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WHI IS THE ONE CROP SYSTEM UNSAFE?
A one-crop system is unsafe for seven reasons:
First. Because the system depends upon market and crop condi-
tiolns of the one crop alone. Failure of crop or failure of market alike
bring serious disaster.
Second. Because it does not provide for the maintenance of soil
fertility.
Third. Because it fails to provide for a sufficient live-stock industry
Sto consume the waste products of the farm and make its waste lands
productive.
Fourth. Because it does not provide for a system of farm manage-
ment under which labor, teams, and tools may be used to the fullest
advantage.
Fifth. Because it brings return in cash but once a year instead of
turning the money over more than once a year.
Sixth. Because it does not produce the necessary foods to supply
the people upon the farm and keep them in health and strength.
Seventh. It limits knowledge, narrows citizenship, and does not
foster home building, but does encourage commercial farming.
8n ^ ^ .. A ..




............................. 88, 513 08,000 1 1 6,269,000
1 Second column gives total production of corn for States named above other than Texas and Oklahoma.
As to the production of corn, some of the fluctuations were due
partly to dry weather conditions in western Texas and Oklahoma.
A change has taken place in the past few years in those two States
resulting in the production of millions of bushels of kafir and milo
maize in place of corn. So the second column in the table gives the
total production of corn for the States other than Texas and Qkla-
homa, while the figures for these States are included in all other
columns in the table.
Some of these States have doubled their total production of corn
since 1909; take Mississippi and Alabama for example. The pro-
duction of corn per acre has increased gradually with the total pro-
duction. The quality of the corn has greatly improved. There has
been a great increase also in the planting of other crops, such as
winter legumes, cowpeas, soy beans, velvet beans, and alfalfa:
Improvement in live stock has been slower, but yet significant.
This has not been done all in one year, or by one man, or by one
organization, but by the people and all of the interests cooperating.
_ I _-- 1- I I I J




- v SAFE FARMING.
Now, what is safe farming ? Credit should be given to Prof. R. L.
Bennett, of Paris, Tex., for coining the phrase which we have adopted
tO describe an idea which has been in our minds for many years: I
had been thinking and speaking about the unsafety of the one-crop
system. He came forward with the positive expression of the safety
of this other system, the system which we now call safe farming.
The simple principles are not new. They were not discovered last
year. Many of us have spoken and written about them for years.
They have been outlined by the department in its boll-weevil work
since 1904. They have been established for years.
Safe farming has come to mean to us a very definite thing. It
consists of the simple doctrine of the production of the home supplies;
first, living from the products of the farm and from" the sale or ex-
change of the sundry products other than the main money crop; and
then the production of money crops for the market.
Let me specify the items:
"" 1. A home garden for everfamily on a farm.-From one-tenth of an
acre to one-fourth or one-half an acre, well located, well tilled and
tended as carefully as any other crop on the farm, is what we mean
by a home garden. It must be planted in rotation so as to have con-
tinuous crops, thus providing something for the family table as many
days in the year as possible. To this should be added one-fourth of
an acre of potatoes, either Irish or sweet potatoes, or both, to be used




the time. We should set some standard to which to work. Frr a
tenant farmer not less than one, and preferably two cows; not less
than one and possibly two sows; not less than 25 hens, preferably 56.
A standard for the small-owner farmer would be not less than two
milch cows, not less than two sows, and not less than 50 and prefer-
ably 100 hens. All of this stock should be well tended, well fed, and
properly bred.
6. When the living has been provided grow cotton for the main money
crop.-I have endeavored to lay down general principles rather than
to specify particular crops. For example, in semiarid sections of
Texas and Oklahoma the grain sorghums would naturally be substi-
tuted in place of the corn, and these, together with Sudan grass, would
furnish forage. These same general principles apply to tobacco terri-
tory and rice territory.
South Carolina had more hogs in 1850 than she had in 1910. The
census figures show an almost equally lamentable deficiency in live
stock in some of the other States. If every tenant owned one sow,
if every landholder owned two sows, and provided the sows were
bred and the pigs cared for, the pork production in the South would
be materially increased. If we had the standard indicated for the
production of poultry, it would help also.
THRIFT.
If these things could be done there always would be a few eggs and
chickens, and occasionally a pig or a steer or some grain, hay, or








