972 
‘Ih* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 5, 1924 
Things To Think About 
Negro Migration from the 
South; What Effect Will 
It Have? 
It all depends.on the viewpoint. The 
large landlord (most land here is in large 
plantations rented to negro tenants) has 
been getting an abundance of labor, fur¬ 
nishing poor houses and little except dur¬ 
ing the early crop season, when rations 
are furnished. Later the tenant must 
rustle his living by outside work, hauling 
wood, etc. Such landlords want laws 
passed to stop the emigration, and pre¬ 
dict ruination of country. Others not 
so concerned about labor think the immi¬ 
gration a good thing. They argue the 
place of the nego will be filled in time by 
white labor, bettering social conditions 
and helping white schools. 
My own opinion is that the migration 
of 1922 and 1923 is simply a movement 
of surplus labor, like the swarming of 
bees. A lot of bees leave the hive, but 
you will notice there are plenty left. So 
with the negroes; while thousands have 
gone, they were mostly young men. The 
women and children are still here. The 
negro schools were never so crowded as 
now. Labor has always been abundant 
in the South ; too abundant for a working 
white man to make anything, either as a 
laborer or tenant—that is, in the country. 
So far as I can see, few negroes have 
left from the country, but from towns. 
Work became scarce; negro agents came 
from the North, telling stories of high 
wages paid in Northern cities, and many 
went, thinking to make more money. Fea¬ 
ture writers and some so-called negro 
leaders have given all sorts of reasons for 
this migration, such as Jim Crow laws, 
disfranchisement, K. K. K., etc. I am 
sure none of these reasons has taken 
negroes away from, this part of Missis¬ 
sippi. During the present year about as 
many have returned as have left. At 
present we have about as much labor as 
needed. 
Right now we have produced a lot of 
truck crops that are hard to dispose of. 
Some wise (?) men in town who always 
know just how we farmers should man¬ 
age, urged every farmer to plant at least 
■one acre of cabbage and one of tomatoes 
for the early market. They even went to 
a lot of trouble and some expense help¬ 
ing the farmers, both black and white, to 
get started in the trucking business. Re¬ 
sult is that cabbage is rotting in the 
fields, early potatoes unsalable at any 
price, with prospects of an over-supply 
of tomatoes. It sounds very well to talk 
of loading trainloads of truck for North¬ 
ern markets, but when one has gone to a 
lot of expense for plants, seeds, fertilizer, 
cold frames, plant cloth, crates, etc., not 
■to mention labor, and then finds no mar¬ 
ket, or an unprofitable market for his 
crop, it does not look as if more labor 
would help. 
I notice you seem to think we will have 
difficulty in supplying the world with cot¬ 
ton. Don’t worry. Just wait and see 
what we will do this year if favorable 
weather continues. Remember we have 
had three very wet seasons, entirely too 
wet for cotton, but just right for boll 
weevil. Our last good season. 1920, cot¬ 
ton went down to 11c, which is below cost 
of production here. Cotton is not scarce 
and high now. because of shortage of 
labor, but because we simply cannot make 
a fair crop with five or six rains per 
week. 
If you can use the negro in the North, 
keep him ; we have plenty left to produce 
all and more than we can profitably dis¬ 
pose of. Quite a number of tractors are 
being used here for preparing land for 
planting, but the big hoe, the one-mule 
plow and cultivator, are still producing 
the cotton. F. M. R. 
Natchez, Miss. 
What Ails the College and 
Farm Paper? 
[The following letter was written by a 
teacher in an agricultural college who has 
long felt that something is wrong with 
the classroom teaching of agriculture, and 
also with the lecture system. This is 
plain talk, and very likely some of our 
educators may be inclined to talk back.J 
Some time ago I tried to find out what 
was the best farm paper for our Htudents’ 
reading table in our horticultural class¬ 
room. I soon discovered that most farm 
papers were of very little use, and I won¬ 
dered why. It occurred to me that if I 
could find out what was wrong with 
many farm papers I could at the same 
time see what is wrong with our class¬ 
room teaching, and how to improve that 
teaching. 
