The progressive farmer and the cotton plant. [volume], August 29, 1905, Page 8, Image 8

About The progressive farmer and the cotton plant. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1904-1905

Image provided by: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, Chapel Hill, NC

                
PROGRESSIVE FARMER AND COTTON PLANT.
Tuesday, August 29
, 190."?.
R
EDITORIAL
"THE OLD EDITORIAL."
North Caiolina has' probably never had an edi
tor ho accomplished more by his writings than
Josiah Turner, whose paper was a pillar of cloud
and of fire in the darkest hours of Reconstruc
tion. And yet Josiah Turner had little literary,
ability, little grace or skill as a writer. But he
did know what North Carolina needed, what evils
she suffered; and in season and out of season, ho
hammered away perpetually at these things.With
"damnable iteration and reiteration" he repeated
his charges of fraud and corruption until the
whole State was aflame with an indignation that
could not be withstood. Day after day the same
charges of fraud and thievery were put before
his readers, and .on one occasion he gathered all
of them together under the heading, "The Old
Editorial."
Now it happens that The Progressive Parmer
has its hobbies, too better farming methods, of
course; good schools, good roads, rural mail de
livery, rural school libraries, farmers club3, bet
ter farm implements and machinery, more beau
tiful country homes, etc., etc. These thing3 we
are continually urging upon our readers, but now
before the busy season again begins on the farm,
it seems to us entirely fitting that we bring all
these matters again io the attention of the pub
licand so here is "The Old Editorial."
In the first place, we wonder if you have rural
free delivery of mails. Your neighborhood is
paying its share of the taxes to maintain the ser
vice; why not get some of its benefits? Every
day some new North Carolina route is .going into
operation. We have nearly 1,000 of them now,
and there were less than a dozen at this time four
year ago. The recent talk of more stringent reg
ulation has been much exaggerated. All that the
Government demands is that the route be ap
proximately 25 miles long, that it serve 100 peo
ple or more, and that the roads be good enough
to enable the carrier to make the trip in a day.
We think you can map out a line that will meet
these requirements, and if so, you can get a car
rier to deliver your mail daily. To argue as to
the merits of the system is unnecessary; they are
self-evident. If you are interested, talk to your
neighbors about the matter, and write your Con
gressman for further information. The carrier
gets a fair salary, and if you can find some one
who wishes to get the appointment as carrier, he
will probably make the canvass for signers to the
petition.
Next, you ought to have a library in your pub
lic school. It will be of incalculable value in
deepening the interest of the pupils and in pro
moting a love of reading. The last Legislature,
as we have said before, appropriated $5,000 more
to aid the establishment of six more libraries in
each county; so the way is now open for you to
get a valuable little collection of books for your
school open now, even if you did make applica
tion last year and found that you were too late.
Raise $10 or more by private subscription, $10
more will be set apart from the county school
fund, and the State will give you $10 from its
$,",000 appropriation thus enabling you to begin
with at least $30 for the purchase of books. Bet
ter start this movement immediately, or you may
find that six more progressive neighborhoods
have reported first and exhausted the appropria
tion.
Possibly, however, yours is one of the 500 enter
prising communities, each of which has already
established a school library. In that case, it be
comes your duty to see that it is properly replen
ished and cared for. If your neighbors will raise
$5 or more by private subscriptionand set apart
$5 from your school fund, the State will give you
$5 making in all j&15 to buy more books for it.
We hope that many schools will take advantage
of this opportunity to get new works or new
copies of old works that have been worn out.
v Unless you are in Mecklenburg, we are pretty
safe in saying that you ought to have better
roads, and we hope you will improve every oppor
tunity to help along the cause of better highways.
That there is now no method of co-operation in
road building State or Nation duplicating
amounts raised by the community, as in the
school library matter is much to be regretted.
The Brownlow Bill embodies this idea, however,
and it might be well to petition your Congress
man in its behalf. Senator Latimer, we observe,
will propose an appropriation of $100,000,000 in
stead of the $20,000,000 suggested by Mr. Brown
low. In the present state of affairs, however,
and we fear that National aid is far in the fu
ture a bond issue by the country seems to be the
most practicable plan of improvement.
We wish you had the rural telephone system,
with telephones all over your county. They put
the farmer into touch with the world, and save
time enough in a month or two to pay their cost
for a year. This idea is gradually spreading into
other sections of the State, but Union is yet the
only county that has a creditable system. The
farmers there combined, put up their own poles,
and now operate their own lines at remarkably
small cost.
Finally, you ought to have a farmers' club of
some kind. Our opinion is that it might best be
a sub-Alliance, for the Alliance is the oldest
farmers' organization; it has profited by the ex
perience and mistakes of the past, and is devoted
exclusively to the improvement of agricultural
