OCR Text |
Show it i -HMHaHmiMmMoaBKananwaoBBiMziisw3nW BBBBBBBB UKt HERIXS FROM . DIXIE TO REDUCE MEAT PRICES I I' r-11 X 7 -SSmJSI Af AKING anew Cattle Country of the Great Pied- g HOW UNCLE, 5AMKJS monf feoi, Mrcu Wasterf, am Kfacrng Me I 1 vXOOKS TO THK KEMNG jWS Farmerto Plant Com in the Land of Cotton. "' r i ' fCopj-rlcht. 1011, by Ihe New York Herald Co. All rlctatn rmerrcd.) 1 ' ryH '"E the tariff hns,something "to do with I it. Maybe the nilddlemuu gets more than ; 1 his share. I don't know so much about ' that, but I do know one thing:, and I think it Is as plain as the nose on your face. If I' I iork chops, bacon nud ham are too expensive for the poor man to buy, then raise mora hogs. If beef is too I , hlph, then raise more cattle. I , "How are the farmers of the United Slates to bo induced to raise more cattle and hogs?" Uncle Sam answers: "By teaching the farmers of the South, the most fertile region in the United Suites and ont of the j I ' most fertile in the world, to raise corn." , The man who was speaking leaned back in his ofllce f chair nnd eyed his interrogator in the manner of one 9 who has said all there is to say on a subject. He was , an old man. He had seen seventy-eight summersr, and N seventy of them had been spent on a farm. Dr. S. A. I Kuapp was his name, of the Bureau of Plant Industry fig of the Department of Agriculture the man who 1 under the direction of the United States government 3 is teaching the South to raise corn. He died April 1, 1011. I f "The price of corn," he continued, "has been'so high 4 , , In this country in recent years that it has been vastly ; more profitable to sell It than to feed it to hogs. Therefore There-fore the farmer of the great Middle West has stopped raising hogs for the market In such quantities as he I did In the past. Therefore the supply of pork chops, bacon and ham has been less. It follows as the night follows the day that the price of these articles of fowl has been higher. It also follows that if the supply of Z corn is Increased sutlicfently to bring down the price if: desk, but most of the time ho wasn't. He was one of L5Le our most accomplished domestic travellers. He was jm carrying out a definite programme and was meeting with remarkable success. Perhaps it is not generally known that the greater part of the cattle and hogs which furnish meat to the masses of the people In the United Slates are fattened on the most expensive lands in the United Suites BlRMBBB1P3!9g! cr. Dr. Knapp believed, largely at the expense of the Southerner. The remaking of the South as a corn and stock country might have been delayed indefinitely If It had not been for one thing. That was the boll weevil, the pesky Utile creature which got ln,to the cotton fields and destroyed millions of dollars' worth of cotton, cot-ton, and Is still doing It. The people of Texas and Louisiana, where the boll weevil appeared first, appealed ap-pealed frantically to the government for aid. It was granted, but the battle Is not yet won. So great were the ravages of the boll weevil in some sections, especially espe-cially In Louisiana, that some of the planters gave up in despair and planted corn. Most of them are still raising corn, and hundreds of others all over the South arc doing likewise. Agents of the Department of Agriculture encouraged the planting of corn. The planters were told that corn meant cattle and hogs and that those meant cheaper food. Their attention was called to the fact that they were paying one dollar a bnshel for corn when they could raise it for twelve cents a bushel. Last year in nine Southern States namely, Virginia North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. Louis-iana. Arkansas and Texus, the corn crop was 138,-0CO.00O 138,-0CO.00O bushels larger than in 1000. All this work of teaching the Southern farmer how to raise- corn and then cattle and hogs Is under the personal direction of Dr. Knapp, who, of course, reported re-ported through the Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry Indus-try to Secretary WINon. Dr. Knapp spent most of his time travelling in the South. He had hundreds of federal and State agents under his supervision. Last Corn Day at Monroe, N. C, Showing HEfeRl8B& 200 Farmers Selecting and Testing Corn X It&mel for Planbnj. vir a bit. there will be more hogs and lower prices for hog f ' fWS'iS precis. m&M:WWMM -More than this, It is a fact that If the com supply vSiW (WvLruliS Is Increased there will be more fodder for cattle, and rMi 'Ssl consequently more cattle. In a like manner the price .' Jfijlft iSjSjffiJgSR? feiaSsSSw. &rSMM . of beef will go down." I BgSP i Dr. Knapp had a very imposing title. He was the I IMppf I ky1i!Vlr', fM fj&$ special agent in charge of farmers' co-operative den, W W ftl WSHfflftW I onstration work. He had an oilicc in Washington and V V(S J? JE? - UlMiS &M VelT BPfH wBBtMP I a big force of office helpers. Sometimes he was at his WR,itfeli