The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1897-06-10
Bill ARP'S WEEKLY LETTER.
PHILOSOPHER VISITS TENNESSEE
CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION.
MUCH PLEASED AT WHAT He SAW
And Proceeds To Give the Public the
Benefit OF His Observations.
Will Go Again.

teacher. Shakespeare says knowledge
is the wing with which we fly to heaven"
and as heaven is where We all wish to
60, it becomes us to acquire knowledge.
Lord Bacon said "knowledgeis power"
and so it was a day we'll spent, for 1
learned much in one day at the Ten
nessee Centennial-so much that / am
going to return very soon and take
more time and acquire more knowl-
edge. / sometimes think it great
pity that by the time a man becomes
fit to live his time is out and he has to
die. If the old men who have made
good use of their time and talents were
given a new lease-another three score
years and ten, and had the vigor of
their youth restored, what world OF
wisdom would they accumulate. We
would all be Solomons and write pro-
verbs. What farmers We would make;
what inventors; what teachers; what
preachers; what scientists. Maybe
providence cut us down to 20 years
for fear We would learn too much of
His mysteries and once again eat the
fruit from the tree of knowledge
was Eliminating about this while
listening to the earnest discourse of
Colonel Killebrew, who has charge Of
the Nashville, Chattanooga and st.
Louis and the Western and Atlantic
railroad exhibits at the exposition.
Now there is a man who as Paul said
to Timothy magnifies his Office. 1t is
like going to school to hear him e1-
plain and expatiate and philosophize
upon things that ordinarily would at
tract no special attention. If every
man in charge Of a special exhibit had
his enthusiasm the exposition would
not only be q grand success, but
would diffuse more knowledge among
men than any similar display has ever
done.
Now, for instance, when we paused
to look at some tobacco that was hang
ing from the rods he said: ''That to-
bacco grew on very poor land. The
best tobacco always grows on poor
land" Indeed it seems providential
that poor land is good for something.
The sandy, grayelly land of Gran
berry county, in north Georgia, grows
the finest tobacco in the world, and it
commands the highest price. The
soil is not rich enough to give it a
dark color, and hence it is pale and
sickly, and has the consumption, SO to
speak. This tobacco grew upon land
that is so per cent silica-sandy land
poor, white land, as your Barlow
county farmers call it-you have lots
of it down there. I have seen it, and
it can be bought for song, bnt there
is more money in il. than in your val
leys and river bottoms. The sand
that is in Florida soil will make tobac-
CO growing a success there. 1 have
been experimenting in tobacco grow
ing and curing for years, and know
whereof speak. There are thousands
of acres in north Georgia that are just
suited to it, and all those poor white
lands in Cobb county are just waiting
for it. Some of that land along our
railroad that will not grow corn high
enough to shoot an ear or make tas
sci, would grow the most aristocratic
tobacco.
We paused again to look at some
little pyramids of broken rock, and 1
learned that it was phosphate-a re-
cent discovery in counties contiguous
to the railroad. ''There are millions
of it and millions in it, said the col
onel. Gas is usual, these discoveries
we're accidental. Some mineral ex-
perts were prospecting for zinc, and
were at loss to account for these sim
gulsr deposits. They have had them
analyzed, and they are pronounced by
reliable chemists to be the very finest
grade of phosphate rock, running
from GA to IS per cent, and some OF
the strata are twelve feet thick, and
unlerlie thousands of acres. There
are no phosphates in Florida that will
compare with them, and most of it can
be mined with a pick-a single hand
taking out six tons day."
After inspecting many kinds of ores
and minerals such as iron, maganese,
bauxlte, gold, silver, ocnre, corundum,
ETC., much of which was from our
county of Barlow, we were shown the
greatest variety of useful and orna-
mental woods that has ever been ex-
hibited in this country. And also the
variety of farm and garden products is
admirable. Just think of one farmer,
on little plat of twenty-five acres ex-
hibiting seventy-eight specimens that
were grown upon his farm. Seventy.
eight different products, useful for
man or beast. And another man seeds
specimens of sixty different woods that
grow upon his land. Then there are
several hundred botanical pictures of
the flora of Tennessee that were gath
cred and painted and framed by
General Kirby Smith. But it vould
take too much space to describe or