to the slogan of "Producing the home supplies." Bankers have been ?
at work. You must remember also that the agricultural press and i
the general press of the South have been actively working on this -
subject for 8 or 10 years. School teachers and the school systems of
these States have been a tremendous force in bringing about these
changes. During this same period a large force has been at work
from the Department of Agriculture constantly teaching and demon-
strating these principles. The foundation has been laid. This ac-
counts for the rapid recovery and the -conditions which exist to-day.
Last year the cotton crop was made as cheaply as any crop for a
number of years because minimum credit was asked and granted
and the farmers became more nearly self-supporting than at any time
in the last two decades.
Along the agricultural highway of the South I wish I could get a
banker to stand at every perilous crossing with a sign "Safety first."
We also need a few signs of "Danger" and "Go slow." Some people
have extended into diversification entirely too rapidly. There has
been a lot of poor advice on the subject. Many farmers have lost
money through failure to consider the elements that go to make up
safe farming.
SAFE FARMING.
Now, what is safe farming ? Credit should be given to Prof. R. L.
Bennett, of Paris, Tex., for coining the phrase which we have adopted
to describe an idea which has been in our minds for many years. I
had been thinking and speaking about the unsafety of the one-crop
system. He came forward with the positive expression of the safety
of this other system, the system which we now call safe farming.
The simple principles are not new. They were not discovered last
year. Many of us have spoken and written about them for years.
They have been outlined by the department in its boll-weevil work
since 1904. They have been established for years.
Safe farming has come to mean to us a very definite thing. It
consists of the simple doctrine of the production of the home supplies;
first, living from the products of the farm and from the sale or ex-
change of the sundry products other than the main money crop; and
then the production of money crops for the market.
Let me specify the items:
1. A home garden for every family on a farm.-From one-tenth of an
acre to one-fourth or one-half an acre, well located, well tilled and
Tended as carefully as any other crop on the farm, is what we mean
LI Jnmag alden. It must be wanted in rotation so as to have con-








as food for the family. An acre of sorghum or cane should be pro-
duced to supply the family with sirup. On the subject of gardening,
Bulletins may be obtained from your agricultural colleges and from
the Department of Agriculture.
2. Produce enough corn to last the family and the live stock, with
certainty, for one year, with a little excess for safety.
3. Produce sufficient oats and other small grain to supplement -the
corn as food for a year, with certainty. Remember these small
grains conserve the soil in winter and provide some grazing for live
stock.
4. Produce the hay and forage crops necessary to supply the live
stock on the farm for one year, not forgetting the winter and summer
legumes, which not only produce hay but also enrich the soil.
5. Produce the necessary meat for the family by increased attention
to poultry and hogs. I say poultry and hogs because they can be
increased most rapidly for meat production. Then farmers should
plan gradually to increase, and improve through breeding, the cattle
and other live stock, so as to consume the otherwise waste products
and make our unprofitable or untillable lands productive. Every
family should have at least two cows, so that one can be in milk all
the time. We should set some standard to which to work. For a
tenant farmer not less than one, and preferably two cows; not less
than one and possibly two sows; not less than 25 hens, preferably 50.
A standard for the small-owner farmer would be not less than two
milch cows, not less than two sows, and not less than 50 and prefer-
ably 100 hens. All of this stock should be well tended, well fed, and
properly bred.
6. When the living has been provided grow cotton for the main money
crop.-I have endeavored to lay down general principles rather than
to specify particular crops. For example, in semiarid sections of
Texas and Oklahoma the grain sorghums would naturally be substi-
tuted in place of the corn, and these, together with Sudan grass, would
furnish forage. These same general principles apply to tobacco terri-
tory and rice territory.
South Carolina had more hogs in 1850 than she had in 1910. The
census figures show an almost equally lamentable deficiency in live
stock in some of the other States. If every tenant owned one sow,
if every landholder owned two sows, and provided the sows were
bred and the pigs cared for, the pork production in the South would
be materially increased. If we had the standard indicated for the
production of poultry, it would help also.




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e elHsj teIemoent of re plan of operation for the next
year, or even longer. Has a plan been made is what you ought to
know.
This is not a new principle; it is fairly well recognized. In Europe
before the present war disturbed conditions there, what was the sys-
tem pursued by these ruial credit unions? What did the farmer have
to do when he wanted to get credit in Ireland, or Germany, or in
Denmark? He would go to the rural bank or Credit Union, and
there he not only scheduled his assets and liabilities but he told the
members of the board, who were farmers like himself, what he was
going to do with the money he desired to borrow. He had to show
them he had a plan of operation by which the money could be made
sufficiently productive to repay the loan. So, I say this principle has
full recognition, although I am inclined to believe that it has not.been
pointed out with sufficient definiteness.
When the farmer comes to you, therefore, for credit, he will, of
course, schedule his assets and liabilities.. He will also schedule what
he proposes to do on his farm for the next year. That raises at once
the inquiry: Is this man going to support himself and his family on
the farm? Is this tenant going to provide his own living or-any part of
it ? Is there a proper provision for the needs of the family ? Such
questions should be answered. We need in every territory, and where
types of soil differ, a yardstick or general plan which the banker or
credit man can use with this schedule in determining the relative
number of acres to be devoted to different crops. This guide or rule
should be to you what the one provided by Prof. Bennett was to the




SAFE FARMING AND HEALTH.
Another reason why we need safe farming: We need the production
of a better balanced ration for the people themselves in order to
maintain health and strength. I read recently in the Public Health
Reports of October 22, 1915, an article by Dr. Goldberger on pellagra
and its prevention. This article is a report of tests made by these
authorities on the relation of diet to this disease. After calling
attention to the fact that the diet plays such a large part in the pre-
vention of the disease, he makes these significant recommendations:
1. An increase in the diet of fresh animal and leguminous foods, particularly during
the late winter and spring.
a. Ownership of a milch cow and increase in milk production for home con-
sumption.
Poultry and egg raising for home consumption.
c. Stock raising.
d. Diversification and the cultivation of food crops (including an adequate pea
patch), in order to minimize the disastrous economic effects of a crop
failure and to make food cheaper and more readily available.
e. Making these foods as accessible as possible in the more or less isolated indus-
trial communities by providing markets, particularly butcher shops,
throughout the year.
2. A reduction in the diet of carbohydrates (starchy) foods.
(a) Improve economic conditions; increase wages; reduce unemployment.
(b) Make the other class of foods cheap and readily accessible.
A man can not do efficient work unless body and mind are nour-
ished by the proper foods, and so we have another great reason for
advocating safe farming.