WmSSHii W TflOTl7M OSth8SI?C7 Boys' Corn Club, of Tyler, Texas. that is, In Iowa, Illinois-aud other Middle Western States. "Tama Jim" Wilson, the Secretary of Agri culture, and himself a ve-tHWP Iowa fanner, says tlmt Is one reason why meat costs so much. Another bit of Information that may not be genera' property Is thai tho finest Innd on the North American continent, and perhaps In the world, for the raising and fattening of stock for the meat market is right here In tho United States and Is going lo waste at this very minute. That Is the Piedmont country, on the cast cm nnd western slopes of the Appalachian mountain range, from the southern border of Pennsylvania doi n nearly to the Gulf of Mexico. What Uncle Sam is go- Dr. S. A. Knapp. who is Helping ihe South to Become a Corn and Slock-JRaising Slock-JRaising Country. ing to do is to bring this country Into its own. and It wou't be his fault If he doesn't Improve our meat supply sup-ply and bring prices down in tho process. For two hundred years or longer the South lias do-voted do-voted all of Its agricultural energies to produciug cotton, cot-ton, tobacco, sugar and rice. Theso crops yield more cash profit an acre than any other crop raised In this country But somehow It has not followed that the Southern farmer arc the most prosperous farmers in tho country. They most distinctly ure not. Dr. Knapp discovered this apparent paradox soon after he begun a study of the South from an agrlculmral viewpoint, and he wasn't long in finding the reason. The expert learned that while corn bread, hominy and other corn products were probably more largely' consumed in the South than in any other section, the people of tho South were sending out Into Iowa, Nebraska Ne-braska and Kansas to buy their corn. He auw the bamc .folk eating pork in various forms every day In tho week and buying it from the Middle Western States north of the Ohio Itlver and west of the MIb slsslppl ltivcr. They were also buylug canned peas, canned tomatoes and all sorts of other canned things. The South vs. the West. Of course, big prices were beiug pnid for these Imported Im-ported articles. The big profits from the cotton, tobacco, to-bacco, rice and sugar crops were quickly eaten up. As the Southern farmer remnlncd poor, the Middle Western firinior err u wcihlm ivil lo "row wenWM eur 1Q,'22Z boys each planted an ncre of corn and cul-tlated cul-tlated It under the direction of Dr. Kuapp. The icuiurknhle icsult of the labor and genius of one hundred of these youngsters was an average yield of lay 1-a bushels au acre on their plots. The average yield for the United Stales was something like twenty-two twenty-two bushels an acre. Master Jerry Moore raised 28 3-1 bushels on his acre In South Carolina. The people of the South and of the North who beard about It began to open their eyes, and no wonder. "hi a few years," said Dr. Knapp. "the South will be producing such quantities of corn, cuttle and hog, not to mention other diversified crops, thnt Iowa, Illinois, Illi-nois, Nebraska, Kansas and tho other States in tho Middle West will no longer be able to sell their surplus sur-plus to the South. Then they will have to send it East lo New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington nnd up Into New England. "Then will come the day when the South will begin to have a surplus In these products. She will send, perhaps, better corn nnd meat to New York thuu come from the Western corn belt. It will not only be the oest thing that ever happened to the South, 'but it will be a fine thing for the country ns n whole. The prlco tf corn and meat to tho great body of consumers will i;o down. The Western farmer will share his prosperity prosper-ity with the Southern farmer, and both will share theirs with the whole people. t "That what I am saying Is .not an Idle dream Is proved by the fact that last year Louisiana and Mississippi, Mis-sissippi, which theretofore had imported corn, exported It lu smnll quantities. There is another evidence of what Is going on In the South. There arc 300,000 fewer horses In use in London to-day than there wcro before the automobile became so popular. This is a falling off of (JO 2-3 per cent in the demand for horses In that eltj, and the same is true, in most of the great centres of population Jn this country. ' P'l hi)' M-. irl r.f Ivnrcdc i-to rl-trn' Vn' i SI of it. It is higher to-day than ever before. The rca- IH son Is that the South Is taking horses as fast as it can jH get them. The old fashioned method of ploughing H with one horso Is being nbnndoncd. The. two horso plough is rapidly coming into use. Horses arc wanted for all sorts of farm work by the awakened Southern 'H -farmer." Il Dr. Knapp was not a native Southerner, though he lH had made Louisiana his home for the last twenty-five ll years when he has not been at Washington. He was ijl born In New York State, away up at Crown Point, on il Lake Chnmphil.n, December IG, 