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articles produced. And each exercises a rightful prerogative. If this privi lege is exercised by business men and by those who hire on schedule time, then why not the farmer do the same? He will be merely taking his rightful position in the empire of business. It is up to the farmer to do as success ful men do —not allow their products to go on the market for less than a fixed minimum price classified on rela tive values. Suppose merchants tried for one year the plan that farmers have here tofore followed: lay in a year’s supply and then auction everything off in two months —what would happen? Would not the mercantile world go bankrupt the first year? That is the way the farmer has been doing. He raises a year’s supply and dumps it off at auc tion in two months. The speculator is not to blame for buying and regulat ing it to demand. The demand for the products of the farm is constant the year round, and it is a violation of every law of business success and principle of economy to rush these supplies on the market re gardless of the needs of the consum ers. There is a science of commerce the same as of chemistry and it be hooves the farmer, as the feeder of the streams of commerce, to under stand the part he plays in the econ omy of business. Trust magnates understand the sci ence of commerce and apply their knowledge. Knowledge is power and commercial knowledge applied by the few and commercial stupidity among the masses has dethroned justice, mocked equity and torn the Golden Rule to shreds. It is all a question of matching con ditions. It is impossible for farmers to reg ulate values except by concert of ac tion —by co-operation. Co-operation is secured by educating the people to the necessity of a method of procedure and the opportunity offered by condi tions. Unorganized, the people are like a machine taken to pieces and strewn on the ground. But, organized, with a plan, a system and a purpose they are as a machine capable of doing effi cient w r ork —capable of putting into operation classified knowledge. It is the object of the Farmers’ Educational and Co-operative Union of America to teach the science of controlled market ing to the farmer that he may match conditions as they are. Its founders had faith in the possibility of doing so and the results so far indicate that their faith was well founded. There are twenty-six counties in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee that constitute the “dark tobacco belt.’’ This district furnishes a grade not 'fur nished elsewhere. The average annual production is about 185,000,000 pounds. Seventy nations of the earth draw upon this for supplies. It costs about six cents a pound to raise it. There was a tobacco trust in Europe and one in America. They got in each other’s way. Thomas W. Ryan (of Equitable Life Assurance note), repre senting the American trust, went to England to make terms with Sir Charles Mills, the head of the foreign tobacco trust. And these pirates of commerce made terms with each other in the same way that Caesar, Lepidus and Antony met on a small island and divided the Roman Empire among them as if it had been their paternal inheritance. These offloors of high finance proceeded to divide the to bacco belts into districts by states, counties and public roads. The tobac co raisers were at the mercy of these manipulators, who had as a partner the astute king of Italy. His agents bought for six cents and he sold to his subjects at a profit of a dollar a pound, clearing millions. The trusts were flourishing. The growers appeal ed to congress and the law in vain. On the 24th of September, 1904, the growers met in- delegate convention and agreed on terms and away of marketing. In six months the agents of the trusts were paying nearly double the prices they had been paying while running the “over production” racket as an excuse for low prices. The raisers of this product are teaching a lesson in the work of farmers’ organ izations and exemplifying the sound ness of the doctrine that farmers can control prices and take the business of furnishing farm products to consum ers out of the hands of speculators. What is one of the greatest food products of the world. But no one country can claim a monopoly on rais- Wheat is one of the geratest food ing it. It can be raised in most agri cultural countries. There is not a month in the year that wheat is not harvested somewhere in the world. But we have certain sections that are pe culiarly adapted to this cereal. The wheat raisers used to sell their wheat at the thresher at nominal prices to wheat dealers, who placed it in eleva tors and furnished it to domestic and foreign markets at whatever specula tive prices they could squeeze out of the consumers. They were not to blame for dealing in wheat and taking chances on it. They were only showing the farmer how he ought to handle his wheat from the farm to the consumer, with the difference that the farmer should have a scheduled price instead of al lowing it to be a game of chance and the price the foot ball of speculators. Millions have been won and lost in “futures” on wheat and the game will continue till the farmers take hold of it in a businesslike and systematic way. Speculation adds nothing to the supply of that which feeds and clothes the race. It means waste of time, energy and substance. The wheat raisers were vaguely con scious of all this. But it takes concert of action of so many people, con cerned only in their own little domes tic affairs, that it seemed a herculean task to bring about a revolution of methods. After a hard campaign of agitation and education waged by zeal ous prophets of a new era the wheat raisers began to build their own eleva tors and place their own men on the boards of trade and stopped selling to speculators at the thresher for thir ty-five cents a bushel. The organization of the wheat grow ers is only partial, and their system but partially perfected, but they have saved the market time and again since the initiatory efforts in this direction from dropping to the old points where they used to sell it. There is less un certainty in the wheat market than there used to be before any attempts were made to regulate supply and demand at equitable prices agreed on by the producers. Mortgages have been paid off and prosperity came to the north and west with fair prices for farm products. Other agencies than organization have operated to bring about flush times but an understanding of the science of commerce by producers has been a factor. The Farmers Educational and Co operative Union having originated in the south, has made a specialty of the cotton proposition. After the demoral ized condition of the market during 1903-04 the union set a minimum price of 10 cents In the face of the largest crop ever raised to that time. They