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Issued February 1,1916.

United States Department of Agriculture,
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY-Circular No. 56.


SAFE FARMING.
By BRADFORD KNAPP,
Chief, Ofice of Extension Work in the South, States Relations Service.
Address delivered by the author, Second Annual Conference of Cotton States Bankers, at New Orleans,
La., December 7, 1915.
Southern agriculture has struggled for 50 years under an unsafe
system for which the farmers alone are not entirely responsible.
The business and financial interests of the South must acknowledge
their part in developing this system. In the days before the war, when
transportation facilities were meager, the average southern farm
supported itself and the South was rich because its cotton crop was a
real cash crop, not merely a crop from which to make a living. In
those days the people lived out of the surplus products of the farm.
After the war great changes took place. There were new experiences
which necessitated economic adjustments. The people were in
poverty. Cotton was a sure crop. It was easy to handle under a
tenant system and adapted itself to an advance or credit system of
farming. Hence, when farmers asked for credit, bankers and mer-
chants gave it to them in consideration of a fixed number of acres
of the one crop as security. Thus was established the unsafe system
founded upon cotton credit alone.
DIVERSIFICATION NOT UNDERSTOOD.
It is a good sign when bankers begin to think about agriculture.
The people of the South have had to think on other important ques-
tions and to solve other problems. It is fortunate that they have
come to the time in their history when they can think seriously about
agricultural problems. For 80 years the brainiest men of the South
have talked about diversification. Words of great eloquence have
been spoken about it in past years. Henry W. Grady, of Georgia,
spoke these words:
No one crop will make a people prosperous. If cotton holds the monopoly under
conditions that make other crops impossible, or under allurements that make other
crops exceptional, its domination will be despotism. 'Whenever the greed for a money
crop unbalances the wisdom of husbandry, the money crop is a curse. When it stimu-
lates the general economy of the farm, it is the profit of farming.
23270-16








In another place he says:
To raise cotton and send its princely revenue to the West for supplies, and to the
East for usury, would be misfortune if soil and climate forced such a course. When
both invite independence, to remain in slavery is a crime. To mortgage our farms
in Boston for money with which to buy meat and bread from western cribs and smoke-
houses is folly unspeakable.
The trouble is we do not understand what is meant by diversifica-
tion. The usual definition I find among farmers and business men is
that it means a change. They often think diversification means to
quit raising cotton and raise something else. I asked a man the
other day what he thought was meant by diversification, and he said
"I think it means to quit cotton." I heard of a man in Louisiana
who said he believed in diversification. He quit planting cane and
planted 500 acres of tomatoes. In a large number of instances we
find farmers who have quit growing cotton and had nothing but corn
for sale this fall and thought they were engaged in diversified farm-
ing. As long as this misunderstanding exists, and it will take much
time to correct it, it seems expedient to quit using the word "diver-
sification." As used at present it does not convey our meaning.
Before I discard the word entirely, however, permit me to define the
word "diversification." By "diversification" we mean an agricul-
tural system through which the living for the people upon the farm is
first produced, and then a number of products suited to the soil, the
climate, and the market conditions of the country are judiciously
selected and made the main items of profit through sale in the great
markets of the world, always keeping in mind the necessity of main-
taining the fertility of the soil.
One of the important things we should remember is that while the
value of the crop production per acre in the cotton territory is greater
than that of the rich agricultural Northwest, still the southern farmers
are not as prosperous, comparatively speaking, as their northern
neighbors. The trouble is that cotton is not generally a cash crop;
it is the living crop of the majority of farmers of the cotton territory.
One reason why the farmers of the South have not become rich and
prosperous is because the system of farming has been against them.
They have been farming on an uncertain, speculative system, de-
pendent upon the price of one commodity in the-markets of the world.
LEAN YEARS AND FAT YEARS.
What is the situation now ? Here we are, swinging with the pen-
dulum, just as we have been doing in the South all these years. If
you will look at the production in total bales, and at the value of the
crop for the last 20 or 30 years, you will notice some very remarkable
things. It is not always the big crop that brings the most money.
The crop of 1910 brought more money than the crop of 1911, although
the latter was nearly 4,000,000 bales greater. These conditions have








