Newspapers / The Carolina Union Farmer … / Jan. 18, 1912, edition 1 / Page 8
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4. The Carolina Union Farmer Pahlithmd •wmry Thuradmy BY THE UNION FARMER FUBLISUING COMPANY Official Organ of Thm North Carolina Farmer*’ Union Subscription Price: $ 1 .OO a Year All sulMcriDtlons ar« payable in advance, and the paper will be diacoiititined when the time expirea, unless renewed. The date on the tag: which hears the name of the subscriber indicates the time to which the subscription has been paid. J. Z. Green, Marthville, N. C., Editor. C. E. Clark, Charlotte, N. C., Agricultural Dept. Mrs. E. D. Nall, Sandford, N. C., Home Dept. C. A. Eury, General Manager. ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES JOHN D. ROSS, 812 Hartford Buildingr, Chicago L. E. WHITE, Tribune Building, New York Entered as second class matter, August 17, 1911, at the post office at Gastonia, North Carolina, under the act ot March 3, 1879. Gastonia, North Carolina, January 18, 1912 EDITORIAL COMMENT T HE weather for the past two months has been unfavorable for good attend ance at meetings of local and county Unions and it comes at the time when the payment of annual dues should be made. Remember that nothmg can succeed without leadership. A few men in church, in fraternal orders, in neighborhood school development, in commercial organizations, in every co operative movement for financial, material or moral uplift, have had to take the lead and keep up life and activity where indifference and inactivity would otherwise bring prema ture death or discreditable defeat to a worthy cause. The rank and file of the people have always looked to leadership and they always will depend largely upon leadership. If you are an officer or a lay member leader in your Local Union you can see to it that there are no delinquents on your roll of members if you’ll get busy and see each member individually, especially those whom you know to be dis couraged and almost ready to quit. They ought to be reminded that the world hates a quitter and that in this organization each in dividual is a link in the chain and that when a member drops out he acknowledges defeat as one of the units of the organization, and that the discredit comes to him personally and not to the bravchearted, progressive members whose faith and courage are shown by their attitude and their actions. 4* ❖ 4* E T IS NOT expected that the Farmers’ Union shall retain all the members who join the order and it should not want to retain those who come into the organization to see how much they can get out of it—without putting anything into it. Perhaps there is some dead weight of this kind that will make the Farmers’ Union ^stronger when they leave it, but persistent ef fort should be made to get in their places in telligent, progressive, reading farmers, who are doing things for themselves and can do things in the Union. Now that we will be gin, at an early date, to take stock for a great co-operative warehouse system in North Caro lina, with enough tangible assets to do busi ness in the big way that will measure up to the standard that can be maintained by forty thousand organized farmers in this State, it is the opportune time to make special effort to gf^t^ within your ranks those well-to-do busi ness farmers in your neighborhood, if any have been standing out of the Union, because we had done nothing except in a limited local way. When we begin to do business under large capitalization we will need the capital, the counsel and the patronage from that class of farmers to help make a big co-operative business go. ❖ ❖ ❖ 0 " F YOU lose a few members who say the Farmers’ Union “ain’t doing noth ing,” be sure to seek the membership, to take their places, of those who re alize that an extravagant commercial system of distribution which places the burden most heartily upon the farmers, can’t be reformed in a short time, neither can we make co-opera tion successful without combining capital into a corporation of our own. Many of the lead ers of the Farmers Union of North Carolina are more hopeful of success now than ever before. With the concentration of all efforts towards building a business system whose as sets will give it a commercial rating that is at tractive and that will make its contracts good anywhere in this country, the Farmers’ Union in North Carolina is getting in the right way, and the plan is in harmony with the practice and ideas of men who are leaders in the most successful financial enterprises. Its prac ticability can not be questioned, neither can its success be questioned, if enough of the or ganized farmers of North Carolina put enough capital and patronage behind it. T I? ❖ 4* 4* HE BOY readers, as well as the grown-up farmer readers of this paper, no doubt read with interest the article from Charles J. Parker, Jr., of Hertford county, telling how he produced 196 bushels of dry com on one acre of land at a cost of twenty-four cents a bushef. Ac counts of good yields of com ought to be es pecially interesting to the all-cotton farmer who will have to pay for dollar-a-bushel com with 9-cent cotton. Corn has been grown in this State at much less cost than 24 cents a bushel, but the yield was not in the neighbor hood of two hundred bushels per acre. One farmer in Randolph county produced one hundred and eighteen bushels in 1909 on an acre without the use of any kind of fertilizer except clover, and the net cost of his com must have been less than ten cents a bushel, if he saved the fodder or shredded the stalks to help balance expense account. 4» 4* 4* Wm A.RMERS who never go wild on cot ton, but always have plenty of food products at home for family and stock, and some to sell, are not hit as hard by the bumper crop and low price of cot ton as the so-called farmers who staked every thing on commercial fertilizers and cotton. In fact, you can’t put the Live-at-Home farmer out of business, for he is a real farmer who doesn’t depend upon the railroads and the middleman for lus living. And the Liva-at- Home farmer is never responsible for the low\, * price of cotton for he does nothing to increase the aggregate cotton yield. When an all-cot ton fellow gets it in the neck he reaps what he sows and it’s right for him to suffer for it, but it is hard for the Live-at-Home farmer to have to either hold his cotton over a year or two or sell it at a low price, because the all- cotton fellows have brought ruin and panic to the country through their short-sighted policy- T 41 4* 4* HE marketing problem will be made much easier if all farmers, both in the cotton and tobacco section, will stay on a Live-at-Home basis. And the credit system can be overcome if the crops which are responsible for it are curtailed and corresponding increase is made in the acreage of food products. The best way to get out of debt is to fight debts behind a living at home- And no temporary increase in the price of a so-called money crop should cause a change from the Live-at-Home policy, for there’s no independence on the farm except through this safe and sane policy. ❖ 4* 4> T A MEETING of the Advisory Council at Raleigh last week, it was recommended that members of the Farmers’ Union curtail the use nf commercial fertilizers at least fifty per cent, and all farmers are asked to stay out of the fertilizer market until the price declines proportion to the price of cotton. The exces sive use of commercial fertilizers amounts to an economic waste for the farmers and tre mendous fortunes for the fertilizer mixers. will take nearly half the gross income from the cotton crop of North Carolina to pay the commercial fertilizers used in this State last year. The fertilizer habit is, indeed, an expensive habit, and not one farmer in a thon sand can tell how much profit he gets from its use, or whether he gets any profit at all or not- There is certainly plenty of room for some economies in its use, and also plenty of room for the application of more intelligence m use. its 4* 4* 4* w ed ITH THE low price of cotton meal this year farmers can buy its nse in connection with potash and at phate, mix their fertilizers at home a great saving from former prices of ready^ mixed goods. Even at the present prices 0 fei"' acid phosphate and kainit, or potash, ^ tilizer analyzing 8-3-3 ean be mixed at hon / for about seventeen dollars per ton. Int®^^ ^ r*/* gent farmers are learning more * J every year that they can get a better fert* by mixing at home and at the same time sav® from five to seven dollars per ton. Let Unioi* Mixing be the slogan in the Farmers during the season for purchasing fertili^^ W’hen you mix at home you know what y fillei"" are getting and you pay for no useless that stuff which makes the railroad rich, P , ..fills” your team hard over bad roads, and other fellow’s pocket. I k ^ ■!*
The Carolina Union Farmer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 18, 1912, edition 1
8
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