Newspaper Page Text
VOLUME IV.
f
Official Organ of the Patrons of Husbandry.
For the Georgia Grange.]
AGRICULTURAL REFORM.
Individual, Slate and National.
Ait Address delivered in tho Judges’ Pavillion,
Centennial Grounds, Philadelphia, before
the National Agricultural Congress,
on the 12th September, 1876, by
“fIIOMAS I l *. '.rANBS,
Commissioner of Agriculture Stato of Georgia.
Mr. President awl Members of the National
Agricultural Congress :
I have been at a loss to know why your
President invited me to address you, unless,
acting on the idea lhat “necessity is the
mother of invention” he hoped that I might
be the bearer of some novel thoughts, the
offspring of the necessitous, struggling con
dition of my people. If this was his expec
tation,! fear he must content himself with
disappointment. It is true that we have
for the last decade struggled up from the
ashes of despair through the most adverse
circumstances.
The land owners of the South were left in
1865 as the captain of'a vessel after a storm,
in mid sea without rudder or compass, with
even his sailors overheard and his supplies
exhausted. By a single stroke of the Ex
ecutive pen two-thirds of the entire taxable
propirty of the South was des royed, and
the productive power of the remainder ser
iously impaired. In Georgia alone, the tax
able property was reduced $500,000,800 in
forty*eight hours. These facts are mention
ed in no spu it of complaint or reproach, but
simply asjmatters of history to illustrate our
condition at the beginning of the last decade,
and to show that we have been “practicing”
for ten years what I propose to "preach” to
day.
I invite your attention to a few thoughts
and suggestions on the subject of Agiucul -
TuitAi, Reform.
I will discuss it under three leadin'-;.leads,
Individual, State and National.
As the aggregation of individual citizens
constitutes a State politically, so the aggre
gation of the accumulations of individual
wealth constitutes the material body politic
of the State.
Without a pure, conservative; patriotic
citizenship, good government is impossible.
Without economy, system and industry
in the individual, State or national prosper
ity is equally impossible.
In a government like ours the material
prosperity and resulting contentment of the
individual is indispensable not only to the
advancement of the State in material wealth
and greatness, but to her political, moral
and religious purity.
The material prosperity of the individual
being the corner stone of national greatness,
his advancement morally, intellectually and
materially, becomes a question of vital
momin 1 , tndjthould command the most
careful attention of the statesman and pa
triot.
The agricultural portion of every commu
nity constitutes its most conservative ele
ment because of their attachment to the soil,
their isolation and consequent removal from
the corrupting influences of trade and the
ennobling influence of their constant asso
ciation with the developments of God’s will
expressed in the works of nature. It is from
this usually conservative, contented class
principally that we now hear the cry of
reform. WhyisthisV Is it due soley to
maladministration and corruption in official
circles? 13 it due to defects in the financial
system of our conutry ? Is it due to the fail
ure of the general government to afiord by
its internal improvements proper facilities
for the cheap transportation of the products
of the farm and the mine to market; or is it
due to a failure of individuals to realize
changes of circumstances which necessitate
changes of policy and practice which have
not been made, because of a restless specula
tive spirit, engendered by the extreme fluc
tuations of values resulting front the late
civil war ? It is due, perhaps, in part to each
one of these causes, but mainly to misdirected
individual enterprise, speculative farming
and a ruinous credit system. We are prone
to look abroad for faults and errors rather
than to ourselves.
It is useless to deny the fact that a general
want of thrift and consequent- depression
pervade the tillers of the soil in our country.
They are not accumulating money—the bal
ance is too often on the wrong side of the
sheet at the end of the year’s labor. A scarci
ty of money is felt even in the centres of trade.
Its cause is discussed in the club, the Grange,
and on the street corner. Its discussion has
even invaded the halls of the National
Congress.
Large leaks have been discovered in high
official quarters; reckless expenditures of
the people’s money have doubtless been
made. The fostering care of national and
State governments has not been sufficiently
devoted to the two nursing breasts of the
nation’s wealth —agriculture and mining.