A circular letter from a Canadian farm 
paper soliciting renewal of subscription 
lately came to me. The letter said, among 
other things: “The farm paper is the 
voice of the farmer.” It announced that 
leading authorities in agricultural work 
had been engaged to write for the paper 
during the coming year. I renewed my 
subscription, and suggested to the editor: 
1. That the farm paper was not the 
voice of the farmer, but rather of the gov¬ 
ernment official. 2. I asked if it would 
not be better to have much of the copy 
provided by farmers who earn their living 
by farming, .rather than by “authorities” 
or “experts” who make their living by ex¬ 
ploiting farming and farmers. It seemed 
■to me that one serious defect in some of 
our farm papers was that attitude of 
writing down, or of talking down, to 
farmers. May that not be the weakness 
of our classroom teaching? Do we teach¬ 
ers attempt to give our students infor¬ 
mation, rather than education, and do 
we not give this information on authority, 
rather than try to have the student work 
out his information for himself? 
With regard to extension work, I hold 
that college teachers should not be expect¬ 
ed to undertake to instruct farmers in the 
art of farming, at least not unless asked 
specifically to do so by the farmers them¬ 
selves. This, no doubt, is part of the 
proper work of the well-edited farm pa¬ 
per. But the college teacher is seldom 
well enough qualified to instruct success¬ 
ful farmers on how to farm. I have been 
under pressure by authorities to attempt 
to do extension work, where such work 
meant merely the peddling of informa¬ 
tion to farmers, which information could. 
I have contended, be better obtained from 
a good farm paper like The R. N.-Y. 
A returned soldier student said to me a 
few years ago: “The best paper you have 
on that reading table is by all odds The 
R. N.-Y.” I have lately sent a bunch of a 
dozen farm papers to a retired editor to 
criticize, and asked him to tell me what 
was the matter with farm papers. I 
quote: “The matter with them is that 
they are produced for the purpose of get¬ 
ting from the farmer, rather than of bene¬ 
fiting him. The publishers want the 
money. The R. N.-Y. is worth the whole 
of them.” I asked a schoolmate of mine, 
who has grown up and succeeded as a 
farmer, why he didn't attend the meeting 
of the Fruit Growers’ Association. He 
said, “I can get more benefit at home 
reading a good farm paper.” He has 
been a subscriber to The R. N.-Y. for 25 
years at least. 
Should not we college teachers leave 
the peculiar field of the farm paper to 
the good farm paper, and confine our ef¬ 
forts to the personal contact with stu¬ 
dents, trying to stimulate them to think 
for themselves, to develop the best char¬ 
acter as citizens, to interest them in their 
occupation and help them to see how they 
can get education and the highest satis¬ 
faction out of their work? Or should we 
try chiefly to give the grown-up farmers 
information about how to make money? 
What About This Heifer? 
One of our readers is a farmer w'ho has 
a large pasture. Now and then he takes 
cattle to board for the Summer. In one 
case, a woman living nearby sent a heifer 
to be boarded in this way. All went well, 
and the heifer prospered. When the cool¬ 
er weather came the heifer was to be sent 
back to the owner. This farmer selected 
the heifer from his herd and sent her back 
to the owner’s barn. The next day the 
heifer was returned, with the claim that 
it was the wrong animal, and not the one 
which was sent originally. The farmer 
and all his family are sure that the right 
heifer was sent back, but the owner will 
not accept her, and she stayed in the 
farmer's barn all Winter. Now, he wants 
to know what he can do about it. How 
can he collect for the board of the heifer 
during the Winter? The owner will not 
accept her, and insists that her own heifer 
has not been returned to her. 
This farmer made two mistakes. In the 
first place he should have marked the 
heifer permanently in some way ho that 
there would be no question about her 
identity. Either tattoo marks in her ear, 
or a metal tag would have settled the 
question beyond doubt. He also erred in 
keeping the heifer after she was brought 
back to his barn. He should have taken 
her right home and left her there—refus¬ 
ing to have her back in his barn. 
Now that the difficulty has arisen, if 
this farmer has proof of the identity of 
the heifer, our advice would be to consult 
a lawyer and have him draw up a legal 
bill of sale. Then publish this and sell 
the heifer and offer the heifer for Hale, 
the proceeds to be applied to the board 
bill, and the balance offered the owner. 
Cases of this kind sometimes arise, and 
they are very troublesome. A solid mark¬ 
ing of the animal when she comes to the 
pasture would prevent trouble of this 
kind. 
Countrywide Situation 
southern potatoes still here ; CROP 
FORECASTERY ; BOOSTING THE BERRY 
GROWERS ; SUMMER APPLES FROM AUS¬ 
TRALIA. 
The southern potato season is reaching 
the height of shipments. Recent prices 
have netted growers little more than cost 
although yield per acre was good. As a 
rule the yield is lighter and the price 
somewhat higher than in the North. It 
is doubtful whether potato growers north 
of Florida show any better average profit 
than those in the Northern States and 
even Florida growers have had some dis¬ 
astrous years when neither yield nor 
price was extremely satisfactory. The 
most common cause of trouble is failure 
to fit the planting to the conditions made 
by the old crop, and the probable demand. 
