The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1886-04-28

were shipped daily TO New Orleans,
Mobile, Vicksburg, Memphis, &c, and
the college has never been able to
supply one-ilfth of the demand made
ON ii for butter. BY June the milk of
600 COWS will be handled at the college
creamery. The butter is put OH the
market fresh, and commands a better
price than "Elgin, H., butter" These
crcamerics can be pnt up in Mississippi
at an expense of from $1,000 to 81, 900.
Smaller creamerics are now being put
up at less cost and for individual use,
as scparators are being offered at re-
duccd prices or lower than the De
Lcval. 1t is seen, then, that q cream
cry put up at the college has intro
duccd Il new industry in the State.
Besides the stock feature, so success.
fully and officially demonstrated, the
college is also cuItivatiug large
orchards of fruits. Over 5000 fruit
trees are coming on; twenty acres of
strawberries and other fruits, large
and small, vegetables, &c. The col
legc is literally supported by the
State, receiving from $4,000 to $40,
600 Il year. 1t cannot accommodate
all the students desiring to attend.
The commencement occasions have
usually from 1000 to 5000 visitors
from all portions of the State. 1t is
doing a grand work, and has dcmOn-
strated that Mississippi cal be made
as great a success as II cattle and fruit
State as a cotton State; that food for
cattle grazing and winter food i
cheaper than anywcrc; that the land
that were considered worn out are
splendid grazing lands. Fields that
have not been cultivated for ears are
now being inclo>cd by wire fencing
and herds of cattic put on them. The
ordinary Indian corn, cow pea, sor-
ghum, cane, &c, arc being utilized for
cnsilagc and feed. The ordinary or
native grasses are equal to any other
when GU md handled properly, and
it is entirely unnecessary to introduce
foreign grasses. In fact, the native
grasses arc now awakening to the
tact that if thcy will Just look beyond
n "cotton row. they have a State
which will produce not only what
they have always grown, but almost
everything else, and her capacity for
diversified agriculture and industries
is incXhaustiblc.
Gen. Stephen ID. Lee is a tall, sol
dicrly, handsome man about Tit,
Years old. Trained to military life
and having given To that profession
the earlier years OF his manhood, he
has, since 1863, devoted himself TO the
pcrcciul arts of agriculture. Before
be vas called to the presidency of This
college for or five years ago, Gen. Lee
was IL firm believer in The mournful
old %fallacy that II Southern farmer
could raise nothing but cotton with
profit. lie had seen the lands grad
ua:ly exhausted under this murdcrous
policy and the farmers living from
hand to mouth, never advancing
or accommodating, always at the dis
hcartcning dead level Of %sla@nation and
dependence; yet he uwclt in an atmos-
phcrC of tcalty to this system, and had
not in his experience heard it Qucs-
toned. He was among those, how
ever, who first began 10 impeach its
integrity and TO discuss its overthrow.
The establishment Of the Mississippi
Agricultural and Mechanical College
was the practical result of this move
mcnt. 1t has been in existence only a
few years, but in that brief period it
has shown Mi.siSsippians that their
State is blessed With boundlcss re-
sources; that it offers rich rewards to
every form Of agricultural industry,
and r%cjniccs in a climate Of unsur-
passed hcalthfnlncss. The college farm
has demonstrated the capacity OF the
State for gardening, fruit growing,
stock raising, dairy farming. The
college is turning out every year hun.
drcds of intelligent young men, trained
in all the details of diversified agricul
ture. General Lee has every right tc
be proud of the great work he is con
ducting, and hopeful Of the result, no
only for Mississippi, but for the entire
Southwest.