There should be reform iu ail of these
respects—these large teaks should be stop
ped, but that will not remedy the evils
which surround us. The leaks on the farm
must be stopped before there can be auy
substantial prosperity for individual, State
or nation. The farm must be made more
than self sustaining—the balance of trade
must be iu its favor. To accomplish this,
brains must control muscle, and machinery
be substituted for the latter whenever prac
ticable. Restless, speculative fanning must
be abandoned for a more conservative, fru
gal and cautious system conducted upon a
solid cash Ims'r-
Credit aud high rates of interest have been
and are still the oaue of Southern agricul
ture. Left in 1365 with nothing, but land
the planter was compelled to resort to the
disastrous expedient of borrowing money at
extortionate rates of interest to defray the
current expenses of the farm. To meet the
demands of his creditors he devoted his at
tention to the production of cotton as the
most marketable product to the neglect of
supply crops. This necessitated a repetition
of the same system year after year, which,
wii.li wasteful, unreliable and uncontrollable
labor, has been extremely and fficult todi card.
Indeed, as long as our chief staple sold as
high as twenty cents per pound some money
was made even under this unnatural system.
As cotton fell in price the fallacy of the sys
tem of purchasing supplies with which to
make it became more and more apparent,
and individuals began to search more dili
gently for the “leaks on the farm.”
The tiue magnitude of these leaks were
notfully realized until they were aggregated
by the Georgia State Department of Agri
culture, which commenced its investigations
during the fall of 1874.
Taking Georgia as a representative of the
Cotton States, the facts developed there
demonstrate the necessity of reform in that
entire section. From statistics collected in
Georgia we And that labor is forty per cent.
less efficient than it was fifteen years ago—
that the average farm laborers devote only
4.7 days of each week to their crops. This
is substantiated by the (acts of cotton pro
duction since ; notwithstanding the natural
increase in the laboring population and the
extension of the cotton area by the more
extended use of commercial fertilizers, no
more cotton is produced now than was fif
teen years ago.
From partial railroad statistics, collected
last year, it is estimated that the farmers of
Georgia purchased on a cash basis $29,434,-
013 worth of farm supplies, exclusive of live
stock, sugar, coffee and dry goods, from April
Ist, 1874, to the same date in 1875.
They paid in interest on the supplies
which they purchased Jour and a quarter
million dollars. They wasted in one year,
1875, by the injudicious purchase and use of
fertilizers $3,170,998, by paying from fifty to
seventy dollars per ton for commercial fertili
zers to be used alone; when an expenditure
of ten dollors for material necessary to make
a t*h of compost, using home manures in
combination with acid phosphate, would pro
duce better results in production of crops.
This is fully attested by practical experi
ment and chemical analysis.
They have bought corn and oats at more
than twice the cost of raising them at home.
They have bought horses and mules at twice
the cost of raising them. All of these were
bought for what ? Why, to make cotton
which brings on the market just what it
costs to peoduce it.
Was not reform necessary here '3 and w.is
not the individual farm the place to apply
it ? Never in the history of any agricultu
ral people has reform been more earnestly
uud vigorously applied than by the farmers
of Georgia to-day. The leaks ou the farm
have been pointed out to them, and they are
vigorously applying the remedies. They are
using every available means of making their
farms self-sustaiDiug They are cultivating
less area in cotton, but improving the pre
paration and cultivation of the soil and
cheapening fertilization. They have nearly
doubled tue oat crop and largely increased
tlie area in corn. They are giving more ut
tion to the production of clover, lucerne, the
grasses and other forage crops, and are de
voting more attention to raising stock. In
no State in the Union have fa: mersadvanced
more rapidly in a knowledge of the true prin
ciples of soil culture and fertilization than
have those of Georgia within the last few
years.
FRANKLIN PRINTING HOUSE, ATLANTA, GA., JANUARY 13, 1877.
Nowhere are they learning more rapidly
the application of science to agriculture. No
where are they more determim and to use wise
ly the advantages of soil and climate which
the God of nature lias so bountifully bestow
ed upon them.
Other Cotton States are not moving so
rapidly, because they have not used the same
instrumentalities for collecting and dissemi
nating information among their farmers,
hut they will soon wheel into liue and make
cotton a surplus crop, the proceeds of which
may bo devoted to practical development
and productive enterprise.
The South must produce her supplies
without diminishing her cotton crop, leav
ing the surplus grain of the West to swell
our exports till combined with our shipments
of cotton and tobacco wc shall regain our
foreign commerce, turn the balance of trade
in our favor, stop the exportation ot gold
from our own ports, and, turning the tide
again in this direction, bring prosperity and
contentment to all classes of our people.
