Newspaper Page Text
Interesting Story of Toombs County
Appearing in the Sunday’s Edition of The At
lanta Georgian, November 11th-—by R.
E. White, Special Representative of The
Georgian. ,
In the matter of intelligently and
consistently working toward an even
ly balanced diversification and co-op
erative marketing plan of agriculture
Toombs is well in advance of the av
erage of South Georgia counties. It
has not gone sor far as some, per
haps, but farther than the majority,
and throughout the progress it has
made toward abandonment of the
all-cotton system it has been conserv
ative and kept its feet on the ground.
Toombs in the past has not been
“press agented” as some counties
have been; unlike most communities
having good qualities comparable
with those of Toombs, it has been
under-advertised rather than other
wise, and unduly modest in exploit
ing its splendid resources. That un
doubtedly is one reason why this
county is not as -well known to the
outside world as it deserves to be.
As a matter of fact, there is, per
haps, not a county in Georgia that
has more successfully withstood the
shock of the rural adversities of the
last few years than has Toombs,
and it is doubtful if there is one
whose people, taking them as a
whole, are in better condition to
“carry on.” The four banks of
Toombs county, with aggregate re
sources of approximately $1,500,000,
are in excellent condition; its mer
chants and other business interests
are managing well to “make ends
meet;” its farmers as a rule are not
perturbed about the future; the gen
eral spirit, the morale of the com
munity is excellent.
More Diversification.
The reason for this is that, while
Toombs county tried to make a bum
per cotton crop this year and failed
dismally, it produced at the same
time more general crops, raised more
feed, made more permanent pasture,
milked more cows than ever before
ir its history of eighteen years as a
county.
Its citizens—banks, business men
and farmers —realize that this diver
sity of products, and not cotton, is
what is pulling them through, that
diversification is the only system
upon which a rural community in
this latitude may safely depend and
they are more resigned after this
year’s experience with cotton than
ever before to stake their future
upon it.
Os course there are exceptions
among the farmers—men who blind
ly take the position that “God Al
mighty intended this to be a cotton
section; I’ve raised cotton all my
life, as my father and my grand
father did before me; I don’t know
and don’t want to know how to do
anything else, and as long as I am
in the farming business I’m going
to be a cotton farmer.” Even
State Senator George Lankford,
Toombs county lawyer and land
owner, expressed that sentiment the
other day in discussing his farming
plans for next year. “I’m going to
plant cotton again,” he said, despite
his discouraging experience with that
crop this year. “Cotton is the
only thing I have ever been able to
make any money out of, and I’m
going in for it next year just the
same as I did this year.”
But the rank and file of the for
mer cotton farmers here express
themselves as being “cured of cot
ton,” and are earnestly planning to
pitch their next year’s crops in ac
cordance with an approved diversifi
cation' plan, with the dairy cow as
its basis.
it is a significant fact that
banks are taking the lead in en
couraging them to do that, and that
is a highly hopeful sign.
A few weeks ago the Lyons Boos
ters Club and the Vidalia Kiwanis
Club calling into consultation (the
county agent, his advisory council—
composed of eight representative
farmers of the various districts of
the county—and representatives of
the banking and business interests,
held a series of meetings for the
purpose of working out a program
of farm operations such as would
be peculiarly adaptable to the needs
of this county. In doing this these
gentlemen gave particular considera
tion to the Georgia association’s so
called “Turner County Plan,” to the
variations of that plan that have
I>een approved by other counties,
and to the various suggestions and
r&'-ommendations along similar lines
and to the same purpose, that have
been put forward by the rural ex
perts of the State College.
The result was the adoption of the
“Toombs County Farm Program,”
with the following preamble:
“Realizing that Toombs county
needs to adopt a definite farming
plan which can be developed from
year to year, the Lyons Boosters Club j
and the Vidalia Kiwanis Club have
worked out and suggest the follow- j
ing general plans, that changing
cash crops each year .be discontinued .
and a more stable plan adopted.”
Then comes the plan itself:
The Program.
“Requirement* of a farm plan:
“1. It must furnish food for the i
persons and animals on the farm.
“2. It must build up the fertility,
of the soil.
“3. Man and mule labor must be
well divided throughout the year.
“4. At least two proven cash crops
on each farm.
“Crop plan, one-horse farm:
“Ten acres corn, velvet beans and
peanuts. ,
“Five acres cotton.
