Newspapers / The Carolina Union Farmer … / April 18, 1912, edition 1 / Page 8
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Page Eight THE CAROLINA UNION FARMER [Thursday, April 18, 191^- r i ' E6e Carolina Union Farmer PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY BY THE INIOIV FARMER PIBIISHING COMPANY. Official Organ of The North Carolina Farmers’ Union. Subscription Price: One Dollar a Year. 455* All subscriptions are payable in advance, and the p^er will be discontinued when the time expires, unless renewed. 1 he date on the tag which bears the name of the subscriber indicates the time to which the subscription has been paid. J. Z. GREEN, Marhsville, MRS. E. D. NALL, Sanford, C, A. EURY, Editor Home Department General Manager ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES JOHN D. ROSS. 812 Hartford Building. Chicago, L. E. WHITE, Tribune Building, New York. Entered as second-class matter March 21, J^l^-at the Post- office at Raleigh. North Carolina, under the Act of March 3, 1897. Raleigh, N. C. April 18, 1912. EDITORIAL COMMENT. NEEDS LIVE STOCK. The fertilizer tax hits the cotton farmer hard between the eyes and it frequently puts the bal ance on the wrong side of the sheet. The wise farmer is learning how to dodge the fertilizer tax. He does it by raising feed for live stock and rais ing live stock to feed. Indeed, it is a rare thing to find anywhere in the South a farmer in easy circumstances who does not give special attention to live stock. Discussing this part of the business of farming Home and Farm makes these remarks: “The cotton farmer needs to raise live stock, On many of our farms much of the money for which the coton is sold in the fall has to go to pay for the commercial fertiliz ers used in growing the crop. Should not this suggest efforts to raise just as good crops without having to buy so much fertilizer? Is there any way by which this can be done? Raise enough livestock to use all the cotton seed grown on the farm. To go with the food made from the seed use peavine hay, clover, alfalfa and other nitrogen-gathering crops. This can be done with small cost. The cotton farmer cannot afford to neglect cattle-raising. The cattle sections of the country are making the greatest progress in agriculture. The ni trogen-gathering crops, while helping to feed the stock and also to reduce the fertilizer bills are doing the work of supplying one of the costly elements of the fertilizer. The ordi nary cotton fertilizer consists principally of nitrogen, potash and phosphoric acid. Of these three by far the most costly is nitrogen. Now 'peas, beans, clover and peanuts will leave enough nitrogen in the soil for cotton. Then, if they be raised, it is necessary to buy only potash and phosphoric acid. Thus comes a big saving.” ♦ ♦ INCREASING THE CAPITAL STOCK. When you pass a farm and see barn yard and stable manure spread on clover in early spring, it isn’t necessary to make inquiry, for there is no truer sign that the owner of that farm is adding to his capital stock. Investment in soil building pays good dividends. It increases the wages of the farmer who tills that soil. It is one of the es sentials to success on any farm. It’s the funda mental basis of good farming. The best methods of soil building should be discussed in every Lo cal Union, for it is the most important essential on the producing side of the business of farming —the important thing that must be achieved be fore a farmer can produce things at minimum cost. Methods of soil preparation and cultiva tion are good as far as they go, but good prepa ration and good cultivation can never produce good crops on impoverished soil. If you have skinned along and, by being close and stingy, have managed to save up a little money which is bringing you the pitiful income of four per cgnt, couldn’t you invest it in the depleted soil which you plow up and cultivate and make it pay more than four per cent? * * * BUYING FARM IMPLEMENTS. It is a common thing for lecturers and editors to call atention to the leaks caused by exposing farm implements to the weather. There is an other waste that is seldom referred to, and that is, the investment in implements that are not suit ed to the needs of the farmer who buys them un der the influence of flattering advertisements and testimonials, and then lets them rust out because they are useless and impractical on his farm. There are very few farms that do not bear evidence of this waste in form of discarded “labor-saving” implements lying around on the premises. The safe plan is either to buy on trial, to be paid for if satisfactory, or refuse to buy until the imple ment has been tried in the neighborhood. * * * THE PARCELS POST. Those Congressmen who write farmers nice let ters in favor of the parcels post and then write other nice letters against parcels post and send to merchants who are having nightmares for fear a few mail order houses are going to put them out of business, will be caught up with. These ser vants of the people can’t continue in that kind of double attitude without getting into trouble. Ap proximately ninety per cent of the people are in favor of an effective parcels post and this issue must be met. Referring to the effort of a minor ity to defeat parcels post. Charleston News and Courier says: “The argument on which the opponents of the contemplated modernization of the postal service seem to rely is briefly that the parcels post would enable mail-order houses in New York and Chicago to put goods into the coun ty districts at a price with which the village merchant could not compete. We do not be lieve that there is cause for apprehension on that score. If there is, the cry is neverthe less without merit, and it is remarkable that those who most like demagogy should be ut tering it. Surely no politician really advo cates the keeping up of prices by law in order to make the farmer pay more for his neces sary supplies! Yet that is what it comes to. We must make him buy from the nearby store no matter what the cost. We imagine that few farmers will be fooled into acquiescence in such a program, if indeed their intelligence is not insulted by those who advocate it. “Every other civilized country has cheap charges for the transportation of small pack ages. Those opposed to the parcels post claim that we must not have cheap transportation. That is the issue. Is any sensible man going to be beguiled into believing that cheap transportation will be an evil? We fancy not.” :« !