Until cheaper transportation can be afford
ed more of the corn of the Northwest must
be put into the compact form of meat, and
the unlimited water power of the South must,
as it inevitably will in less than a quarter of
a century, be utilized tocouvertour raw ma
terial iutoyarns, and thus double tiie vahie A
and lienee contribute double the amount UtQ
ward establishing the balance of trade in
our favor.
Phcr-- ■i! water power cttcngli in Georgia
alone to manufacture all of tnte cotton uud 1
wool produced in the United (States. The
following are some of the mofft important
powers reported by Dr. George Little, State
Geologist:
The Chattahoochee river falls 106 feet in
three miles, and gives 30,000 horse power, of
which only 850 are used. One of its tributa
ries, Mulberry creek, affords 287 horse power.
Tue Savannah furnishes the canal at Au
gusta with 12,000 horse power. One of its
tributaries, Brier creek, gives 515 horse
power.
The Oconee, with its tributaries in Clarke
county, near Athens, gives over 3,000 horse
power.
The Ocmulgee, between tlio Georgia Rail
road and the city of Macon, a distance o!
tiity miles, affords 36,000 horsepower, and its
tributary Yellow river, 7,000.
The Coosawatteo, a tributary of the Coosa
river, at one point in Gordon county gives
nearly 2,500 horse power.
Eight streams furnish, at their principal
falls, 91,302 horse power, of which but little
is used, leaving nearly the whole of this vast
power to run riot to the sea, murmuring as
it goes at man’s neglectful waste of nature’s
forces.
Georgia spins but little more than ten per
cent, of her cotton. She loses annually
$25,000,000 by not spinning the whole. The
cotton States would receive $250,000,000
more for their crop, if it was sold as yarn,
than they do by selling the raw material.
We, of the South, are far behind our North
ern and Western brethren in the introduction
ot labor-saving implements and machinery,
consequently are more dependent upon ex
pensive and unreliable human muscle for our
•arm labor. The difficulties of the Western
1 aimers rest more in the lack of cheap trans
portation to sea than iu misapplied energy
aud misdirected labor. I’hey have diversi
fied their farming to the full extent admissible
in their climate. Not so iu the South. With
a soil and climate susceptible of almost end
less diversity of culture and products, her
farmers have relied mainly upon one market
product, which, in consequence of a failure
to produce provision crops, is sold without
net profit.
Georgia and Indiana have nearly the same
population. Let us compare their material
wealth, and see what arc the principal items
of difference in the wealth of the two States.
Georgia had in farms, in 1870,23,647,941 acres.
Indiana had 18,120,648 acres. Georgia had
on these farmsonly 6,831,856 acres improved,
while Indiana had 10,104,279 improved.
The Georgia farms were worth in cash $94,
559,468, while those of Indiana were worth
$634,804,189. The crops produced in Georgia
were worth $80,390,228; iu Indiana, $122,-
914,302.
Hence, on the capital invested in real estate
in Georgia the agricultural products amount
ed to eighty five pet cent., while Indiana made
only nineteen per cent, on her capital invested
in farms. So it appears, Mr. Piesidcnt, that,
considering only the value of the land, an in
vestment iu Georgia farms pays more than
four times the profit of the same amount in
vested in the famous lands of ludiana.
Indiana bad, in 1870, $52,052,425 invested
in manufactures, which produced new values
amounting to $108,617,278, or $2.08 for one
cne dollar invested. Georgia had, in 1870,
an investment of $13,930,125,which produced
or $2.24 to one invested.
In view of these facts, why is the average
Indiana farmer to-day in a better financial
condition than the same class in Georgia ?
The same source from which we get the
basis of the above facts, United States Census
1870, will, to some extent, explain the fact.
Indiana, by an investment of $13,061,890
in labor-saving farm machinery, which is, to
some extent, a permanent investment, ex
pends In producing her $122,914,302 worth
of agricultural products, $10,111,738 less for
labor than Georgia does to produce her
$80,890,228 worth. In other words, Indiana
pays only eight per cent of the value of her
agricultural products in wages, while Geor
gia spends twenty-five per cent of hers lor
wages.