existed and we have had a series of lean years and fat years, depending
largely upon production and the state of the cotton market.
Then came the war in Europe a year ago last August, and within a
short time we had to market one of the greatest cotton crops in the
history of the country at exceedingly low prices. Then it was that
the farmers and business men of the South keenly realized for the
first time the peril of their present system. The unsafety became
apparent, and you, and the farmers of the South besought the halls
of Congress and all the powers in this country to come and save you.
Had the South been absolutely self-supporting under a system of safe
farming in 1914 she would have suffered financially from the war to
a certain degree, but there would have been no cry of distress in the
land. Had there not been great improvement in southern agricul-
tural conditions in the past 15 years, the distress would have been
infinitely greater. The boll weevil had made the people of Texas
think. It had affected Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,
and Alabama, but the entire South was never so aroused as it was
in the fall of 1914. That year the entire cotton area of the United
States realized the fatal defects of an agricultural system founded
upon one crop.
WHI IS THE ONE CROP SYSTEM UNSAFE?
A one-crop system is unsafe for seven reasons:
First. Because the system depends upon market and crop condi-
tions of the one crop alone. Failure of crop or failure of market alike
bring serious disaster.
Second. Because it does not provide for the maintenance of soil
fertility.
Third. Because it fails to provide for a sufficient live-stock industry
to consume the waste products of the farm and make its waste lands
productive.
Fourth. Because it does not provide for a system of farm manage-
ment under which labor, teams, and tools may be used to the fullest
advantage.
Fifth. Because it brings return in cash but once a year instead of
turning the money over more than once a year.
Sixth. Because it does not produce the necessary foods to supply
the people upon the farm and keep them in health and strength.
Seventh. It limits knowledge, narrows citizenship, and does not
foster home building, but does encourage commercial farming.
AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN THE SOUTH.
The South did a wonderful thing last year; the bankers played an
important part, as they have for a number of years. Great as was
the work of last year, if you have thought it was all done in one
year, then you need to study the figures. If agricultural conditions








in the South a year ago this fall had been the same as they were 10
or 15 years ago the distress would have been immeasurably greater,
and such a recovery as we have seen would have been entirely
impossible. Somebody has been doing some constructive work in
this territory during the past decade. In 1909 the corn production
in South Carolina was about 20,000,000 bushels; Mississippi, less
than 30,000,000 bushels. It did not increase from that yield to
37,000,000 in the one State and 70,000,000 bushels in the other in
one year. Somebody did some work.
Let us examine some of the crop records. I present the following
table, giving the total yield of corn, oats, wheat, and hay in the 11
cotton States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee,
and Texas for the years 1909 to 1915, inclusive:

Bushels of Bushels of Bushels of Bushels of Tons of
corn. corn.1 oats. wheat, hay.

1909........................... 461,536,000 291,755,000 51,847,000 28,622,000 3,108,000
1910 ........................... 664,752,000 43 2, 000 90,577,000 55,120,000 3,428,000
1911........................... 539,136,000 432,898,000 65,506,000 34,619,000 2,611,000
1912........................... 685,333,000 430,155,000 90,659,000 46,829,000 4,295,000
1913...................... ....... 658,252,000 442,802,000 97,237,000 51,009,000 4,214,000
1914............................ 610,851,000 436,051,000 102,685,000 85,188,000 4,577,000
1915........................... 812,883,000 513,908,000 157,714,000 88,842,000 6,269,000
1 Second column gives total production of corn for States named above other than Texas and Oklahoma.

As to the production of corn, some of, the fluctuations were due
partly to dry weather conditions in western Texas and Oklahoma.
A change has taken place in the past few years in those two States
resulting in the production of millions of bushels of kafir and milo
maize in place of corn. So the second column in the table gives the
total production of corn for the States other than Texas and Okla-
homa, while the figures for these States are included in all other
.columns in the table.
Some of these States have doubled their total production of corn
since 1909; take Mississippi and Alabama for example. The pro-
duction of corn per acre has increased gradually with the total pro-
duction. The quality of the corn has greatly improved. There has
been a great increase also in the planting of other crops, such as
winter legumes, cowpeas, soy beans, velvet beans, and alfalfa.
Improvement in live stock has been slower, but yet significant.
This has not been -done all in one year, or by one man, or by one
organization, but by the people and all of the interests cooperating.
The agricultural colleges of these States have been at work, State
departments of agriculture have contributed their share, and the
farmers themselves have done an enormous amount of work which
has not yet been fully appreciated. The Farmers' Union long has
stood for some of these constructive changes, and especially has held