“Three acres tobacco, big stem
Jersey potatoes, peanuts or iother
cash crop.
“One acre sugar cane.
“Two acres late potatoes for win
ter use.
“Five acres oats, followed by cow
peas.
“Two acres wheat, followed by
cowpeas or peanuts.
“One-half acre half orchard and
half garden.
“There should be on each farm:
“Two to six milk cows, depending
on whether for family use or ship
ping cream.
“Two high grade or purebred sows.
“Fifty purebred hens.
“Twelve acres permanent pastures
and woodland.
“Goal For Five Years:
“Cotton—9,ooo bales annually in
county on above small acreage, by
increasing the per acre production,
thus realizing more profit.
“Corn, oats, wheat, rye—raised in
abundance for feeding livestock and
poultry, with surplus each year as
suring plenty of [feed for fattening
livestock and pushing egg production.
“Velvet beans, cowpeas and soy
beans—be sown more generally and
enough hay be produced for feeding
livestock during the winter and du
ring droughts in the summer. More
velvet beans saved for feeding cows.
“Big Stem Jersey sweet potatoes—
encouraged as July cash crop.
“Tobacco—be used as alternate
cash crop where farmer is prepared.
Farmers /be impressed with the im
portance of selecting a cash crop to
go with cotton and sticking with that
crop foi; several years.
“Two hundred hogs per year; fifty
thousand pounds cream shipped each
month.
“Two cars poultry and 1000 cases
eggs shipped monthly.
“Seventy-five cars high grade beef
cattle shipped annually.
“Thirty cars dewberries shipped
annually.
“Twenty-five per cent increase in
the acreage production in five years.
“Better schools and churches, and
painted homes.
“Good roads throughout county.
“Average of 250 members m each
of boys and girls clubs.
“County agent and home demon
stration departments permanent with
1 office help.
“Vocational agriculture and home
economics teacher in each consolida
ted school.
“Two local hatcheries.
“Poultry feeding and killing sta
tion.
“Permanent pastures on every
farm.
“Garden and small orchard on each
farm.”
Widely Distributed.
This program was printed in the
form of “dodgers,” each of the banks
taking many copies of it upon which
they placed their flat approval, and
which they are giving the widest
possible distribution throughout the
county.
S. J. Henderson, cashier of the
First National Bank, Lyons, is a di
rector of the Georgia Association,
and every officer of this and each
of the other three banks in Toombs
county—two of these institutions be
-1 ing in Vidalia—is likewise an en-
THE LYONS PROGRESS, LYONS, GEORGIA.
111 .
tbusiastic advocate of diversificaton
and a system of co-operative market
! ing for the benefit of the farmers
and the community at large. W. O.
Donovan, president of the First Na
which he intends to divide his land
owner, has worked out a plan by
which h intends to divide his land
holdings into 50-acre farms, upon
| which he will reqiure the tenant to
limit his cotton acreage to five, to
grow one acre of tobacco, the rest to
be devoted to truck or feed crops and
permanent pasture for hogs and dairy
cattle. George S. Rountree, cashier
of the same bank, also owns alarm
upon which, at Mr. Rountree’s direc
tion, the occupant produces a diver
: sity of crops and milks eight cows.
W. T. China, cashier of the Toombs
County Bank, Lyons, is one of the
I “diversificationist” leaders of the
: community; and when T. G. Selman,
■ cashier of the Georgia State Bank,
Vidalia, was asked what the officers
of his institution advised the farm
ers to grow another year, replied:
“Anything to get them away from
cotton.
j That indicates the attidude of the
banks of Toombs toward the modern
j idea of farming in South Georgia,
; and every one of them stands ready
to assist any deserving farmer to
procure thd stock necessary to op
erate on the cow, hog and hen basis.
Many Crop* This Year
Toombs, though prominent in the
past as a “cotton county,” is grow
ing a wider variety of farm prod
ucts, and successfully, than perhaps
any other county in the Coastal
Plain section of Georgia. In point
of soil types, of general fertility, of
climate, of physical contour, of
transportation facilities, of access to
markets, etc., no county excels it in
adaptability to generalized and va
ried agriculture.
Besides cotton, Toombs County
this year produced in more i.or less
abundance tobacco, sweet potatoes,
dewberries, pecans, corn, beans, hay, j
cane, peas, and various other minor !
food, feed and truck crops. It has
supplied its full quota of dairy, pork
and poultry yard products, which
have been sold with results calcu
lated to encourage greatly increased
pioduction next year and in the
years to come.