Again,'lndiana diversifies her products and
devotes proper attention to raising slock of all
kinds, sc, that the farmer has nothing to buy
except his sugar, coffee and diy goods, while
in Georgia, the planter too often depends upon
his cotton to buy meat and bread, as well as to
defray all pther expenses of the farm.
In every instance the cotton planter who
raises his supplies and stock on his farm is
prospering.
That is the key to the whole matter. Make
(lie farm,produce first its own supplies and after
that us large a surplus as is possible for market.
Much can be done towards accomplishing
reform in individual practice by wise, judi
cious and just State action.
In this respect we need
STATE REFORM.
In order to reach a just understanding of
this qUt'Aipn let us consider for a moment what
is a State ? %
It is a polqtel nbdy governed by represen
tatives ; a commonwealth. Under our system
.the people rule directly through their repre
sentatives chosen from small communities, and
supposed to represent the wishes and interests
of the voters and tax-payers.
in a f.inmon'Wenhh, therefore, in which a
large innj irity of tiie property owners are en
gaged in tiie fundamental food-producing oc
cupation of Tiling the soil, it is highly proper
for that commonwealth to employ the machin
ery of its State government to promote this
great fundamental interest upon which every
business of life depends directly or indirectly.
It the tax-payers by the investment of a very
small amount in a State Department of Agri
culture, as a medium of communication between
the different sections and individuals for the
collection and dissemination of ituformation,
can realize a large saving in their annnal ex
penditures, or an increase in their productive
power, then the investment is both wise and
profitable.
hi what way can the people of a State more
wisely direct the energies of their government
than in promoting the intelligence and wealth
of thecilizens. Instead of wasting the people’s
money in the discussion of questions purely
political, on the passage of laws local in their
application, and in perpetual tinkering at the
t’oc/cj let our statesmen study thoroughly the
sources of material wealth ot the common
wealth, the obstacles in the way of their devel
opment, and the means of increasing the pros
perity ot the citizen. Let them look more to
the means of preventing crime than to the en
aetment of laws for iia punishment. Let them,
by wise and just legislation, so encourage the
productive lorces of the Slate that peace and
plenty shall surround the citizens and there
will be little need of criminal codes.
There is much that the producers of a com
monwealth tan accomplish through the agen
cies of government which con neither be
reached by individual enterprise or by the or
ganized effort of voluntary associations.
There must be the prestige of official author
ity, there must he the feeling of proprietary
right on the part of the citizen whicli each ex
peric-ncti towards the State government which
he aids in supporting, on which he feels at lib
erty to call for information, and which he de
lights to contribute the results of his observa
tion and experience. At the annual expense
of one cent to each inhabitant, Georgia lias es
tablished a Department of Agriculture which
has bum annually worth to the commonwealth
more than two dollars to eacli inhabitant,
though it has been in operationonly two years.
You may naturally ask, “How lias this been
done ?’
The farraersol Georgia purchased during the
last season, 56,090 tons of fertilizers. Under
the law, the Commissioner of Agriculture lias
especial charge of the inspection and analvsis
of fertilizers, and is authorized to forbid the
sale of such articles as do not contain a reason
able amount of plant food. All worthless
brands are, therefore, entirely excluded from
the Georgia market.
The analysis of all others are published for
the information of farmers, as well as the
commercial value and selling price of each
brand. Five hundred pounds of each brand
are required for soil tests, which are now be
ing conducted under the direction of the Com
missioner by one hundred and ten practical
tanners in all sections of the Slate. As the
result of this system of inspection and analysis,
the farmers are not only protected from the
impositions which were before practiced upon
them, but as a result of the contrast of the
. -.real composition and commercial values
of the various brands, he secures his fertili
zers nearly twenty-four percent, cheaper this
year than last. Again, by scientific experi
mental investigation, it has been found that
the farmer can save seventy five per cent, of
his former outlay for fertilizers by compost
ing home material with acid phosphate. This
information lias been disseminated through
the publications of the State Department ol
Agriculture, till nearly half the farmers in
the Slate have adopted the compost system by
which a million dollars are annually saved in
the State. The increase in the oat crop of
the State, as the result of information as to
varteties and time of sowing, is worth halt a
million dollars to the State this year. Statis
tics have been collected which show the errors
ol the past and point out remedies to be used
in future. Stock-raising is being encouraged
by tiie preparation and publication of manu
als for the use of farmers. A Hand Bank of
the State has been prepared for the purpose of
making known the resources of the State, her
advantages of soil and climate, and other facts
for the information of intelligent capitalists
in other sections of our own country, as w*dl
as those of the old world. These are some of
the results of the first two years labor of this
Departmeut.which lias only reached the thresh
old of its usefulness and profit to the State.
