The age-herald., 1900-10-11

infinitely its superior-a system whose present achievement challenges the admi- ration of the world and almost bewllders the imagination in it's possibilities of wealth-making and power
 Prior to 1850 the American cotton crop had never reached 100000 bales, and under slave labor it's maximum was but a trifie above 4,500,000 bales. Only fifteen years after the planters had stepped from the rifle trenches into the furrows they had nearly doubled the average crop of ante belllum days since then they have trebled it, and more; and to predict that this gen eration may see it decreased six-fold Is in nowise extravagant. The OOO0.OO0 and more a year that the South has been talk ing in exchange for her raw cotton has been making her rich meanwhile, because she has learned how to raise or manufae- ture at home most of the supplies, the tools and the machinery that go into the making of the crop.
 self-confdent and strong in her awak- ened energy the New South sent out an early challenge to the spinners of New England, and last year her own cotton mills consumed almost 1,600,000 bales of the crop-only 7OO,OOO less than the mills in the rest of the country turned into manufac- tured fabrics, and an increase of about 2Q0,000 bales over her mill consumption of the previous year.
 To the ironmakers of Pennsylavina, too, there went out a challenge, and today the furnaces of Alabama and the other States of the Middle South are shipping the metal across the ocean and fast mak- ing Birmingham, Anniston and Chatta- ncoga as well known in Europe as Pitts burg.
 The New South mines her own coal for manufacturing, railway and domestic pur- poses In her own forests she fells most of the timber that goes into the construc- tion of her mills, bridges, warehouses, business structures churches, scnoolhouses and homes, and sells the surplus not only all over the United States, but in nearly every foreign port within the belt of civili- zation. Her fruits and vegetables have made this country and the Canadas almost forget that there are changing seasons From beneath her soil crust and from the beds of her rivers she digs out the phos- phates that go to enrich her own broad acres, while the reslduum finds it's way over the world to form tho basis of all commercial fertilizers. Her wool producers are already ambitious to share the crown with King Cotton. In the past two de- cades the New South has extended the former borders of her tobacco fields hun dreds of miles toward the Gulf; has added millions of pounds to their annual product, and in the superlative quality of her cigars
 
 Queen of the Antilles. Her turpentine and naval stores add yearly to her wealth. She has learned the art of the Northern ship wright-builds merchantmen or battleships on call even as far down as Florida the launching of an iron hull has ceased to be a novelty. And her former oligarchs have harnessed her wanton water powers and are fast making them the slaves of the New south's throbbing industrial life.
 Better than all, the New South has since 1865 expended over s40O.oOO,0OO in the public education of her children, white and black alike, although the latter class, while pay ing less than one-twentieth of the taxes, gets almost half the benefit of the fund
 An ideal climate, combining the best of the temperate and the tropical zones, is Hot oHiy sdiuprlouS dhu restoraliFe, put with fertile soil, yields to the husband man almost every product of both There ''by night the cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the sunshine in its beared sheaf. In the same field the clover steals the fragrance of the wind, and the tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains.'
 Of this amazing system of industries, built up in a third of a century from the ashes and desolation of the Old South, the world should know more.