to the slogan of "Producing the home supplies." Bankers have been
at work. You must remember also that the agricultural press and
the general press of the South have been actively working on this
subject for 8 or 10 years. School teachers and the school systems of
these States have been a tremendous force in bringing about these
changes. During this same period a large force has been at work
from the Department of Agriculture constantly teaching and demon-
strating these principles. The foundation has been laid. This ac-
counts for the rapid recovery and the conditions which exist to-day.
Last year the cotton crop was made as cheaply as any crop for a
number of years because minimum credit was asked and granted
and the farmers became more nearly self-supporting than at any time
in the last two decades.
Along the agricultural highway of the South I wish I could get a
banker to stand at every perilous crossing with a sign "Safety first."
We also need a few signs of "Danger" and "Go slow." Some people
have extended into diversification entirely too rapidly. There has
been a lot of poor advice on the subject. Many farmers have lost
money through failure to consider the elements that go to make up
safe farming.
SAFE FARMING.
Now, what is safe farming ? Credit should be given to Prof. R. L.
Bennett, of Paris, Tex., for coining the phrase which we have adopted
to describe an idea which has been in our minds for many years. I
had been thinking and speaking about the unsafety of the one-crop
system. He came forward with the positive expression of the. safety
of this other system, the system which we now call safe farming.
The simple principles are not new. They were not discovered last
year. Many of us have spoken and written about them for years.
They have been outlined by the department in its boll-weevil work
since 1904. They have been established for years.
Safe farming has come to mean to us a very definite thing. It
consists of the simple doctrine of the production of the home supplies;
first, living from the products of the farm and from the sale or ex-
change of the sundry products other than the main money crop; and
then the production of money crops for the market.
Let me specify the items:
1. A home garden for every family on a farm.-From one-tenth of an
acre to one-fourth or one-half an acre, well located, well tilled and
tended as carefully as any other crop on the farm, is what we mean
by a home garden. It must be planted in rotation so as to have con-
tinuous crops, thus providing something for the family table as many
days in the year as possible. To this should be added one-fourth of
an acre of potatoes, either Irish or sweet potatoes, or both, to be used








as food for the family. An acre of sorghum or cane should be pro-
duced to supply the family with sirup. On the subject of gardening,
bulletins may be obtained from your agricultural colleges and from
the Department of Agriculture.
2. Produce enough corn to last the family and the live stock, with
certainty, for one year, with a little excess for safety.
3. Produce sufficient oats and other small grain to supplement the
corn as food for a year, with certainty. Remember these small
grains conserve the soil in winter and provide some grazing for live
stock.
4. Produce the hay and forage crops necessary to supply the live
stock on the farm for one year, not forgetting the winter and summer
legumes, which not only produce hay but also enrich the soil.
5. Produce the necessary meat for the family by increased attention
to poultry and hogs. I say poultry and hogs because they can be
increased most rapidly for meat .production. Then farmers should
plan gradually to increase, and improve through breeding, the cattle
and other live stock, so as to consume the otherwise waste products
and make our unprofitable or untillable lands productive. Every
family should have at least two cows, so that one can be in milk all
the time. We should set some standard to which to work. For a
tenant farmer not less than one, and preferably two cows; not less
than one and possibly two sows; not less than 25 hens, preferably 50.
A standard for the small-owner farmer would be not less than two
milch cows, not less than two sows, and.not less than 50 and prefer-
ably 100 hens. All of this stock should be well tended, well fed, and
properly bred.
6. When the living has been provided grow cotton for the main money
crop.-I have endeavored to lay down general principles rather than
to specify particular crops. For example, in semiarid sections of
Texas and Oklahoma the grain sorghums would naturally be substi-
tuted in place of the corn, and these, together with Sudan grass, would
furnish forage. These same general principles apply to tobacco terri-
tory and rice territory.
South Carolina had more hogs in 1850 than she had in 1910. The
census figures show an almost equally lamentable deficiency in live
stock in some of the other States. If every tenant owned one sow,
if every landholder owned two sows, and provided the sows were
bred and the pigs cared for, the pork production in the South would
be materially increased. If we had the standard indicated for the
production of poultry, it would help also.
THRIFT.
If these things could be done there always would be a few eggs and
chickens, and occasionally a pig or a steer or some grain, hay, or








other product for sale, and out of these sundry surplus products the
running expenses.of the farm could be paid, without literally eating
up the money crop in advance. The thrift and frugality that comes
from a system of safe farming will go far toward changing the present
status of the South.
SAFE FARMING- AND HEALTH.
Another reason why we need safe farming: We need the production
of a better balanced ration for the people themselves in order to
maintain health and strength. I read recently in the Public Health
Reports of October 22, 1915, an article by Dr. Goldberger on pellagra
and its prevention. This article is a report of tests made by these
authorities on the relation of diet to this disease. After calling
attention to the fact that the diet plays such a large part in the pre-
vention of the disease, he makes these significant recommendations:
1. An increase in the diet of fresh animal and leguminous foods, particularly during
the late winter and spring.
a. Ownership of a milch cow and increase in milk production for home con-
sumption.
b. Poultry and egg raising for home consumption.
c. Stock raising.
d. Diversification and the cultivation of food crops (including an adequate pea
patch), in order to minimize the disastrous economic effects of a crop
failure and to make food cheaper and more readily available.
e. Making these foods as accessible as possible in the more or less isolated indus-
trial communities by providing markets, particularly butcher shops,
throughout the year.
2. A reduction in the diet of carbohydrates (starchy) foods.
(a) Improve economic conditions; increase wages; reduce unemployment.
(b) Make the other class of foods cheap and readily accessible.
A man can not do efficient work unless body and mind are nour-
ished by the proper foods, and so we have another great reason for
advocating safe farming.
How are you bankers going to plan to put this program into effect ?
How is the South going to put safe farming into practice ? I propose a
rate sheet or a system of taking down the data regarding a proposed
borrower who has a farm. I first got the idea from Prof. Bennett, of
Texas, who had prepared a rule or guide for the use of bankers in
extending credit to farmers. This sheet is simply a form on which
proper record can be taken regarding the person seeking credit. The
same form can be used in any locality, but in every section it requires a
knowledge of agriculture, or some guide or rule such as that designed
by Prof. Bennett for its proper interpretation.
PLAN OF FARM OPERATIONS ESSENTIAL TO SHORT-TIME FARM CREDIT.
The first essential of any safe system of extending short-time credit
to farmers is a knowledge of the plan of farm operations. When the