With the aid of the State Geologist, Dr.
George Little, .cf whoie work I wish to speak
presently, samples of more than forty beds of
marl have been analyzed, and a manual of its
use is being prepared for the instruction of the
farmers. At an annual cost of one cent to
the inhabitant, a geological survey of Georgia,
conducted by Dr. Geo. Little, shows unlimit
ed mineral wealth, embracing 175 square
miles of coal; iron ore of the best quality and
almost without limit; copper era in abundance
and of the best quality; immense quantities of
iron pyrites, very pure, from which unlimited
quantities of sulphuric acid, which we need to
render bone phosphate soluble, may he man
ufactured; vg.-t beds of wlxite, red and black
marble: a bed of excellent roofing-slate one
hundred feet thick; a solid mountain of gran
ite seven irties in ciroomference and seven
hundred feewhigh; lime and marl in inex
haustible siqjply; manganese, barytes, etc.,
with as much gold as there is in California-
It will be seen then, Mr President, that as
individuals and a Slate, u are attempting re
form. The State of Georgia has established
an official head for the advancement of her
agricultural interests. She is having her water
power measured and her mineral deposits ex
amined by a skilled geologist, for the infor
mation of manufactaring and mining capital
ists. She asks the co-operation of her sister
States in her efforts at reform and progress in
all that pertains to the elevation ol her citi
zens in intelligence, prosperity and happiness.
She has invoked the art of science in its ap
plication to the development of her material
resources, and recogniziug it in its true light,
as nature’s interpreter, has made it tributary
to the art of agriculture, from whicli it has
been too long divorced by ignorance, prejudice
and superstition. Agriculture being the lead
ing interest in a large majority of the States of
this Union, it should receive the fostering care
of Stale Governments.
Agriculture should be studied as a science
as well as an art. Tiie art should be prac
ticed under the lull glow ol the light of sci
ence. There are many investigations to tie
made in every State which cannot be conduct
ed by individuals. Even if individuals have
the means and the public spirit to experiment
for the benefit of their fellow-man, the facts
developed by individual investigators are not
so readily received as those coming with the
stamp of official authority. If each State in
the Union had a State Department of Agricul
ture, the field of usefulness of each would be
much extended by tiie additional ue ins thus
afforded for the collrction of information and
its dieseminatiou alter its collection.
A cordial interchange of information and
improved seeds, between the different States,
would engender more kindly feelings, vastly
increase the general lurid ol agricultural infor
mation, discover channels of profitable, recip
rocal exchange of products, and increase the
productive capacity of all by a mutual inter
change of the results of practical and experi
mental knowledge.
We need in all the Stales a more practical
statesmanship, one which looks more >- the
advancement of the citizen in intelligence
and material prosperity —one whicli regards
the government of the State more as an instru
mentality for the promotion of the general
welfare of I lie citizen than as a system of
machinery fur the collection of taxes and the
punishment of offenders.
We need to hear less of “ States rights” and
more ol State development, in material wealth;
lets of political reconstruction, and more of the
reconstruction of individual and, by conse
quence, ot State prosperity.
Let our platform be the prosperity of the
citizen and the development of the material
resources of the State and of the nation.
NATIONAL REFORM.
Whilst the battle on the arena of national
polities is being fought with the watchword
reform, which meets with a hearty echo from
the masses of the people, let us avail ourselves,
as representatives of the grand army of pro
ducers, constituting nearly half of the entire
population of the nation, of the tidal wave of
popular sentiment to demand certain measures
of reform, by which twenty-two and a half
million of agriculturists shall be represented
in the government of the United States.
