The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-12-06
SOUTHERN PROGRESS
RICHARD H. EDMoNDS IN MANUFACTURERS RECORD.
Rice in Louisiana, Oil in Texas, Coal in Alabama and Copper in North Carolina and Tennes-
 see Cause Prosperity.

Baltimore, Dec. 5.-(special. .)-summar- izing the results of observations made ir a rapid trip from Maryland to Texas. Mir. Richard H. Edmonds writes in this weeks Manufacturing Record as follows;
 "The story of rice and of the develop ment which has followed rice growing in Louisiana and Texas, illustrates very strc ngly the growth and advancement seen throughout the South. Rice Is rev olutionizing southwest Louisiana and making a garden spot of a hitherto bar len region, oil IS creating new condi- tions in Texas, iron and coal are hnaily being handled on such basis as to give to Alabama in the near future its right Iul position in the iron and steel devel- opment of the world, copper mining in forth Carolina and Tennessee is opening up vast source of wealth, and so, in every part of the South, progress is the order of the day. In one place 1t is cotton manufacturing, in another coal mining. in another numbering. in another furniture making, somewhere else truck or fruit growing, but everywhere there is advancement"
 He recalls the persistent efforts made fifteen years ago by an Iowa Farmer, s. L. Cary, to develop rice growing in Louisiana, and says:
 ''Crowley Is now a town of 1000 or 5000 people. with eight rice mills. hand ling last year business Of about S3,- 00.00o. and 25,O0o Western people are set tied in that district. Rice growing, al- though but in its infancy. has enhanced the value of the land from 25 cents an acre fifteen years ago to $Io ana $So an acre at present What has been done in Southwest Louisiana Is now being done in Texas where new districts equal ly as promising for rice growing are be. ing opened up. Around Beaumont and in other parts of that territory there is great influx of Western settlers who ind in rice growing a yield of $40. s'O S6o and sometimes s80 an acre against any where from $10 to SIP an acre on the wheat of the Vest
 Referring to the oil development around Beaumont, Mi. Edmonds says:
 The work which has been accomp" lished in the actual development or that district in the building. of pipe lines and tanks, and the erection of market for oil, has probably never been surpassed in this country, or in any other, in the tread and conprehensive opening up or any new district in Cil or in any min eral development. Yet up to the pres ont time all of this has been but the rr eliminsry stage in the real progress making a worldwide market and ere ating facilities commensurate with the output of the oil wells of Texas, soon to be followed, judging by all reports that have been made, by oil wells or L. uisiana and Alabama. This stretch or territory along the Gulf promises to be not cnly the greatest source of oil sup ply in the world, but likewise the center for natural gas rivalling, If not surpass- ing the natural gas fields ot Indiana; and for salt works and other lndustrlal interests Cn an equally broad scale. For a long time that section of the South looked with a jealous eye upon the de- velopment of the coal aud iron districts and the people along the Gulf Coast seem+d d to think that the Piedmont and mo untain regions of the South has been more favored by nature. Rut 1t is now an open question if the gulf coast oi the South has not potentialities equally as great as the richest of its coal ana iron districts"
 On his trip MT. Edmonds met one of the foremost iron men of the United States thoroughly familiar with Iron and steel conditions of Pennsylvania, with Lake Superior mining interests and T!th the iron and coal conditions in the South. who, being asked for his impressions or with special reference to Alabama, said:
 Alabama has all of the advantages which have been claimed for 1t. It has advantages which will make 1t possible fot iron to be made in the State at a lower st than in any other place known of in the world; but the iron people or the South have not Kept up with the progress of the iron industry in the North. Fifteen years ago the furnace business and the furnace practice Of the South were on a par with that or the North. but for various causes, needless to explain in detail the South has made but little improvement, either in the con struction of it's furnaces, or in furnace practice during the last fifteen years, while the North and West have revolu- tionized their iron making conditions. In cotton manufacturing 1t Is generally re- cognized that Southern mills are today the best in the world. They have the latest ard best equipment. and in that respect are in advance of the best mills