There’s a splendid
lesson to farm folk in this article by Mr. Wilson: A lesson that every North
Carolina farmer would do well to learn, and learning, put into practice.
Farmers, after experiencing a moderately prosperous year,
have little reason to apprehend misfortune in 1938—if they plan wisely.
Principal reason, it may be assumed, for any persons
engaging in agriculture is to make a living and possibly a little besides; but
first, of course, should come the living. And since living is largely a matter
of food consumption, food should come first in every farmer’s crop plan.
Time was when food did come first in every farmer’s plan.
Then men really farmed for a living, consuming much of what they produced. If
they made plenty, then had plenty, whether markets were good or bad.
But agriculture has become principally a business of
producing to sell, with farmers having plenty when markets are good and little
when markets are poor.
Instead of producing food, many are producing almost
altogether crops which they hope to sell profitably and then buy food with the
money thus obtained. Disaster, when it overtakes them, is principally brought
on by this sort of farming.
To take as much speculation as possible out of farming in
1938, farmers should attempt to grow ample food crops in addition to cash
crops. On the farm, if anywhere, food in plenty should be the portion of every
man, woman, and child.
The good farmer’s goal for 1938 will not be a shiny new
automobile but a full granary, corn crib, and smokehouse, with plenty of feed
and good cows and workstock.
Persons unfamiliar with farming practices in the South find
it difficult to understand why there should be want and scarcity on the farm.
They think of the farm as a place of plenty and content. Their conception of
the farm is not impossible of realization.
Southern soil, even though it has been scandalously
mistreated and neglected, is still capable, if rightly handled, of bountifully
feeding those who till it. It is the South’s shame that many who cultivate her
fields are poorly fed and housed.
A principal reason many are poorly housed and fed, we are
persuaded, is lack of proper supervision by landlords of their tenants. When a
tenant’s poor crop is attributable to shiftless methods of cultivating and
handling, a part of the blame belongs to the landlord.
The landlord who fails to require his tenant to cultivate
and handle his crop in the best manner possible not only wrongs himself but his
tenant as well. It is illogical to assume that all tenants are good managers.
If, as has been said, every child has the right to be
well-born, it is no less true that every farm has the right to be well-managed.
The soil has rights the same as the individual, nor do the rights of the soil
and the individual clash. For whatever is good for the soil is good for the
individual who tends it.
The attitude of the landlord, when the temperament of the
tenant will permit it, should be one of sympathy and helpfulness. It is not
enough to tell a tenant to do a certain thing; he should be gold why it should
be done.
Too many tenants and landlords come to the end of the year
with bitterness in their hearts toward each other and with little or no profit
from their year’s business partnership. “He ain’t no good,” the landlord
remarks of the tenant, and the tenant, equally bitter, refers to his landlord
as a skinflint and a scoundrel. Perhaps each is wrong.
The result of all this is an increase in the number of
tenants and a probable decrease in their efficiency and industry, with
landlords and tenants mutually suffering. For n tenant can neglect his crop
without damaging his landlord and no landlord can neglect his duty to his
tenant without damaging not only the latter but himself.
In 1938, therefore, both landlords and tenants should
resolve to cooperate with each other more closely and to pool their efforts in
giving more care to the soil. The stake of the tenant in the soil is equally as
great as that of the landlord.
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