The farmers and the people of the !
county generally give to the county
agent much credit for these good re
sults, both in the production and in
the co-operative marketing of these
diversified products. This official
C. G. Garner, an experienced man
in his line, a graduate from the
State College, is without doubt one
of the most energetic, conscientious
and level-headed county agents in
the state. He operates upon the
common-sense theory that in ex
tremes there is danger. He adheres i
strictly to a policy of conservatism I
in agriculture and in the plannng of
farm operations, considering all-to
bacco, all-corn, all-potatoes or all
anything else as unwise and hazard
ous as all-cotton. Also, while advo
cating and promoting the cow, hog
and hen system to the fullest extent
of his power, he admonishes the
farmer not to launch upon the field
1 of dairying until he first provides
the necessary feeds for his stock, and
1 he takes the unassailable position
that the primary requisite of suc
cess in dairying is ample perma
nent pasturage.
Dairying Sound Here.
Therefore, while dairying is not so
1 extensively practiced in Toombs as
■ in some of the other counties that
* have joined the Georgia Association
and adopted the diversification plan,
what there is of it here is on sound
1 substantal Ibasis, for the most part,
its permanency of success assured
‘by conservatism in its beginning,
1 and permanent pastures.
Illustratives of the variety of
■ Toombs Couty products and of the
' value of the county agent’s services
in marketing them, The Lyons Pro
gress recently published an editorial
• statement showing that, between
January 1 and August 1, 1923, Mr.
Garner assisted the farmers of
Toombs County in selling, co-opera
-1 tively, seven carloads of hogs; 10
of corn; eight of hilled potaties; 13,-
878 pounds of poultry, 1,544 dozens
' of eggs. The total receipts form
1 these sales were $16,007.64, and, ac
-1 cording to The Progress, the activi
ties of the county agent netted the
producers an aggregate net saving
of $1,834.50.
This suggests only in a measure
1 the extent} to which County Agent
Garner is aiding the farmers of
Toombs to produce top market prices
| for the stuff they grow; in fact sales
1 in live stock, of poultry and of vari
ous field products, are held either
monthly in Lyons, the county seat,
or Vidalia, the principal city of the
county, or as frequently as the re
spective products can be assembled
for sale in carload quantity. While
there is no actual co-operative mar
keting association in operation here,
except the Interstate Cotton Growers’
Association, all of this marketing is
done in accordance with co-operative
principles. During the last two years
the county agent has conducted nine
co-operative hog sales in this county
and now he is conducting regular
monthly sales, on the fourth Friday
of each month, and he anticipates the
sale of four more carloads of these
animals between the date this is
written and January 1, 1924.
Many Fine Hogs.
At the present time there are ap
proximately 15,000 hogs in the coun
ty, many of them blooded stock, al
though, according to Mr. Garner,
the want of a fence law and the
fact of open free range have a ten
dency to perpetuate the “razorbacks”
and reduce the quality of Toombs
County swine in general. However,
the quality is rapidly building up
despite these handicaps.
Toombs County is rapidly coming
to the front also in the production of
tobacco. There is a tobacco ware
house in Vidalia in which a total of
488,794 pounds of this product—not
all grown in Toombs County, how
ever—were sold this year at an av
erage price to the grower of 23.76
cents per pound. The tobacco acre
age will be increased materially next
year, together with that of potatoes
and various other field crops, at the
1 expense of cotton, in accordance with
the Toombs County farm program.
What Sweet Did
Another crop that is proving a
money-maker in Toombs County is
big-stem Jersey sweet potatoes; and
Toombs is the only Georgia County
in which this crop has proven suc
cessful thus far. It was introduced
on a commercial scale only two years
j ago by W. L. Duncan, a farmer and
aminister of the gospel, who came
! to Toombs County from North Caro- :
lina in the spring of 1921. Since |
that time he has devoted his farm 1
operations almost exclusively to the ,
production of “big-stem Jerseys,” j
and has been highly successful. He '
grew* 30 acres of these sweets this
year, which netted him SIOO per
acre. Next year he plans to devote i
200 acres to them, and the total
acreage for the county, is isexpect- :
ed, will be in the neighborhood of '
400 acres. Mr. Duncan also milks
a .few cows, keeps hogs and chickens
and produces feed and forage crops
for his home use.
