By John Paul Lucas
Raleigh, May 23—In analyzing the economic situation in the farming sections of North Carolina, it is interesting to contrast the results have have come from the farming practices in the rich Eastern counties with their large plantations and scores of negro tenants, and those in the mountain and western counties where there has been comparatively less tenant farming and where all farmers, land owners and tenants alike, have had greater encouragement in, as well as necessity for, producing their actual living from the land.
In the East and in some counties in the central part of the State a few plantation owners and supply merchants have grown wealthy at the expense of tenants and small farmers. Not all, but many, of these plantation owners and supply merchants have discouraged, even by drastic means, the growing of food for the family, the keeping of cows, hogs, and even the growing of corn and other feed for work stock, for the very simple reason that they have made constant and large profits from the handling of these supplies.
In 1920 these folks wee caught in their own trap and hundreds of plantation owners and supply merchants in Eastern Carolina today would be bankrupt if they were forced to liquidate under present conditions.
I know one man who was worth more than $250,000 two years ago. He told me a few days ago that if he were sold out today he would probably not have his home left. This man is a good farmer and a good man not the sort to take selfish advantage of his tenants. His case is rather typical, but not as aggravated as that of hundreds of plantation owners who supplied their tenants when prices were high consistently encouraged them to make large purchases in order to swell their own profits. This type is the worst hurt of all, but every farmer in the cotton sections of Eastern North Carolina is hurt.
Apply the Remedy
Now throughout the cotton counties land owners, supply merchants and others are realizing that their only salvation under boll weevil conditions is to encourage every farmer land owner and tenant alike, to produce on the farm their own living and feed for their livestock. This doctrine has been preached by agricultural leaders for the past 15 years, and yet there were fewer chickens raised in North Carolina last year than there were 10 years ago. There was an increase of only 5 per cent in number of cattle in North Carolina during the last 10-year period, and a smaller proportion of our farmers were raising their living at home last year than were in 1910.
The only way out for every farmer in the cotton belt it through the “Live-at-Home” program. Any other course is suicidal. He will gradually develop other money crops but his first efforts must be directed to raising his own living on his own land. He must “grow” into commercial dairying and hog raising. Market facilities must be developed for the handling of these products.
Value of Industries to the Farmer
The situation in the Piedmont and Western part of the State and in a few communities in the East is different. In the Piedmont and mountain counties the farmers have more generally been producing their food supplies and feedstuffs. They are accustomed to keeping cows, for instance, and are beginning to find that dairying on a commercial scale may be profitable. A larger number keep poultry both for home use and as a means of increasing the farm income. They have practiced more crop diversification in their farming operations, and in the cotton counties in this section they are in much better position to fight the boll weevil.
Another factor which must not be overlooked is this: Not only are the farmers of the Piedmont section fitted by experience to produce other crops than cotton, but they have at their doors a market for practically all of the food products they can grow, because the industrial development of North Carolina has taken place largely in the Piedmont section, and industrial settlements, from cities to villages, offer a splendid market for all sorts of food supplies. This means that the farmers of Piedmont North Carolina have a distinct immediate advantage over the farmers of other sections which have no markets immediately available. And they are in somewhat better position to immediately avail themselves of this market. It must come about, however, that as the farmers of other sections of the State acquire experience in the handling of food products a system of marketing will be developed so that from every section of the State supplies may be brought to meet the demand for food stuffs in the cities and towns which are at present looking to other sections of the country almost altogether for such supplies and are sending millions of dollars out of the State each month for these things. This home market is the legitimate, rightful market of the tarheel farmer, and it is his whenever he is ready to claim and utilize it.
From the front page of The Commonwealth, Scotland Neck, N.C., May 23, 1922
No comments:
Post a Comment