We have n Department of War and the
Navy. Let us now insist upon a Department
of Fence, presided over by a representative of
the great productive interest of our country—
agriculturf. Let us demand, in the emphatic
language of men who know their rights, that
the Commissioner of Agriculture be made a
cabinet officer- Let us iusist until we shall be
heard upon the recognition of the existence bf
NUMBER 2.
twenty-two and a h- It million of agricultur
ists, who feed and clothe the nation. For the
want of a voice in the councils of the nation,
the material interests of onr people are lan
guishing, our commerce declining, our facto
ries idle, and our furnaces and foundries are
cold. t
Our National Department of Agriculture
has accomplished much good, hut there is still
a wider field of usefulness awaiting it, when
with a proper organization of the agricultural
forces ot the country, its head shall take its
legitimate position as one of the political i'am
il -of the President.
Eacli State should have a Department of
Agriculture, whigli collects information either
directly from individual farmers or from local
organizations.
The State Departments should labor together,
co-operating with each other and the National
Department, all reporting to the latter the re
sults of the investigations, and supplying, an
nually, samples Illustrative of tiie productive
capacity of the various sections of the country.
A perpetual fair of the agricultural and
horticultural products of every section of the
country should be on exhibition at the Nation
al Department.
When extraordinary results are attained in
the production of any staple article, by im
proved methods of cultivation or tertiiization,
the means by which they are attained, should
be published for the information of the
masses.
The workings of tiie National Department
should bo of a practical Character, tree, from
all partiality oraeciiSnai bias. *
Its head should labor with an eye single to
the material development of the whole coun
try as the surest road to individual, State and
National prosperity.
He should study well the productive forces
of the entire country, probe the secrets of suc
cess in other natioi s, and with eclectic skill,
appropriate such advances in science, or the
art of agriculture, as are adap ed to our sur
roundings. He should guard, with jealous
eye, the rights and interests of the producers
of the country, and as their representative
head, defend them from encroachmen's or in
fringements.
Too long has the public mind been diverted
from practical issues involving their vital in
terest! to those of an ephemeral nature, born
only of a fanatical brain.
While we have been wrangling over quea
tions, either of a purely political or sectional
characteqour practical cousins over the waters
have stolen our commerce, supplanted our
monoply of the cotton supply, sought other
sources tor their supply of bread-stuffs, and
now cooly demand millions of gold in pay
ment of her excess ot exports over imports.
With the most magnificent country upon
whicli the sun ever shone, with every variety
of soil and climate, with a boast of our ability
to feed and clothe the world, still vibrating in
the air, the balance of trade is against us. It
is vain, sir, to speak of a resumption of spec e
payments while we are shipping coin from
onr shores. It is vain to hope for national
prosperity while the sources of all wealth are
languishing.
It is vain to expect relief from mere politi
cal reform. There must be reform in the
field as well as in the Cabinet.
Means must he devised by which the farm
er can pocket some of the profits of his labor,
and these m ana must not involve a return
to the primitive habits of our forefathers, but
must involve the application of science, supe
rior skill and judgment, the application of
machinery to work now performed by human
muscle, the introduction of improved methods
of cultivation and fertilization, all resulting
in increased production at reduced cost.
We must re establish the balance of trade
lu out faves .before there can be substantial
prosperity in our cutiu,.; \V e must produce
more than we consume —not ouly msi.-q,
must sell more than we buy.
While laboring for material development
and reform in agriculture, let n* not forget
her kindred creative industr.es milling Ml
manufactures. These should have a joint
head in the National Government, represent
ed by a Commissioner of mining and manufac
turing, churned with the duty of collecting and
dissimulating information relating to these
great interests. At the Capitol should be two
Cabinets, one of specimens illustrative of the
mineral resources of the whole union, for the
instruction of our own peopfo, and that of
those who may wish to cast their lot with us,
and invest their money in the productive de
velopment ofourresources. The other should
contain specimens of the manufacturing skill
of our country as well as those from oilier na
tionalities.
I have thus thrown out a few thoughts, Mr.
President, in the hope that the ball already
started may be rolled on until the prosperity
of our people shall correspond with the gran
deur ot otir country in richness and variety of
resources. That our people are not blessed
with peace, plenty und contentment, is not the
fault of the Creator who has bestowed upon
us a countiy vast iu extent, varied in soil,
climate and natural resources, and abounding
in all the elements which contribute to indi
vidual, State or national prosperity.
The fault seems to be more in the creative
industries of our country which have failed to
1 CONCLUDED ON SOUtITH PAOK]
