II 
H. G. Hastings & Co., Seedsmen. .Atlanta, Georgia 
BUYING COTTON SEED 
15 MILLION ACRES WASTED EVERY YEAR 
There Is only one reason why you should buy new cotton seed or 
coin or seed of any staple crop that you grow yourself and only one ques¬ 
tion you should ask yourself on that point. The question is—“Will It pay 
me?" 
Getting right down to facts there is mighty littie difference between 
merchants and farmers, much less than most people think. There are some 
merchants In each town and some farmers in each community that are al¬ 
ways ahead of the most of their neighbors in actual possessions, either 
money or property. Leave out those who have accumulated money by 
sharp practices and those who had It left to them by relatives. Whatact- 
ually makes the difference between the standing oi the successful and the 
unsuccessful, either merchant or farmer, these men starting on about an 
even basis? 
Atlanta and every other city has a few large merchants,honest, square 
dealing, progressive, successful men in every way and In almost every case 
they had nothing to start with in the way of money. There are also hun¬ 
dreds of small merchants scattered around the city with small stores no 
larger than they were a dozen years ago. At the start they had just as good 
a chanceasthe big merchant. What makesthe difference? Onethlngonly. 
The man who has grown from a small merchant to a large one took every 
advantage of his opportunities. He wasn’t afraid to do new things, he 
wasn’t afraid to spend money and effort to do things that would make his 
store more attractive to buyers; to give his customers better quality of 
Cast Out That 
Fear or “being afraid” is one of the biggest devils in this world. We 
laugh at the fear of the dark that most children have, we tell them there’s 
nothing in the dark to hurt them and do our best to convince them that 
there is nothing in the dark to hurt them, and that's right for there is 
nothing in the dark to hurt any of them. 
This devil of fear is everywhere and Influences every person to greater 
or less extent. It holds the progress of the world back more than any one 
other inUuence. It’s the devil of fear that keeps the little merchant little 
all his life, it’s the devil of fear that keeps millions of farmers, north, 
south, east and west, from getting ahead instead of making only a living 
and a poor living at that from his farm. It’s the devil of fear that pre¬ 
vents the agricultural production of the South being double what it Is now, 
the fear that it won’t pay to buy a plow that will go d iwn two inches 
deeper; the fear that it won't pay to use 400 pounds of fertilizer where he 
only uses 200 now; the fear that it won’t pay him to spend a dollar or so 
for better seed Instead of using seed of his own growth. We are interested 
in seeds especially, but that devil of fear works just as hard against you 
on using better tools or better stock or better and more fertilizer as it does 
on better seed. The writer has a personal friend who is a cotton grower. 
He is a cotton grower who has made two bales per acre this past year in 
spite of the bad season. We saw him last year at planting time and he said 
goods; to do anything and everything he could to make his store a place 
where people wanted to trade. The man who is the little merchant now 
had a little store a dozen years ago and it's no bigger now than it was at 
the start. He has made a bare living, nothing more, and if he stays in 
business a dozen years more he won’t have any more then than te has 
now. This little merchant is honest and square in his dealings but he 
doesn’t change anything. What was good enough for him a dozen years 
ago is good enough now. He has got in a rut and either can’t or won’t 
exert himself enough to get out of it and try to do as the man who has 
grown to bo the big merchant has done. Ask him why he don’t do this or 
that to improve his store or stock or trade and he will usually say “I am 
afraid it won't pay.” He Is content to stand still while the world moves 
on and in about nine cases out of ten the sheriff levying on his stock 
closes his business life and he has to go to work for somebody else. 
Every farm community showsjust such differences in the life develop¬ 
ment of boys and men who start out with thesame chance In farming. In 
every community there are two classes of farmers, those that are going 
ahead and those that are dropping behind; farmers going ahead improv¬ 
ing their places, putting money in the bank and getting better fixed every 
year. In nine cases out of ten, if you can investigate, you will find that 
these successful farmers are the men who are not afraid to try new things 
in the way of tools and seed, or to use more or better fertilizers to increase 
their yield per acre. Just like the big city merchant who grew up from a 
little merchant he wasn't afraid of new things just because they were new. 
Devil of Fear 
then he expected to make two bales per acre. We asked why? His reply 
was that he was spending half a bale per acre to make two bales per acre 
and he made it. His seed was right, his fertilizing and cultivation was 
right, the season was a long way from being an average one but in spite of 
bad season he made his two bales per acre all right. 
He won out just because he had cast out the devil of fear that it 
wouldn’t pay to spend the price of a half bale of cotton per acre to make 
two bales per acre. As a result he has two bales from every acre he 
planted and the man who had two bales per acre to sell this time is cer¬ 
tainly putting the money in the bank. As a matter of fact our friend 
spent 82.5.00per acre on his cotton and he got back, largely as a result of 
that expenditure, over $150.00 per acre, a clean profit of over 8125.00on 
every acre. Even if cotton had been selling for 10 cents his profit would 
have been $75.00 per acre. The trou ble is that the devil of fear holds most 
of us so far back that we never make over a half bale per acre. Don’t you 
think 1911 is a good year to cast him out? 
