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AFRICA ASKS GEORGIA HOW TO
RAISE COTTON.
Every Country on Globe Writes to
Georgia's Department of Agri
culture.
(From the Atlanta Journal.)
From every country on the earth
Georgia’s department of agriculture is
receiving inquiries concerning the farm
productions of this state.
“What is the boll weevil?” “What
elements of soil are most favorable to
cotton?” “How can you cure the
glanders?” “Are you experimenting in
any new variety of peaches?”
These and a hundred other similar
queries pour into Commissioner of Ag
riculture T. G. Hudson’s office every
week. They come, too, not only from
surrounding states, but from such far
away places as Natal, Africa, and the
river bottoms of the Ganges.
This indicates the importance with
which eGorgia is regarded by the farm
ing world as well as the growing inter
relationship of farmers the globe
around.
“A few years ago, I remember,” said
Captain Wright, assistant commission
er of agriculture, “that we worked
with our home methods alone. Now
we are applying to Georgia farms
ideas that were originated in Ger
many and southern France. One sum
mer a discovery is made in Spain,
the next season it is made use of in
Georgia.”
How true this is, a glance at the
commissioner’s pile of exchanges will
show. On a big table in his office
there is a stack of farm journals
written in every known language.
“And the government departments
in Russia,” says the commissioner,
“await our bulletins on cotton and po
tatoes as eagerly as we do theirs on
wheat and other products. Every now
and then I get a kick from some Eu
ropean or Asiatic official who wants
to know why we haven’t sent him our
monthly report”
LABOR 18 SCARCE.
(Birmingham Age-Herald.)
Cotton planters in portions of Lime
stone and .other counties in this part
of the state are complaining of the
scarcity of labor just now. Some of
these planters say that on account
of the lack of hands they will be com
pelled to let much of their land lie
idle this season.
Many of the negroes have left the
plantations and engaged in public
works. Many others have moved away
to the states of Mississippi, Louisiana
and Arkansas. For these reasons the
question of farm labor is coming
to be a serious one in some portions
of north Alabama. If labor cannot be’
imported from other places much of
the land here will have to lie idle.
MAY BUY PROPERTY.
(Decatur, Ala., Special.)
Wfiat appears to be a well founded
rumor says that the Gulf Cotton Com
press of this city is now on a deal to
purchase the old plant of the United
States Rolling Stock Company in east
Decatur.
The compress company have been
using the mammoth sheds of this
plant during the present season to
store cotton. The business of the
compress here has Increased to such
an extent that the warerooms at the
company’s plant are not sufficient to
hold the cotton received.
FARMERS SEEK HOMES.
A good many farmers from the
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and oth.
er northern states are coming to North
Alabama with a view to locating. They
■ay that the northern states have two
very serious drawbacks, severe win
ters and high priced farm lands.
Already quite a number of these
northern farmers have purchased
farms in this section of the state and
are well pleased with the country and
the people—Birmingham Age-Herald.
c H
FIGHT ON COTTON EXCHANGE.
The New York cotton exchange says
that a large number of citizens of the
south are members and gives a list
of names. Included in the list are
the following from Georgia:
William W. Gordon, J. Leroy Ham
mond, Savannah; James R. Gray, E.
H. Inman, Joseph Whitehead, Atlanta;
L. Fleming, W. Sanford Gardner, Wil
liam B. White, James F. McGowan,
Augusta.
The purpose of publishing the list
of names seems to be to scare oft
further endeavoring to have a fraud
order issued against the New York
cotton exchange, but the scheme will
not work.
SOUTH PRODUCES EIGHT-TENTHS
OF THE WORLD’S COTTON.
The south will also take her proper
position as the master of the cotton
trade so soon as her cotton producers
and other occupations in the south
come to know that we must come to
gether as a unit on cotton. Then we
can control the cotton situation against
the world if we can induce cotton
growers to raise their own food for
both man * and beast as far as pos
sible.
Our cotton growers will have done
quite a big thing for themselves and
the south when they have complete
control over their own affairs.
Our own farming business when
done in a businesslike manner should
give us our full measure of profits
without our meddling with other
tradesmen’s affairs that do not block
our progress. That disposition to
mix our farming business with politics
and other things not In our way is
the dose that killed the alliance. —Un-
ion Banner.
“PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO
THE SOIL.”
(From the Ft. Worth Telegram.)
Here is something new under the
sun:
A man named Rockwell Sayre of
Bryn Mawr, Pa., has proposed a law for
the “prevention of cruelty to land.”
He has organized a society after the
model of the society for the prevention
of cruelty to animals.
He says the land of the country is
being “abused, cruelly treated,” by
heartless farmers who plant the same
crop year after year. There is no ro
tation, no resting of the soil by using
It as meadow or pasture.
Therefore Mr. Sayre has had a bill
drawn which he has sent to several
state legislatures, forbidding the plant
ing of the same crops year after year
on the same land.
He says we have lost the buffalo
and the pineries of the north, both of
which were declared to be inexhausti
ble and now are exhausting the soil
on the same theory.
There is no doubt the people of the
eastern states are now face to face
with the alternative. And more or
less, a like situation will soon confront
the owners of lands In the middle wes
tern and western states.
Millions of dollars worth of fertiliz
ers must be used every year on the
worn out lands of the east. In the
country west of the Mississippi where
the land is newer and more fertile the
necessity is not yet apparent—but it
will be.
Mr. Sayre has put his finger upon a
very important concern.
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
SOUTH’S LABOR PROBLEM A
QUESTION OF WAGES.