merchant comes to you to get credit, what does he do ? He gives
you a schedule of his assets and liabilities. I am certain that you
take into consideration, not only the personal equation of the man
but his business location, his plan, and whether it has succeeded.
Certainly in extending agricultural credit you need, besides assets
and liabilities, the added element of the plan of operation for the next
year, or even longer. Has a plan been made is what you ought to
know.
This is not a new principle; it is fairly well recognized. In Europe
before the present war disturbed conditions there, what was the sys-
tem pursued by these rural credit unions ? What did the farmer have
to do when he wanted to get credit in Ireland, or Germany, or in
Denmark? He would go to the rural bank or Credit Union, and
there he not only scheduled his assets and liabilities but he told the
members of the board, who were farmers like himself, what he was
going to. do with the money he desired to borrow. He had to show
them he had a plan of operation by which the money could be made
sufficiently productive to repay the loan. So, I say this principle has
full recognition, although I am inclined to believe that it has not been
pointed out with sufficient definiteness.
When the farmer comes to you, therefore, for credit, he will, of
course, schedule his assets and liabilities. He will also schedule what
he proposes to do on his farm for the next year. That raises at once
the inquiry: Is this man going to support himself and his family on
the farm? Is this tenant going to provide his own living or any part of
it? Is there a proper provision for the needs of the family ? Such
questions should be answered. We need in every territory, and where
types of soil differ, a yardstick or general plan which the banker or
credit man can use with this schedule in determining the relative
number of acres to be devoted to different crops. This guide or rule
should be to you what the one provided by Prof. Bennett was to the
Texas bankers.
The very fact that a man comes to the bank once a year and writes
a schedule of what he has, what he owns, and what he plans to do,
would be of benefit to him if he had no intention of borrowing a cent.
Too few of us take an annual invoice. It would help in more ways
than one to have such a system used by every banker and every
merchant.
If any of you are interested in going further into this matter, I
submit data for the rate sheet to be used by bankers and merchants
in giving credit to farmers in order to make sure of self-support.
This rate sheet can be put on both sides of a card and filed for refer-
ence. It will help you and especially help the farmer customer to
see what he has and what he plans to do. The form may be imperfect,
but I submit it as a suggestion. The items are as follows:








9

DATA REGARDING BORROWER.
Date ..........................
Name..................................; Address................................
Married..................; Single ...........-..........; Age....................
Number of children at home: Boys..................; Girls .....................
For the purpose of securing credit at the........................................
Bank of............................... .......................... ......
I make the following statement:
1. I own and occupy as a farm the following real estate: ............. .........

Encumbrance against real estate, $... ............... .............
2. I am renting the following described farm land: ..........................

8. My lease is for..........years, ending........................................
4. I own: ..........mules; ..........horses;..........cattle of which..........
are cows.or heifers; ..........head of hogs of which..........are brood sows; ......
..........head of poultry of which..................... are hens.
Encumbrance against live stock, $.........................................
5. My machinery and tools consist of:
............plows; ............ cultivators; ............disks;............harrows;
............mowers; ............rakes- ............ planters: ............ seeders;
..............................etc.
Encumbrance, $......................
6. I have now on hand the following feed, seed, and other supplies:
............bu. corn; ............bu. oats; ...........tons hay; ..............
cottonseed meal; .................... fertilizers; ......... ...- ........... seed;
----------------------....... .......................etc.
7. My plan of farming for the next year is as follows:
(a) I expect to grow the following crops for food of the family and feed for live stock:
.................... acres garden; ................ acres corn; ...................
acres potatoes; ................. acres oats; ................. acres cane; ........
................acres pasture; ............-..........a--cres hay or forage.
(b) I expect to grow the following money crops:
................................acres cotton.

(c) I plan to make my living from my farm as near as I can by growing my own
provisions and selling or exchanging the surplus living crops for necessary provisions.
I plan to save the money crop for a cash sale.
8. Insurance ................................ .. ...............................
9. Amount of loan or credit desired.............................................
10. Purpose of loan..............................................................

Signature................... ........(borrower).
(The character and reputation of the borrower for honesty and promptness should
be given careful consideration by the banker.)
Signature ...............................(banker).







