The Monticellonian., 1895-08-02

that it must come from the natural resources of the state. In this as
 in most everything else Arkansas
 bas kept step with the whole Uui- on. When it is known that the power to tax is limited 10 fixed
 rate by the constitution and that
 nearly all this rate is needed to meet the ordinary county govern ment. you will almost wonder how it can pay any indebtness. The Consultation fixes the entire limit which taxation can go to l2 per cent, and 1 am informed that not a single county has levied the full amount. and that the average rate for the entire state is l 25 per centum. Sill in the last ten years the indebtedness has been reduced
 forty-nine per cent. Compare this with any other southern state and you will readily and wisely conclude that Arkan.as Is one of the best states in the soath. You may ask what do they raise and what grows there with profit, but it would be easier answered if you had asked what didn't grow there. Everybody can raise two crops of potatoes and one acre of potatoes will yield as much as three of cot ton and yet cotton on the poorest soil will yield three fourths of a bale per acre, while on good soil one and half bales is common crop and this at , cents per pound is SIS per acre on the poorest soil and S37 50 on the best. The sweet potato, ribbon or sugar cane, corn, wheat, oats, clover, and in fact all the varieties of tame grain grow there to perfection. The farmer who adopts general diversified farming both as to field crops and live stock with littlo northern energy, stlckto it-and go-ahead activehess, will rot only succeed but prosper beyond his ex- peetation. His outlay or expen- ses is very light. In the north where feed costs from $50 to Sl00 per year, here it costs nothing. In the north you feed your stock from SIX to eight months in Il year, here three months tells the entire time. Clothing is not half so ex- pensiye neither are buildings, for lum Der can be bought for SS per thousand for rough and SIS for dressed and matched lumber. 1 do not think the north fully un- derstands the great advancement that the south has made in educa- ton since the war. Before the war there was no free school and no law to levy tax to support one. Before the war you could count on your fingers all the papers publish ed in the state and now there are about three hundred weekly pa pers; before the war only q few could read and write, but now nearly all, both white and black can do both except those who were too old to attend school since the war. The constitution of Ark ansas in 1874 made public educa- tion by taxation perpetual, so along with the growth of popula- tion and wealth has gone greater development of educational faeili
 ties. The schools in every locali- ty are open alike to rich and poor; although taught in separate schools, the black child has an equal showing with the white one. In Monticello there is graded school for whites and blacks. There is also college for the whites and one for the blacks; so when one graduates from the city school they can step into college and receive classical education if they so desire. Of course the colleges are not closed to anyone from any place that wishes to at tend. The president of the color ed college informed mo that they had two hundred and fifty stud
 ents and that their charges were S5.50 per month for tuition, board and lodging. The white college had over three hundred in attend ance. 1 mention these two col leges not because they are the on- ly ones but because l happen to know these. There were 4463