People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — The People’s Bank. [ARTICLE]

The People’s Bank.

That a great many persons, especially farmers, are averse to banks, and bankers’ ways, we are well aware; yo|, there is one system of banking—a system that embraces both features of the production and security of values—that we are sure our farmer friends will endorse, because it is the kind of a system that enables many persons to be their own banker. In one sense every farmer’s corn-crib, hay stack, stock yard and stable are branch banks that contain his valuables, but they are not in that refined and ready converible condition, that the products or contents of the bank that we refer to are.

It is the poultry—the hens on the farm. They are the free coiners. They daily put in to practical operation system of free coinage upon the farm that is of great value to every farmer; and every other person, as well as the farmer, who has fowls, enjoys the benefits of this new system of coinage and banking. The eggs that the hen® poin daily from the table scraps Rod the pick-ups and cast aways on the place are additional income for their keeper, for, where are only a few fowls that require no especial care or feeding, the eggs that the hens lay are Just somuch clear gain. And, so it comes to pass that the large egg basket, lined with cotton or wool, which sits in the pantry or beneath the family bed, is in a literal sense the farmer’s bank. A bank that he frequently draws on for the means with which to buy even the most commonplace necessities of life, when there is no ready sale for other productions of the farm. Eggs represent cash, and they are always salable. Hence, the farmer who has a full egg basket—whose' hens lay well, are healthy and thrifty —has a bank to draw upon when all other sources are closed to him.’ H. B. Geer. Nashville, Tenn.