This year they planted heavily although 
the early reports of heavy plantings 
should have enabled growers in the Caro- 
linas to take warning. 
Old northern potatoes w T ere selling at 
about the same price in June as new 
southern potatoes in markets like Wash¬ 
ington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, fair¬ 
ly near to the southern potato shipping 
sections. After all, the old stock, well 
stored, is better than new potatoes, hiflf 
ripe and car heated. 
NEW STYLE OF FORECASTING CROPS 
A reader has questioned the value of 
crop reports based on “intentions to 
plant.” As explained by officials who 
are responsible for this new type of crop 
estimate, the plan was based on receipt 
of numerous inquiries in late Winter and 
early Spring regarding the outlook for 
certain crops. Usually the writer asks 
wdiether it will pay him to plant this 
crop or to substitute another crop. The 
estimates are intended to give the best 
available information regarding the ex¬ 
tent to which the principal crops will be 
grown the coming season. With such 
reports at hand the grower is not left to 
plan wholly in the dark. By knowing 
something of what other farmers intend 
to do he may plan his operations accord¬ 
ingly. 
During the past three seasons the early 
estimates are believed to have brought 
good results in checking too much en¬ 
thusiasm for some crops that were short 
the season before, and in encouraging the 
planting of some crops that were in dan¬ 
ger of shortage. This season the plant¬ 
ing seems to have been very well bal¬ 
anced according to conditions. Only 1 one 
important crop, sweet potatoes, appears 
to have been greatly overplanted, and 
even in that crop the acreage was cut 
down considerably after intentions were 
published. 
Such reports do not give the advant¬ 
age to speculators but quite the contrary. 
The large dealers get this information 
anyhow by sending out travel agents 
through the principal producing regions. 
They keep the results to themselves, and 
this gives them an advantage over the 
producer. Now the producer has at his 
command much more complete and 
thorough reports than any dealer and 
can trade on even terms. 
TOO MANY BERRIES 
Governments are on the jump to boost 
farmers over hard places. British Co¬ 
lumbia berry growers raised 500 to 1.000 
tons more strawberries than they knew 
what to do with. Then the Provincial 
authorities stepped up with a little loan 
of $100,000 for packing and marketing 
the surplus. This would be $700 a ton 
or $3 a crate for the whole surplus, at 
the most, 1,000 tons. This means that 
the loan pays liberally for the berries, 
and at a higher price than was paid for 
a considerable part of the southern berry 
this season. Berry growers, even more 
than the producers of one season crops, 
are inclined to go to extremes. Just now 
after several years of heavy planting, the 
berry acreage is too extensive for profit. 
As in the past history of the berry crop 
the growers will let up for some years 
until a few seasons of high profits start 
them planting again. These extremes 
may be escaped somewhat by watching 
the Spring reports of acreage and by do¬ 
ing what the majority are not doing in 
regard to new plantings. 
AUSTRALIAN APPLES 
Eastern markets are likely to see Aus¬ 
tralian apples in quantity within a year 
from now. The Australian commissioner 
has been looking over the territory. He 
thinks there is an opening for shipments 
by the Panama Canal in early Summer 
when our native apples are scarce. His 
remarks show plenty of confidence; “So 
far as quality is concerned, our fruit 
need not fear American competition. The 
American product may be good for can¬ 
ning but for fresh fruit it is not in the 
same street,” states the commissioner. 
“Appearance, however, goes far with 
Americans. They are really very strong 
on this point.” 
It may not be so easy. American ap¬ 
ples seemed to be holding their own 
against the Australian fruit in the mar¬ 
kets of Europe in June. As for quality, 
it seems that apples of ordinary varieties, 
picked early and shipped very long dis¬ 
tances. may not arrive in such remark¬ 
able condition in mid-Summer. 
Feed buyers will need to watch the 
markets to get the most value for their 
money. All the grain feeds are cheaper 
than a year ago. Some are selling less 
by $10 a ton. Best cottonseed meal is 
higher than linseed on account of the 
short cotton crop, but linseed is regarded 
as a better and safer feed. Wheat has 
been going up on reports of short crop. 
Bran is low compared with the price of 
hay. Before long hay will be plenty and 
cheap but in the East more dry weather 
is needed to insure quality. G. B. F. 
A Side-delivery Rake at Work on a Western Farm 
FX. 