1833. He was a gmd- il uxtc of Union University at Schenectady. Tho first farm he ever owned and he had always been a IH farmer was in Washington, county, X. Y. When he ' IH died he had farms in Maryland, Tnxas and Louisiana. Il He loved the South perhaps better than any part IH of the country. He had made a study of economic H conditions nil over the United States, and he believed IH he saw the solution of many great problems for the IH whole country in that section. Mistakes in the South. IH Dr. Knapp saw the mistakes that the South han H made aud here Is the way he described them: l "These Suites were settled mainly by one of the H most virile races that ever touched foot on Western shores. Why, then, did many of the results which an- H peared certain to follow fall to materialize? It was H because of some economic errors that crept into the civilization of the South at an early period, and it lf shows the far-reaching effect of even slight deviation IH from the fundamental laws that govern civilization. H "G'lie labor wns mainly compulsory and performed by another race. This lowered the dignity of labqr, be- jH cause unavoidably the character of the doer deter- H mines the dignity of the thing done. It ought not to H be the case, but It has been so from the formation of H human society. This condition was a barrier to free H labor and an obstacle to the Immigration of small H farmers accustomed to till their own lands. These in- H fluences in many cases contributed to an emigration of H these classes from the South. H "The second great economic error was the adoption H by the Southern Slates of one crop Instead of dlversl H fled crops as a system of fnrmiDg. The farmer H should throw out an anchor of safety, so that what- H ever may occur to reduce the cash crop it will not cur- H tail the supply of food or clothing, Interfere with the H schooling of the family or place In jeopardy the home. H A third economic error from tho viewpoint of the H States was the great number of large plantations. As H generally mannged they block highways, Interfere with IH schools, retard rural development and promote class IH distinctions as against mass development. H "Tbe'South also failed to utilize the wealth of mln- H erals, the vast forests of woods matchless for con- struction purposes, and other natural resource's. In H Biicli a way as to build a commonwealth that would B furnish markets as well as raw material, and thus In M a measure become self-sustaining and independent. The price of virgin land ranged so lou' In many cases M that it was cheaper lo make a new plautatlou than to B restore the Impoverished soil of the old. i JBb "This Is only a geueral view of the situation. There M wero under the old conditions manv planters of high HBV character and great Intelligence vho maintained an HBV excellent ntandard of agriculture. They bred the best H j M fl This Boy Grew the Corn that Towers Above Him on a One-Acre Farm in ' H Mississippi H crop lotulion. JB "The period of greatest disaster to agriculture In the South was from 18G1 to 1SO0, when nearly all that was excellent In the old civilization was swept away and J IKV little of value substituted. During this period the ( jH South was laid waste by the barbarism of war. Then HKV anunlcttered and previously subordinate race. In some IIJ States more tlian equal In numbers to the rural white , HBV population und but slightly amenable to Us public H opiuiou, received the ballot and came Into the posses- JB slon of lands as owners, renters and occupiers. Non- HB resident ownership Increased, nnd with It camo n more HB careless tilluge, Immense waste of fertility by erosion, JB Hnd a general deterioration In the character of farm JB Improvements and equipment. Until within the last I JH decado and u half rural conditions and general In flu- JB ence upon nutlonal life steadily declined. JHb "No other equal area on the globe surpasses these HBa States In the natural resources which aro theirs. If ' HH delightful climate, fertile soil, satisfactory rainfall, a , H large number of navigable streams, an abundant sup- JH ply of valuable timber, au Inexhaustible supply of H minerals and a" marvellous topography wouder- H ful valleys, fertile hills aud picturesque mountains H are essential factors in the making of a mighty nation, JB then the South Atlantic and tho South Central Stafes of our Union are designed by nature to be the scat of S HBJ great activities nlong broad line, with a dense popula- M lion, rich in 'all materinl things the masses well housed, broadly educated, Independent and progres- BVJ "The time will come, Is now on tho way, when the M South will be all of these things. And the South will H not get. all the benefit. The United States will Hhnre BAl It, especially tho enormous centres of population in BBl the North that depend upon the agricultural nnd min' tH era) resources of the rest of. the laud for their suite- IBS Mi" 1"rl r - IH |