This same form can be used for other purposes than merely that of
determining whether the farmer is going to support himself and
family. Suppose a farmer comes to a bank and wants to borrow
money to put up a silo or to buy five milk cows, four brood sows, or
similar farm property. You want to know whether he has given due
consideration to the proposition and made a plan by which this
investment will increase his income and pay the debt. Possibly he
should not build a silo at all'or he may have no market for the milk.
He may not have a sufficient number of stock. Then, if you do not
know yourself, you would be performing a service to him if you
would direct him to a source of information upon these subjects.
The county agent will gladly advise him; the agricultural colleges
and the experiment stations and the Department of Agriculture will
give him information on these subjects. In North Carolina a trust
company has been operating on this plan of uniting the intelligence
of the banker, the farmer, and the county agent in order to establish
a sound system of rural credit. There are some bankers in other
sections working along similar lines. This year it might be important
to consider the kind or amount of fertilizer to be used in some States,
and this rate sheet could be changed to give that point due consid-
eration
PUT INTO EFFECT THROUGH EDUCATION.
The impression has become current that we would advise you to
refuse credit to farmers except on a certain basis. It can not and
should not be done that way. I would like to see the adoption of a
proper schedule for credit under which would be recorded the plan
the farmer desires to pursue, and then have bankers and merchants
assist in educating farmers to make wise plans which put into prac-
tice this system of safe farming. I know there are conditions where
tenants and poor farmers may not be able to do this at once. If
there has been any compulsion in the past, it has been the bad
system of compelling the farmer, through credit, to raise all cotton
and the failure to give enough attention to the production of the
family living on the farm. We can bring about the necessary change
if we will stick to a consistent program of education, demonstration,
and wise methods of financing.
I am not worried about you men who are in attendance at this
convention. I am not worried about the farmers who would come
to a big farmers' meeting, but I am worried about the bankers,
merchants, and farmers who stay at home. The farmer is not alto-
gether responsible for these conditions. During the past year I have
talked to a good many of them in their homes, on the streets, and
elsewhere. The gist of what many small farmers have to say on
this whole subject is that they believe in a reasonable change which
would make it possible for them to raise the family living on the








farm so far as possible. Many times this is made impossible because
of the basis of credit. The requirements of sources of credit may
hamper the change desired by farmers because of this fixed idea that
cotton is the only safe basis. A credit for mere living expenses
measured by so many dollars for each acre of cotton does not make
safe farming and, in the end, does not make safe banking. You
must take hold of this thing through the power that you have to
change the system of credit, to get hold of those who are not repre-
sented here, to get hold of those who may not be dealing fairly, not
because they intend to be unfair, but because of lack of knowledge.
You must change the banker and the merchant.
In one of the Southern States last fall a planter said to me, "Mr.
Knapp, I make most of the money out of the store on my plantation.
We do not make very much out of the farm." I said to him, "My
friend, if you made a little less out of the store maybe your people
would make more on the plantation." I know a certain section
from which last fall there would have been a 20 to 25 per cent reduc-
tion of the acreage in cotton, but when prices began to go up in the
spring, big landowners and merchants looked up their debtor ten-
ants and financed them on condition that they would grow all cot-
ton, and they did it.
TWO SUGGESTIONS.
Therefore, I desire to make two suggestions.
First. That you ought to conduct a campaign of education and
demonstration to merchants and bankers to get hold of sources of
credit and so change them as to foster safe farming rather than to
discourage it.
Second. I suggest that you carry on a campaign, as consistent and
as well organized as the campaign you have outlined for better ware-
house facilities, to organize for the marketing of surplus products of
the cotton territory. If you will organize to create a system by
which the farmers of these States can properly market the surplus
products which they raise, besides cotton, the South will be able to
solve this problem a great deal quicker than we could otherwise.
It is a serious and difficult matter to get such products onto the
market. Just the other day, in Alabama, a prominent planter in
the black belt told one of our men that he had 10,000 bushels of corn
for market. He had written to three wholesale merchants in the
city of Mobile and could not get an offer on it. At the suggestion
of this man, one of the elevators of Mobile took up the question and
the corn was speedily marketed at good prices.
Right here in Louisiana, last fall, a farmer had a carload of lespe-
deza hay. He said to a county demonstration agent, "I have diver-
sified, but I can not sell my hay." Two days afterward, with very
little trouble, the hay was sold in a town 10 miles distant to a livery