We are interested in the seed end of this matter especially. We don’t 
want you to take our word for it entirely for you may think we are preju¬ 
diced in favor of our own seed. That old devil of fear that better seed don't 
pay has got hold of most of us and we want to bring in the testimony of a 
State institution, the Georgia Experiment Station which is Impartial. 
GEORGIA EXPERIMENT STATION SAYS 
“According to a comparison at the Georgia Station for ten years to¬ 
gether it was found that the average value of the total yield of the best 
varieties planted each year was S20.08 per acre lireater than the aver¬ 
age of the total yield of the poorest varieties planted each year of the ten 
years, valuing lint at 10 cents per pound and seed at 80 cents per 100 
pounds. I am quite sure that it would prove profitable for a majority of 
cotton growers to pay from 8'2.00 to $3.00 per bushel for improved seed and 
it would pay some farmers to buy seed at even $5 00 per bushel rather than 
plant an unimproved scrub variety.” (See Bulletin No. 66, Georgia Ex¬ 
periment Station, page 220.) 
Tue Georgia Station isn’t talking about our seed or anybody’s seed in 
partl(Uilar but is giving a ten year average of the best varieties grown as 
against poorest varieties. For ten years there was an average difference 
of $20.08 per acre in favor of the best seed. Figured on the present prices 
oflint and seed the difference would be about830.00 per acre. It has been 
proved in thousands of cases that cotton seed from Hastings doubles the 
yield over common seed without a cent'sdiffeience in cost for cultivation 
and fertilizer. That means j ust this: If fifteen million acres in the South 
were planted in Hastings’ Cotton Seed the present average crop of about 
twelve and a half million bales would be grown on half the presentacre 
age without a cent’s additional cost for cultivation and fertilizer per acre 
If we had seed enough it wouldn’t cost at our price over twenty million 
dollars to plant fifteen million acres and the cost of cultivation of the ex¬ 
tra fifteen million acres saved. Do you realize what that means in money 
and labor, leaving out the first cost of mules or horses? Do you realize 
what it costs the South every year to use the kind of seed that is planted 
on at least twenty-nine out of the thirty million acres of cotton? 
SCRUB SEED COSTS TWO HUNDRED MILLION A YEAR 
That's pretty close to what It figures out that it costs the South every 
year to plant cotton seed that is not up to standard of productiveness. Two 
hundred million dollars is a lot of money. If all the Southern States com¬ 
bined levied a tax amounting to half that there would be a political revol¬ 
ution in a hurry. The old “carpet bag” State governments were examples 
of economy compared with it. It is a tax you saddle yourself with, an un¬ 
necessary,absolutely wasteful tax,no less a tax because the majority don't 
see It. You have your share of it. You ask how we arrive at those figures. 
We know because we are cotton growersas well as you are. If out im¬ 
proved seed makes double the yield that the ordinary seed does, it means 
that the present average crop could be grown on fifteen million acres of 
lanl. It now takes about thirty million acres. If right seed were used 
the crop would be grown on fifteen million acres. If you are going along 
making less than 400 to 500 pounds of lint per acre you are paying your 
share of this “scrub seed tax.” Counting the time actually spent in plow¬ 
ing and cultivation and the fertilizing that the average farmer does the 
cost per acre of cotton is about $16.00. We have cut this down $1.50 per 
acre and made it $13.60 per acre to be safe in our figures. That's the scrub 
seed tax. The average yield of lint per acre is slightly under 200 pounds. 
Y’ou know what your yield per acre is. If it's under 200 pounds per acre 
your seed tax is more than $13.50 per I’cre, if it’s over 200 pounds it’s that 
much less, but $13.50 per acre is the average. If the State of Georgia or 
your ow n State should levy a tax of $13.50 per acre on half your acres in 
cotton you would go after your member of the legislature with a shotgun. 
Yet this is exactly what you are deliberately doing; putting a tax of this 
kind on your shoulders by letting the devils of fear and Indifference hold 
you back from planting your land in seed that has the repeoductivs 
POWER to produce the present crop on half the acreage. Supposing you 
are planting twenty acres in cotton now. Which is best—to spend $12.00 
to $16.00 for seed to plant 10 acres or is it better to save that money and 
spend the time ne.xt summer cultivating twenty acres Instead of ten. 
Remember Ittakes justas much plowing and cultivating to tend and grow 
10 boll plants as it does twenty boll plants. Look at those photographs on 
page & How many barren or near birren plants did you grow in your 
fields last year? Another point is this: Not less than two hundred mil 
lion dollars out of our cotton crop goes north every year for supplies that 
we can just as well grow at home and every dollar’s worth of it and more 
could be grown on these fifteen million acres that are now wasted, the 
direct result of the use of “common seed” usually planted. 