M. M. Coleman, Jr., manager of
the farm in which he and his aged
father are jointly interested, is one
of the most progressive young farm- j
j ers of the county. He practices ■
i diversification in its strictest sense,
and as a side-line he specialises in
white Leghorn chickens, of which
he has a beautiful flock of more
than 200. He farms 100 acres; has
a fine pecan grove in bearing; milks
three Jersey cows and sells butter;
keeps hogs and produces a variety of
truck crops for market.
H. J. James, New Bronch section
is another diverification-plan farmer
who ships cream from a small herd
of cows, keeps hogs and chickens
and raises sweet potatoes as a major
field crop.
Ross Sharpe, of Elza, also farms in
accordance with that plan. He spe
cializes in poultry. During the sea
son when eggs were selling at around
25 cents he realized a profit of $1
per day from 100 hens. Another
farmer of this type, who is getting
himself firmly established in the
poultry business and diversified
farming is A. L. Powell, Ohoopee
Post Office. He has 287 acres, on
a large part of which he attempted
—for the last time, he says—this
year to raise cotton.
Profits in Cows
One ofthe most practical farm
dairymen in the county is J. D. Todd
Vidalia, who, in addition to operat
ing his 96-acre farm, of which 55
acres are in cultivation carries a
rural mail route each day. Ordi
narily he milks 10 cows, although
only six of them are in service at j
this time. His cows yield from 2 1-2
to 3 gallons of milk per day, the
cream from which nets him an av
erage of $lO per month per cow. Mr.
Todd has eight acres of the finest
permanent carpet grass pasture in
Toombs County. He keeps hogs and
hens to consume his skim milk, and j
produces feed crops sufficient for
his own use.
H. T. and W. L. Stanley, promi- ,
nent farmers of the Ohoopee dis- (
trict, also milk six cows, sell cream,
keep hogs, chickens and turkeys and
“live at home.” Thus far during
1923 they have marketed S6OO worth
of hogs from their farm, and have
between 75 and 100 of different
ages and sizes now on hand.
Between last January 1 and July
15 B. T. Osborne, a farmer of near
Lyons, sold $250 worth of cream
from his eight cows. He operates
a three-horse “cow, hog and hen
farm,” and from one acre in 1922 he
produced sweet potatoes which he
Sold frpm the bank last spring for
SIOO. He is not interested in cot
ton beyond the limit of five acres to
the plow.
J. C. Wing is another Toombs
County farmer who says: “I have
about had my fill of cotton,” and
plans too to begin shipping cream
from his five dairy cows. •
To Import Cows
E. L. and S. B. Meadows, farmers
of near Vidalia, are preparing to
i make the dairy cow a primary fact
or in their farm operations hence
forth. The former, who farms 100
plows, has made arrangements to im
port a carload of dairy cows to stock
his dairy. Each ofthese farmers is
a heavy producer of tobacco, also
growing dewberries and various oth
er “money crops,” but little cofon.
One of the rural “show places”
of the county is the poultry, hog and
dairy plant on the Magnolia Pecan
and Stock Farm, of which W. P. C.
Smith, a Lyons business man, is
proprietor. It is a magnificent place
and one of the most elaborate and
complete institution of its kind in
Georgia. The farm contains 300
acres, near Lyons, all devoted to the
production of feedstuffs to be mar
keted on the hoof, in a cream can or
in an egg basket. No cotton.
H. T. Taylor, three miles from
Lyons, has 350 acres, on 150 acres
of which he produced this year only
15 bales of cotton. He is now milk
ing 12 cows, shipping cream to Cor-
I dele, and expects soon to increase
j his active dairy herd to 20. He
I raises hogs and poultry, and his in
-1 terest in cotton is no longer keen.
Mrs. J. L. Gibson, proprietress of
| a small dairy on the Gibson farm,
; near Vidalia, started shipping cream
from five cows on January 1, 1922;
and during that year, while learn
ing the business, she cleared $225.
From January 1 to July 1 this year
i she. cleared, from nine cows, $366.
