The Forrest City times., 1897-10-01
ARKANSAS PROGRESS.
The Work or Developing Her Natural
 Resources Has Just Begun.
With Aaditional Railroad Facilities She fromises to Excel Many of the Eastern States As a Manufacturing Gen.
 s In the Near Future.

Few persons realize the changes which have occurred in the south within the past quarter of century. It is doubtful If the southern people them- selves rightly estimate the alterations the southland has undergone since the days of reconstruction. Emerging from the strain of civil war with industrial interests almost destroyed and slaves emancipated, not only the damages of the terrible conflict had to be repaired, but new conditions were to be met. The power of the few families was gone. The influence wielded by the slave holder had vanished Customs and methods which had developed under two centuries were overturned and a people whose habits were fixed, were. by force of circumstances, compelled to begin life anew. Steadily yet quietly the transition from old conditions to new has been accomplished. Patiently the southern people adapted themselves to the new order, by yielding here and conceding there, until the new south today stands upon the business plain of the commercial north, though in the change there is no apparent decay of manners, scholarship or dignity. It may be said that the progress of nations has influenced both sections alike. Every new advance in the arts and sciences has been accepted by the south as readily if not as quickly as by the north. Indeed, the similarity between the people of the two sections is so marked in this respect that the critic who attempts to point out the differ ence finds his task difficult one. By virtue of splendid perseverance and marvellous powers of adaptation, the southern people have made record in the race for development and commer- cial expansion far brighter than they are aware. Twenty-Five years ago the south was crippled, while the comlner- cial north gamboled with ease in full vigor, with unimpaired resources. From an agricultural region operated mainly by slave labor, the south at the close of the war, with diminished resources and productive capacity almost destroyed, and new conditions confronting it, be- gan the struggle of repairing damages, and at the same time competing with the north. It is impossible for people who live in a period of changes to prop erly estimate the importance of that reriod. Therefore the southern people are not conscious of the wonderful trans formation their institutions have expert enced. It is to speak within the bonds of truth to say the success of the south, in development and material progress, has no parallel, and yet the great work is not finished-it is in the early stages.
 Some of Her Resources.
 It IS officially stated that the cotton states have 1S3, 900, 900 acres of forest land embracing every variety of oak, vast regions of pine, cypress, walnut, hickory and other woods, immense quarries of sandstone, granite and marble; phosphate rock in wonderful abundance; mines of coal, iron, zinc and lead close together, and in many places in proximity to fields of cotton-a con dition that exists nowhere else in the world. It may be added, too, that rivers with falls and rapids, affording splendid sites for water power, course through many of these sections, mur- mering complaints, as it were, for being compelled to pass down to the sea with out driving a mill wheel on their way. Passing over the minor agricultural resources of the south, such as grain, vegetables and fruit, which are being increased year by year, it Is interesting to contemplate for moment some of the leading products, such as rice, sugar, molasses and cotton. Last year the sugar produced amounted to almost 730, ,00, 900 pounds, while the output of molasses was 37 ,617, ,065 gallons, and that of rice 16s, ,o55, 40 pounds. But cotton yet leads as the great money producing staple. Last year the cotton crops of the south was 9,s39, ,000 bales, or s2 per cent. of the earth's production, and as stated by a member of congress, Drought more from abroad than all other agricultural products of the coun- try" While the resources of farm and field have steadily increased within the past few years,
 Mills and Factories Have Increased
 more rapidly than the general reader is aware. In all parts of the south success ful efforts have been made to establish manufactories and the result is seen in the fact that manufactured products increased 100 per cent between the year of 1880 and 1890, while the wages of factory hands nearly tripled, as also did the capital invested in cotton man ufacturing. That capital has nearly doubled since 1890, being about s120,- OO0, ,O50 now to S61, ,oo0, 900. In 1880 the cotton seed oil capital was s, 800, 900, and now it is over sS0, ,O00, ,000; in 1880 the south made 3s7 ,00O tons of pig iron and in 1895 it made 1,7O2, ,SS0 tons; in 1890 it's coal output was 6,00o,00 tons, and now it is at the rate of 30, 900, ,0O0. Within two years the south's addition of cot ton spindles has been ss2, TAG and New England's only 671.223, the former be- ing an increase of 39 per cent. and the latter of 5b.