|c :« UNDIGNIFIED ATTACKS. The attack of certain misled and unduly alarmed retail merchants upon the parcels post system is undignified and unbecoming to any set of men who claim to be good business men. In every other civilized country a parcels post system is maintained, and there are no big mail order houses in any of those countries. The fear of be ing put out of business by mail order houses is based upon a false alarm. But if we admit that mail order houses could pay the postage on small packages sent by mail (the postage charges would represent a good profit to a local merchant) and still be able to undersell the local merchant, in what sort of attitude do you find the local mer chant, as a “good business man?” If he isn’t a good enough business man to compete with the prices of the mail order houses, plus the postage, don’t you think he has missed his calling, and wouldn’t it be best for his vicinity for him to step down and out of business and let somebody take his place who knows how to buy goods right? If a local merchant can’t buy goods in large quantities and have them transported by freight, which is the cheapest known method of transportation be tween inland points, and thereby put himself m position to compete in price with a mail order uoiise that must add the postage, which at best, would he much more expensive than freight trans portation, do you think it reflects much credit upon said local merchant to be advertising his ineffi ciency as a business man by setting up a howl against parcels post? Looking at it in its mos favorable light, the puny complaint certain local merchants are making against parcels post is dis creditable to any set of men who have the ele ment of manhood and business efficiency in them, and it is a serious reflection upon their ability to do business as economically and as successfully as anybody else can do business, and a full grown man ought to be too proud to be caught in that kind of begging attitude. 4: ♦ ^ HOW DO YOU LIKE IT? Since the price of corn has gone above a dollai per bushel in many of the local markets of the State, and oats and oth(^r things to feed to stock, have reached high water mark in price, how do you cotton and tobacco speculators and gamblers like it? Do you feel like raising another big cot ton crop to buy food products with? The farmer who doesn’t make his living at home should never be caught complaining about the high price of corn and feed stuffs, bIcause it wouldn’t loolr right for a real farmer to be complaining about the high price of products which he can raise on his own farm. On the other hand, every genuine farmer (t helive-at-home farmer) ought to rejoice over the high price of food products—and he ought to have a surplus of these things to sell to towns and cities in this State, and thereby become a beneficiary of these high prices. If North Caro lina farmers will quit importing mules and food products and will raise these things at home, will begin to reap our share of the high prices that will prevail, for some years to come, at least. But we can’t afford to keep on specializing on com mercial fertilizers, cotton and tobacco, for that isn’t farming. It’s just plain gambling. NEW LOCALS OHARTEBEI). During the past month State Secretary FaireS has granted charters to new locals at the follo^'^ ing places: Winfall, Bolivia, Eure, Hughes, Eli^ abeth City, Trap Hill, Winnabow, (2), Dabney- Bethel, Hickory, Ellerbe, Arba, Cedar Grove, Lasker, Altamount, Hendersonville, Fletchers, Uree, Valley, Rockford, Wilson, Zirconia, Clarissa. Gudger, Okisko, Supply, Sunbury, Glen Chapel Hill, Nebo, Kenley, Lyons, Walstonburg. Hillsboro, Garysburg, Mr. Pleasant, Hampstea Durants, Rocky Mount, (3,) Flat Rock, Sunbnry Edenton, Wadesville. Applications for charters have also been ceived from Aberdeen, Covington, Snow Rockingham and Hookerton. THE FARMERS UNION PLEIlGE. ^ We are printing in another column the P ® recently circulated by the State Secretary signers. A large number of these pledges ready been returned to the office of the State letary properly filled out but there are a all parts of the State who have not yet sen pledge. This pledge is as much for the To Farmers of the State as the Cotton Farmers,^ every farmer of the State, whether a coton hacco planter, should obligate himself as ed in this pledge. If no signatures have ^ taken in your territory, cut out the blank o other page of this paper and have the your local sign it, then return it to E. C. 1’ Secretary, Aberdeen, N. C. i. Education is leading human souls to best and making what is best of them: t^e ^ ing which makes men happiest in themsel>^^gjjjjj, makes them most serviceable to others. i I long that the husbandman should sing P of Scripture to himself as he follows that the weaver should hum them to the his shuttle: that the traveler should begui^^j.pS' their stories the tedium of the journey- mus.
The Carolina Union Farmer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
April 18, 1912, edition 1
8
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