Then came a “dry spell” in the Gib
son dairy, but the plant is now going
again at a rate more intensive than
! ever. Mrs. Gibson manages the
dairy while her husband and son pro
duce the feed. They raise hogs and
poultry, and a little cotton in addi
i tion to feed crops,
j A similar record is being made by
another woman operator of a farm
i dairy in that vicinity, Mrs. Sarah
Polk. She milks five cows, and has
arranged to add eight more to her
herd by Christmas and to ship cream
feeding the skim milk to hogs and
hens. She now makes butter, for
which she finds a ready demand
locally.
Tobacco Increasing
B. F. and T. R. McSwain, broth
ers, operating adjacent farms a few
miles from Lyons, are other enthu- |
siasts and leaders in the diversifica- i
tion cow-hog-hen movement, and are
making good progress, although this
year they devoted most of their en
ergy to cotton.
i This year an aggregate of 125,
acres of Toombs County’s 251,000-
odd acres of farm area were devoted
to tobacco, which yielded about 800
pounds to the acre. Next year this
acreage will be increased, probably
to between 350 and 400 acres.
The county also produced and
shipped six carloads of dewberries
from an aggregate of 125 acres de
voted to that crop. Most of the
! growers received returns of around
S2OO per acre, some doing even bet
ter than that.
Pecan nut culture is fast coming
:to the front as a Toombs industry,
i and during the forthcoming winter
j the Pecan Plantations Company of
which J. B. Brewton, Vidalia, is pres
ident and manager, intends estab
lishing a 15-acre pecan nursery in
this county.
All manner of crops adapted to
this zone do well in Toombs County,
which contains ridges and belts of
some of the richest land to be found
anywhere in the state.
The county contains two thriving
little cities, Lyons and Vidalia, pop
j ulations, respectively, of about 1,500
, and 3,000. In each is a live weekly
newspaper, both owned by N .C. Na
pier, brother of State Attorney Gener
al. Mr. Napier edits the Vidalia
paper, The Advance, while the Lyons
Progress is edited and managed by
C. T. Darley, lessee. Each is a com
munity booster, and an enthusiastic
advocate of the modern and pro
gressive plan of farming and farm
marketing.
Club* Behind Program
This good cause also has the united
and aggressive support of the Lyons
Booster Club and the Vidalia Ki
wanis Club, the two major and live
wire civic organizations of the coun
ty; and of the Ladies’ County Co-op
erative Club, which is particularly
and actively concerned in the splen
did work that is being done through
out the community by the county
home demonstration agent, Mrs. L.
V. Thorpe, one of the many efficient
women engaged in this line of con
structive work in Georgia.
Mrs. Thorpe has been engaged in
this work in Toombs County since
1922, and at the present time she
has 15 women’s and girls’ clubs in
active opertaion. Os the member
ship of these clubs 205 are school
girls, who are receiving special in
struction from Mrs. Thorpe in home
economics, sewing, canning, cook
ing, poultry-raising, etc., and in all
of her work among the housewives
and in the schools of the county the
demonstration agent places particul
ar emphasis upon dietetics and rural
sanitation.
This year her poultry club girls
deceived 400 baby chicks as a gift
from the Vidalia Kiwanis Club.
These chickens were distributed as
nearly as possible on the basis of
24 to the girl, with the understand
ing that after the annual Toombs
County Fair, held during October,
each recipient must return two of
the adult fowls to the donor organi
zation, these to be again distributed
among other girls, who did not par
ticipate in the initial distributon.
All losses are to be paid for by the
girls, the money going to a fund with
which to buy eggs for setting and
from which to raise new stock for
club members.
Another Cash Crop
Mrs. Thorpe also in instrumental
in finding a cash market for needle
work and other products of her club
members; and this year she held a
series of five local community fairs
for her club girls and women, the
best exhibits at each being selected
for competitive display at the major
county fair.
Altogether, the work of improving
the rural status, financially and soc
ially, in Toombs Co. is in splendid
i condition and making commendable
progress.
The county has a system of good
roads well above the average of
Georgia counties; good schools, ur
ban and rural; good churches, well
supported and patronized.
The fact that this year it produc
ed only a little more than 4,000 bales
of cotton as against 8,200 bales last
year—although the cotton acreage
was greater by something like 30 per
■ cent this year than it was in 1922
I does not weigh against the general
hopefulness of the outlook here.
In fact, the progressive and
; thoughtful citizens of the county
,in general, viewing the matter from
the standpoint of ultimate results
and the future prosperity, develop
ment and happiness of the commu
j nity, consider the cotton failure of
this year a beneficence rather than
a calamity! \
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