stable owner who was in the habit of buying all his hay in Kansas
and Colorado. In Pulaski County, Ky., the Business Men's Asso-
ciation stopped trying to locate little factories in the town, and are
now trying to serve the farmers. The merchants and bankers there
are assisting farmers in cooperative purchasing of important supplies
by financing them to make cash wholesale purchases. They also are
finding markets for the extra crops of the county, especially those in
the marketing of which the farmers have found difficulty. They are
putting their best endeavor into helping the farmers to become pros-
perous, knowing that they will prosper with them. I commend their
example to you.
A STATE-WIDE MARKET PLAN.
In South Carolina, not much over a year ago, a carload of hogs
could find no market nearer by than Richmond or Baltimore, in spite
of the importation of $20,000,000 worth of pork products per annum
to supply that State. Right here in Louisiana there is a city where
merchants and bankers have employed two men and rented a build-
ing for the purpose of enabling these men to devote their entire time
to the problem of marketing all farm products of the trade territory
of that city, whether they be a dozen eggs or a carload, a few cab-
bages or a carload, one hog or a carload. Another town in this State
is doing almost the same kind of work. Towns and counties in Mis-
sissippi are taking hold of the problem of marketing their surplus.
In Texas a number of county marketing organizations have been
perfected. Bankers of that State have organized for the purpose of
assisting farmers in marketing crops.
In South Carolina certain concentration centers for corn and other
grains have been established. Business men have been interested to
provide machinery for cleaning and sacking the grain and putting it
in proper standard form for market. Railroads are cooperating in
establishing these centers. In that State they also are organizing a
system of creameries, well located and properly supervised, to pro-
duce a standard brand of butter, something after the Danish system.
The business men are helping in this movement. In South Carolina
they have grasped one of the great fundamental principles of mar-
keting-that of concentration or assembling of products into bulk
for market. In one town farmers brought in this fall about 500 bales
of cotton, graded, sampled, and sorted by an expert. This cotton
was sold direct to mills at a price above the local market. They also
are working out a system of concentration markets for live stock, at
which buyers from the northern centers are coming to make purchases
in the presence of the men who produce the stock. These are but a
few examples of the many things which are being done. If they only
could be multiplied greatly, so that business men would awake to
their opportunity of serving the farmers, it would be quite the biggest
piece of work to which you could devote your time and energy.








There is one other point I think I should mention. Long before
you gentlemen became interested other people had been working to
make the South into a safer agricultural region. The Farmers' Union
for years has advocated "living at home" as one of its principles, and
before that the Farmers' Union Alliance advocated the same thing.
Farmers have been thinking along these lines for many years, and
numbers of them have made great progress. Many of us have been
talking on this subject in season and out, when it was popular, when
it was unpopular. Had not there been an effective educational cam-
paign of many years' duration the results would not be here to show.
AGRICULTURAL DEMONSTRATION AND EXTENSION WORK.
The South has had the privilege of setting a pattern for the rest of
the country. It has helped inaugurate this great system of education
by demonstration. Six hundred and ninety-three counties in the South
have county agents to-day. Their work has grown from a smallbegin-
ning in 1904 to one of the most extensive organizations in the country.
This same work has now spread into other sections of the country.
In the other 33 States there are 400 county agents at this time.
We have in the South, also, the largest organization for helping
women .and girls upon the farm that there is in the world. Three
hundred and sixty women county agents help to solve these very
problems we are talking about. To-day there are practically 1,200
people traveling on foot, in buggies, on horseback, in automobiles up
and down the rural roads taking this very doctrine and these very
fundamental principles to the farmers of these States, and illustrating
them through demonstrations. Last year these workers traveled, in
various ways, 1,995,000 miles. They carried on specific demonstra-
tions on 105,000 farms. They taught 60,000 boys and 40,000 girls.
They have interested 10,000 homes in household improvement. They
have held field meetings, attended by 750,000 rural people; They
have helped to organize between 500 and 1,000 farm communities to
study their farm problems. They have given advice and assistance in
cooperative purchasing of 430,000 tons of fertilizer. These agents
have assisted farmers to put in at least 250,000 acres of crimson clover,
100,000 acres of bur clover, and 500,000 acres of summer legumes.
They conducted a vigorous campaign of demonstration in winter oats
and wheat in conjunction with other forces, resulting in a large
increase of acreage. Some 130,000 improved farm implements and
13,000 head of pure-bred stock were purchased by farmers at their
suggestion. They inoculated 117,000 hogs with anti-hog-cholera
serum, built 2,111 dipping vats, and vaccinated 25,988 head of stock
for blackleg and other diseases.
I could tell you of other things they have helped to do. None of
these could be accomplished had it not been for the united effort of
all forces engaged in agricultural work in the South. We are chiefly
concerned about results, not about credit.








Can we not bring ourselves to see that the safety and security of this
program of safe farming is the right course, is good business, is good
farming, good, safe banking, no matter what may happen? Last
year it was important that the country feed itself because of the low
price of cotton. It is just as important now. No one knows what
will be the price of cotton next year.
I have but one thought in conclusion. This is a time of uncer-
tainty in more ways than one. The future is obscure. Sometimes
it seems to me that the fiber of every man's being must be vibrant
with the consciousness of this uncertainty. We hear much these
days of "preparedness." Does preparedness mean only that we
shall have men trained to fight, and ammunition and arms with
which to act? It seem to me, no. Preparedness surely means
men of education, men of vigor, of health, of strength, self-reliant,
free. Preparedness means another thing. It means a country
ready, secure, safe; a country that in an emergency need not wait
for an educational campaign, but in the emergency can support
itself. Let us set the house in order; let us do our plain duty. If
this great stretch of country through these cotton States can change
its system and adopt a plan by which every farmer supports himself
and family upon his own farm first, and produces a surplus for the
support of these towns and cities, it will be a great accomplishment,
and we will have established one of the foundation essentials of true
preparedness. We will then be safe. Such a course ministers to
our fellowmen and is likewise a national necessity. With demon-
stration, with education, with cooperation, it can be done.


WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1916