conditions. But if you can't organize an Al
liance, start some kind of club for you farmers,
your wives and young folks. There is no surer
way of helping forward the community. Meet at
least once a month twice a month is infinitely
better at your school-house, and work together
in everything that will make your homes bright
er, your community better, yourselves more intel
ligent, and your business more profitable. You
sorely need to come together in this way for
freindly counsel and for social improvement, and
your neighborhood will never be what it might be
until you do have such meetings.
So much for some ways of helping forward
your neighborhood. And every man ought to
have enough neighborhood pride to make him in
terested in these things. There is indeed some
thing radically wrong with you, if you are con
tent to see any other neighborhood have better
roads, better schools, better farms, better postal
facilities, better farming machinery, better
churches and schoolhouses, more newspaper-read
ing farmers, or happier women and children, than
you have in yours. If there are such communi
ties in advance of yours then there is work for
you to do at home. To lift your neighborhood to
higher standards is a nobler form of civic service
than any work your political conventions have
ever done and is indeed one of the highest forms
of Christian activity.
But in this "Old Editorial" we are to bring
matters much nearer home by suggesting some
ways of getting more out oflife for yourself and
your family.
First of all here we direct your attention tc
the need of beautifying, dignifying, your farm.
Give your house the proper setting with liberal
yard room and a good grove of trees in front.
And don't cultivate right around the house where
the yard ought to be; don't sacrifice $5 worth of
beauty and dignity for $1 worth of crops. En
courage your wife and daughters in their efforts
shrubbery, even if it takes a little money. Don't
crowd your barn and outbuildings cloise to the
house, and above all things don't feed the hog
and cattle at the front-gate. If you can afford
it, have a fresh coat of paint put on the build
ings. Pmember, however, that no man is too
poor , to afford a big, ample yard with a grassy
lawn and old-fashioned flowers and plenty of
shade trees, and vines enough to cover up un
sightly buildings and shade the porch. Then you
ought to name your farm, and have its name and
your own name neatly printed on your stationery.
This is businesslike, and will insure greater con
sideration for every letter you write. Some of
these suggestions may not seem exactly appro
priate to this season of the year, but we make
them because you will probably look around dur
ing this leisure season and lay plans for next
year.
Nor should you forget the house itself. If you
can afford ajy needed improvements or enlarge
ments, make them. When we compare the prices
of cotton and tobacco and wheat with prices a
decade ago, it is plain that we ought to have more
beautiful and more serviceable country homes in
1905 than we had in 1895. Make the building as
nearly as possible what it ought to be and then
see that the interior is properly decorated. Sub
stantial, serviceable furniture, some easy chairs
to rest in, some worthy pictures to hang on the
walls, and some musical instruments these
things no farm home should be without. If chil
dren are taught to love good music, good pic
tures and good literature, they will be much more
likely to love the good in manners and morals.
Next, get all the labor-saving machinery you
can use profitably. We North Carolinians have to
compete with machine-using people, and we
shall have to use more of it ourselves. A writer
in the World's Work says it would take all the
farmers in the United States four months in
the year merely to shell the corn crop if it had to
be shelled by hand, as it once did. The scarcity
of labor in North Carolina has now become so
pronounced that the use of better implements and
machinery is imperative. Get the catalogs of
all the prominent manufacturers of farm machin
ery and make your selections. Plows, drills,
planters, cultivators, mowers, reapers, harrows,
etc., mean the saving of many an extra day's labor
by hired hands, and if your f arm is so small that
you cannot afford to buy alone, "go shares" witti
your nearest neighbor for the more costly ma
chinery. Our people must learn the value of co
operation the profitableness as well as the virtue
of bearing one another's burdens.
And while planning for machinery to lighten
your own tasks, don't fail to see what can be done
to make your wife's lot easier. A better stove
might make the cooking much less trying tnls.;
weather; a more, modern sewing machine mign
count for much; and, if there are a sufficient
number of cows, a cream separator should super
sede the old-fashioned dairy methods.
There are one or two other matters we had ex
pected to mention, but to include them in this
ter would make it too lengthy. Besides, we w
probably said more already than you wish to ne
for very few people care to have people sug g
ways of spending money. But bear m miud tn
we haye been speaking of purchases that
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your investment account. And very F rofitDle
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One other suggestion, and we close. - , of
and eacu h
thin the next mon
The vacation habit, withm propei ..AiI
add years to your life and life to your yeai
work and no play makes Jack a dull boroWS uP.
same principle holds good after J ack f
Go away and see how other people live a
and we guarantee that you will get enu 'in o
ble new ideas to compensate you tor