as it affects the interests of
the farmers, but if he escapes with
out getting some of the helpers and
philanthropists (who stop right in
the middle of the lesson) on him, he.
will do better than 1 did when I be
gan to venture out in that neglected
field of rural economics.
* ♦ ♦
In connection with this subject I
asked Brother Barrett over at Salis
bury the other day for an explana
tion of why so many different agen
cies are willing to pile down the cash
in almost unlimited quantities to
help us produce bigger crops, that
cause greater congestion of markets,
and not one single philanthropist in
all this country had ever put down
any big plunks to teach us how to
systematize marketing so as to turn
our industry into profit instead of
disaster. And then Mr. Barrett re
called that he had in his possession
some sort of information that one
or two men of means and reputation
for wanting to render service to hu
manity that indicated that they are
threatened with getting interested in
the business side of farming. Per
haps so, but we will wait and see.
* * *
In traveling through the counties
one can not help being impressed
with the evidences of growth and
progress in towns and cities which
present a striking contrast as com
pared with evidences of progress in
the rural districts. Even in the small
er villages the residences are larger,
modern in architecture, kept well-
painted and are usually expensively
furnished. In the rural districts
the residences are small and if any
improvements in architecture are ob
served, they are usually in form of
addition to the old structure instead
of a new building. If it is a newly-
settled place the average residence
is a small building, and those that
cost as much as a thousand dollars
are exceptions that occur only now
and then. The 35-cent dollar, which
farmers receive for their products, is
too small to provide modern dis
tricts.
* * *
“There has been no net profits,
from the products of the soil, for
those who produced them in my sec
tion,” said a farmer in the middle
part of the State the other day. He
was in the midst of a stock-growing
section and the fertility of the land
had been greatly Increased by the
use of clovers and other soil-im
proving crops. After meditating a
little further this same farmer said;
“Oh, yes, farmers could take stock
and find that they have an increase
of assets, whether they have done
much soil-building or not. The specu
lative values of lands have advanced
in many instances several times as
much as their real value. You’ll
have to deduct rising land values
from the total of your inventory to
find out how much net profits your
life-time of labor has produced from
the land.” And this wide-awake in
telligent farmer emphasized the lat
ter part of the remark quoted with
a cut of the eye that signified that
he knew well what he was talking
about. Make a conservative esti
mate of what you can get for your
farm on the market and deduct the
difference in price per acre now and
the price that prevailed fifteen or
twenty years ago, and the remainder
will show how much you have been
able to make in productive effort,
and if you don’t be careful that 35-
cent farmer’s dollar will bob up in
your mind again. It ought to keep
on coming up in the niinds of farm
ers until it makes a lasting impres
sion.
* * *
“I don’t like the moral part of
the credit system,” said a conscien
tious merchant of Union County. “It
puts the hardship upon the poorer
families that are least able to bear
it.” At that time a cash customer
was handing out an article of trade
for which he paid $11.25 cash and
a credit customer was carrying out
the same class of goods to be paid
for in the fall at $15.00. And that
is the kind of “rural credits” in op
eration all over the South. It is
nothing new for me to call attention
to it in this paragraph. The thing
that is new about it is the fact that
a beneficiary of the system should
feel and express dissatisfaction over
the “morals” of that kind of busi
ness. Business morals that touch
the conscience do not figure much
in our kind of civilization.