were laughed at by men long In the cotton buying business and by non union people generally. But In due time that very crop was selling for 10 cents to the consternation of the bears. We wore told that there was a three WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. million bale surplus of the 1904 crop arid yet it was selling at 10 cents. We were told that it was the pros pect of a short crop that caused the price to go up. There were nearly eleven million bales made that year and the price was set at 11 cents and we got it. So if we had a surplus of three million bales in 1904 it certain ly was left over and not used when the price advanced from 7 to 10 cents, which would make the crop of 1905 thirteen millions bales and it sold for 11 cents. The crop of 1906 was over thirteen million bales and the middling grade has been close around 11 cents in spite of all the forces arrayed on the bear side of the market. So take whichever end of the proposition you please, the organization by feeding the market gradually kept the price of cot ton from falling from five to ten dol lars on the bale for the last three seasons. The ultimate object of the union is to handle all cotton direct from the farm to the factories. The manufact urers of Europe and America met our representatives in Washington, D. C.. May 2, 1906, and much preliminary work was done toward permanent ar rangements whereby the producers and manufacturers can agree upon terms and the supply be furnished direct from warehouses owned and op erated by the farmers to the factories. —Farmers’ Advocate, Topeka, Kan. BE CAUTIOUS IN BUSINESS. (Farmers’ Advocate.) The members of the Farmers’ Union in the cotton section know how to pro tect their interests. Stock companies are organized for building warehouses and transacting the business but none but members of the union are permit ted to buy stock in the company. This keeps out the enemy of the farmer where the membership has been well guarded. In Kansas where co-opera tive companies have failed almost in variably it has been caused by permit ting the undesirable stockholder to get in and help run things. It is so easy to cause discord that the discreet “scab,” for such he is in the union sense of the word, cunningly whispers to some intimate friend that this member of the board or that one is getting better terms than the rest of the members. Just a sly hint and the work is done. The weakness of human nature is so well known that the tale is easily told. When will farm ers learn like shrewd business men to run down all such insinuations and ascertain first if they are true and then rid the institution of the evil instead of knocking on his own institution and hurrying off to the ene my with their support? When a “knocker” appears down south he is fired out of the union. So you see the safeguard is to guard well your portals that no enemy enters therein and then let none but union men have stock in your business enterprises. Ev en with this precaution the stock should be limited and not permitted to be transferred except by consent of the board of directors. There is noth ing like being cautious. Transact your business with as much care as the suc cessful banker and you will succeed. COTTON ACREAGE AND CONDI TION. On June 4 the government will Issue a report upon the condition and acre age up to May 25. This will be but consolidated guesses made by the ag ricultural department and its corres pondents, but it will probably be made without prejudice, and for that reason it will have some weight. The reports that come through un official hands put the acreage well up to that of last year, but all agree that the crop is fully twenty days late. A Memphis report says the Alabama acreage will be 93.8 per cent of a nor mal crop; the replanting is 32 per cent, and the lateness of the crop is 24 days. The acreage in Texas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory is reported to be very large, and this may bring the to tal acreage within a fraction of that of last year. July contracts in New Orleans on Monday were quoted at 12.25 cents, and the tendency is up wards. High prices will operate in in creased acreage, but the weather is still unfavorable to replanting and ger mination, while the grass grows in the fields freely. While the prices of cotton and wheat * go up, the prices of stocks go down, and this perhaps will be the general tendency until more is known relative to the great crops of the country. At present all is conjectural. All is opin ion, much of it no doubt erroneous. With settled weather will perhaps come definite reports of the crop short ages, for it seems to be plain that wheat, corn and cotton will each and all be reduced by late planting and backward germination.—Age-Herald. A MODEST PLOUGHMAN. When crabgrass gits a half a show, ’Count er some rainy days, to grow En fuzzes green along de row, ’T aint wuth while den to try to hoe Dat whole plantation clean. De bes’ way is de way dat’s cheap, En I kin take a two-inch sweep, Runnin at p’int two inches deep, En kill out Gineral Green. Yes; gimme sich a plow as dat ’N I’ll hoi’ my upright frame plum flat, En whar dat grass wus sich a mat You couldn't tell whar a been at, I’ll wrop dat cotton round’ w As neat and cool wid fresh black dirt As a man’s body fits his shirt, En reg’lar—not right here a spurt En hyander grassy groun’. Farmers is got a heap to I’arn ’Fo’ dey gits wut’s cornin' to deir barn If, ’stid er har’n hoe-han’s en har’n Plough-han’s wut ain’t worth a darn, Dey'd all git men lak me, Dis county'd brag de bigges’ sales Er cottonseed and cotton bales, Spite er spring drouth en ’noctial gales, On dis side er de sea. En dis ain’t whoopin’ up myse’f. De crabgrass natchly hoi’ its bref When I comes ’long; ca’se dat means de’f; It knows der ain’t none gwine be lef’, When I hooks up my mule. I says dis jis’ beca’se it’s so. I kinder thought yo’d lak to know. Don’t think I’s tryin’ to brag en blow; I ain’t no sich a fool. —John Charles McNeill, in Charlotte Observer. The home is indeed the hope of the nation. Some day conditions will be such that every one who desires may own a beautiful home. What a great people we will then be! —The Co-Oper ator. The Farmers’ Union is a great edu cational organization, a school for the education of farmers in the science of marketing and distributing the wealth they produce.—The Co-Operator. (Charlotte Observer.) We are sorry to see that the Broth erhood of Trainmen, recently in ses sion at Atlanta, adopted resolutions of condemnation of the governors of Col orado and Idaho for their efforts to bring to trial Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone, for alleged complicity in the assassination of ex-Governor Steunen berg, and appropriated SSOO to be used in their defense. The trainmen can not afford to mix up with that aggre gation. PAGE SEVEN