The age-herald., 1898-10-26
STATES GRAND EXAMPLE
The Staple Raised and Turned Into
 the Finished Product.
WHOLESOME PREcEPTs OF THRIFT
Some Figures Presented Which Will Be of Interest to Those Who Are Engaged in Raising and
 Manufacturing Cotton.

Speigners, Fillmore County. October 22.- Especially )-This little village of the level land, some twenty white cottages in a grove of oaks, fifteen miles out from Mont gomery, on the Louisville and Nashville road, is the shipping point and postoffice of Prison No. g. in the official parlance of the Convict Bureau of Alabama.
 mile to the east is the big farm where Alabama in concrete is teaching her indi- vidual cotton farmers some wholesome les sons in economy and thrift, and will teach more as time proceeds, under the present management. They produce 500 bales of cotton on this Alabama plantation, worth bare gross sum on the Montgomery mar ket of $l2,o ,ov0. There is on the place plain brick cotton factory, one-story building, thoroughly ventilated and lighted. The cot ton is all turned into jeans, sheetings and shirtings at the factory. What is the re- suit? At cents a yard the 75O,t00 yards of textiles jumps the value of the cotton crop up to $S7, 300. The cotton farmer must market textiles, not cotton bales.
 There is nothing at all in this estimated gain of s25,0O0 on the crop except the incl dent of brains at work. Under one shed is the seed cotton worth much; under
 
 more; under the third shelter is the baled textiles, worth about five times as much as the primitive seed cotton. That is the process, and no more. It is farming that pays
 Fifteen miles out from Birmingham, on Turkey creek, there is a pubic ginnery run by water power. They turn out about 5O0 bales of cotton year from it., all mar keted in Birmingham, and worth now not a dollar more than $12,5O0 What is the states example worth to Hagood's beat? Iwenty-nve thousand dollars year, if needed. The farmers out there have plenty ol timber, plenty of stone and plenty of time. They can organize a stock combariy and with their own material and their time build, in one summer, a factory annex to the ginnery. They and their families pro. duce the cotton and the same labor can mill the cotton. The market is open for all the jeans, sheetings and shirtings they can pace on 1t. They can raise the value of their cotton from cents to l5 cents and not miss the labor or the material involved m the process. AS to machinery, there is an abundance of it for sale on time. The factory, already built, which needs machin- cry. can get it.
 Our cotton farmers really support the cotton mill hands of New England and Old England. They can't afford it.
 
 The man of today so lucky as to have been born and reared on a cotton planta- ton ot that other day. will find at Speig- ners reminder of things that were clean. fat and happy in the time of his youth. The prospect taken in from the center of the estate Is like unto no other prospect. One thousand acres of growing cotton as tall as man, rising with the ascending nlll and falling with the slope in unbroken symmetry and grace of nature the medita- tive mule, changeless and ineyitable: the unreconstructed and happy field hand; the Whlrr Of the gin, the bay of the hounds the signs of plenty and the fact of peace hang around in bulk which seems to lay claim to a glorious genealogy. True, the guest of Assistant Warden Jones and Dr. Huddles- ton resident physician, is invited to a neat board, Where prompt attendants, fried chicken, hot hominy, fresh milk and soft boiled eggs are calculated to inspire an optimistic view of this miniature of blessed institutions that were and are not, So much for the state. The guest falls to sleep as the big fire begins to crumbIe at the hour of proverbial virtue and at the first faint sign of dawn his never-bolted chamber door opens softly from without, a servant of the state enters on tip-toe bear ing an armful of logs and lightwood knots to start the hearthstone aglow again. Everybody is astir. Long lines of field hands are marching out from their break fast hall. Some go to cut and haul in the sorghum to the mill, some to pick cotton some to the blacksmith and wheelwrient's shops, others are left to the daily sweeping of the acres of white sand yards around the buildings. have seen no signs of cruelty or even harshness of control Ever and anon manager speaks to one of the hands; the hand lifts his hat in expectant attitude; the order is given and instantly obeyed with the confidence of a soldier on parade. Undoubtedly very large majority