In editorial comment upon the recent
“Immigration Convention” held at Ma
con, Ga., Jerome Jones, in the Atlanta
Journal of Labor, says:
“While deploring the lack of labor
in the south and planning to induce
foreign labor to locate in Georgia and
the south, would it not have been well
for the convention to have gone into
some of the reasons why labor is
scarce in this section of the United
States?
“We have no information of any
scarcity of labor in our cities. While
there may possibly be a demand for a
few men in some few of the trades,
the supply in most of them far exceeds
the demand. And the supply of la
borers is far in excess of the demand.
“Consequently, granting that the
scarcity of labor complained of is, in
the main, confined to the cotton mill
and agricultural districts, would not
careful, patient inquiry bring out the
fact that the chief cause of the exist
ing scarcity of labor is the present
unfavorable conditions under which
this labor is employed? Both labor
and capital are attracted to those sec
tions presenting the most promising
inducements. Is it not a fact that there
is also a constant cry for more indus
tries in the south?
“We have before us the statement
by a well known contractor of Atlan
ta that he will not concede that there
is a scarcity of labor. He says further:
‘Farmers today are expecting help on
their farms for practically the same
price they paid when their cotton only
brought 5 cents. They are perfectly
willing to get better prices for their
products, but are not willing to share
with their employes, and at the same
time we find northern farmers paying
sls to S3O per month for help and con
sequently they get the pick of the lot.’
“Having failed to induce the well
paid labor of the north and west to lo
cate in the south to any extent, it is
now proposed to persuade the foreign
seeker after better conditions to cast
his lot in the south.
“We are for the upbuilding of the
industries of the south where labor
will not be crushed by the operation.”
ENGLAND MENACES THE SOUTH.
(By Felix Brannigan, Asst. Atty. De
partment of Justice.)
Obviously, the possibility and strong
probability of British planters raising
7,000,000 bales of cotton in northern Ni
geria the whole annual re
quirements of Great Britain, and 7,-
000,000 bales more for other European
cotton consuming countries, must send
cold shivers through our cotton plant
ers, and test the abilities of our best
statesmen.
Undoubtedly cotton can be raised
in Nigeria and shipped to Liverpool
or Manchester and sold anywhere for
in Great Britain or the Continent for
5 cents a pound. Under such a con
dition there would be no necessity for
making or reporting estimates of our
coming cotton crops or of doctoring
such reports, and we might as well
shut up our cotton exchanges and Wall
street cotton speculation offices.
The question for our statesmen will
soon be: What article of commerce
will preserve the balance of trade that
our cotton exports now give us? And
who among our great statesmen will
point out to our cotton growing states
a good substitute for cotton?
The eyes of the American people
should be opened to this menace of
British Nigeria, backed up by British
capital and Industry, to our American
cotton industries. I do not use the
word “menace” In its unfriendly sense,
for everything Is fair, not only in love
and war, but also in trade and com-
merce. I suppose it is fair enough for
labor to exact in San Francisco the
privilege of ruling that city and of get
ting from $lO to sls or S2O a day for
a few hours’ work, as long as the
people and local politicians there are
timid enough to submit to such exac
tions.
Now, I have given some thought to
this cotton menace. My present
thought is that of coffee as a substi
tute for cotton. Possibly we could
preserve our balance of commercial
trade with coffee almost as well as, or
perhaps better than, with cotton; and
if so, why should not our congress,
through the agricultural department,
lend our southern brethren a hand in
helping them to grow coffee in lieu of
cotton?
*
THE UNION’S VOTING POWER.
(From the Vineland Independent.)
Does your organization prohibit you
from discussing the laws under which
you must live, as a member of your
union, and does not prohibit you from
going to the ballot box, and voting for
a law that makes your union a neces
sity, for your own self-preservation?
Don’t you see—can’t you see —that you
are making a futile attempt to lift
yourselves by your boot straps? Cast
ing your votes for that which you and
your union declare to be radically
wrong, viz.: depriving you as “farm
ers” of a “fair price” for your prod
ucts. Os course the above is meant
to apply as readily to the working men
or wage earners, as to the farmers. Is
it not a fact that the farmers form
their unions for the purpose of secur
ing that which they are entitled to
but wffiich they know they do not get?
As said before, they use their individ
ual say or votes to produce this con
dition of things.
R
A HARD FIGHT FOR THE FARMER.
(From the Union News.)
This is going to be a year for hard
fighting; all kinds of schemes will be
laid to catch the farmer.
Such men as “Joe” Hoadley will
propose (during the spring) to finance
this fall’s cotton crop.
The thing that worries us so is to
think that some of our farmers are
green enough to be caught in his trap.
Yes, he will claim to be a friend of
the farmers, why not? He and his co
horts could afford to spend ten million
of dollars to get the farmers demoral
ized this year.
Their first plan is to get the farmers
to plant everything in cotton so that
enough of it will be forced on the mar
ket to enable them to hammer the
price down.
Will the southern farmer walk into
this trap? The Union News is going
to do all it can to keep them from it.
Plant peas, com, sow oats, let some
of your land rest, don’t plant it all in
cotton.
THE FARMER FREEMAN.
(From the Jasper Banner of Liberty.)
We want it distinctly understood
that the Banner is a staunch friend
to the farmer, and is ever ready and
wlllkig to do everything within its
power to promote his interests. We
believe that Hamilton county can boast
of having as many thrifty and inde
pendent farmers as any other county
in the state. We say independent, and
w« mean it. The most of our farmers
have their smoke-houses filled with
home-raised meat and syrup, and their
cribs are filled from floor to celling
with corp, and whenever a fellow is
fixed this way, he is surely Independ
ent in every sense of the word. All
praise to the farmer. If it wasn’t for
him what would the balance of us
poor mortals do for something to
eat?
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