The County Agent’s office in the court house has been pretty well filled with cabbage growers for the last two Saturdays, discussing the cabbage marketing situation. This discussion has been going on in this county for a number of years. We have heard lots of farmers say that some plan should be arranged whereby each hauler would not be in competition with every other hauler but would have some agreement on the price. It seems that the plan that they are working on will help greatly to bring about this very thing, and those who are working on it with County Agent Steele and our sauerkraut man, Mr. Blair, are convinced that it can be put into operation if the farmers of the county will get behind it.
About 30 farmers, as good as there are in the county, have put their names on the contract and by so doing have expressed their faith in the movement and their intention to help put it across. We are told that it will be necessary to have 100 farmers on the list before the undertaking can be organized. The business men of Boone, who are naturally interested in anything that will help Watauga produce to bring more money into the county, have expressed their willingness to back the undertaking in a financial way whenever it is needed.
The aim of the organization is to grade and standardize all cabbage that goes out of the county under the name of the association, and to see to it that every cabbage is good and packed in the best salable form. All cabbage that will not come up to the shipping will be made into kraut. Then an advertising campaign will be put on by the aid of the County Agents in the other counties until everybody will know these Watauga products are for sale.
If the farmers who join this movement elect the right kind of directors it is hard to see how anything but success can come out of it. Produce fixed up in good shape, so that it is attractive to the buyer, can not fail to bring more money than when marketed the old-fashioned way. The biggest saving, it seems to us, is in time. One prominent farmer who is just back from a trip to Alexander county with a load of cabbage says that he has been gone 11 days. Now, if he counts out the value of his time, his cabbage didn’t bring much. Watauga has great natural advantages in growing cabbage and it should be one of the best money crops in the county if it is handled in a business way.
The state authorities have shown that they are anxious to help in this matter by employing Mr. Blair and Mr. Steele to help the farmers do this thing. They are employed, as we understand it, to collect all the information they can in this and other states that will help the cabbage and kraut producers. It is also their duty to help the farmers bring about this organization and to assist the directors of the organization in making the business a success. Of course these men can’t go around to everybody’s house and beg them to join in the movement; if the farmers are interested, and they are the ones that should be, it is up to them to come see these men and help to make this proposition go.
From the front page of the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., Thursday, Feb. 1, 1923
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