The age-herald., 1901-10-29
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE
AIahana,a RIa cotton countles.


 This year the amount of new cotton received at Montgomery to September was 15o bales. as compared to 72f bales last year and e2oo in 1896. For the same period this year Mobile received sl bales against 1Ss last year and 2SST in lse6. Fhese figures show this seasons crop to be very late, while the crop of 1896 was very early.
 Dallas is the greatest of the Alabama counties In the production of cotton and Mobile the smallest; all the sixty-slx counties producing this crop Last year Dallas produced 4s,s5O bales, and Mobile S6O bales. Montgomery follows Dallas very closely with LIES bales and Baldwin with 5o9 bales pushes Mobile for lowest place, hard ahead being the adjoining county of Escambia with $40. The counties producing each more than SG,00O bales are Dallas, 43,S50; Montgomery, 43.lbs; Lown- des, 37,556; Pike s4,76s; Wilcox, 46eo; Ma rengo. S44s7 Chambers, a.127; Bullock, as,12e; Barbour, S2,e22; Sumter. S2,ss4; Perry So,s9o
 It will be observed that there Is diff ference of 32l bales in favor of the white sandy-land county of Pike over the black lime-land county of Marengo; and the hill county of Chambers is only BIO bales behind the Blackbelt county of Wilcox.
 The county of Jefferson. which has about ohe-sixth of the entire taxable values of Alabama and therefore pays about one-sixth Of all the taxes paid by the sixty-six counties, produced last year hut hal .f fp f0f for the state of 1,103, 69O bales The only counties in Alabama that ran below Jeff ferson In cotton production were Bald win, Bibb, Cleburne. Escambia, Franklin, Jackson, Marion. Mobile, Walker, Wash ington and Winston.
 According to the United States census report, from which these figures are quoted and which is reproduced in that ideal and unequalled cotton publication from New York Latham, Alexander & Co.'S Cotton Movement and Fluctua- tions,' the number of round bales pressed in Alabama last year was S4,04s. An Immense Nursery in Alabama.
 There Is one fruit nursery in Madison county tl.at extends over seven hundred acres and is therefore one of the largest nurseries, if not quite the largest, in the world" said Hon. William L. Clay of Huntsville who Is in Birmingham visiting his brother, J. Withers Clay.
 Tn that county there are eight large nurseries. and they all seem to be pros porous. They make Madison the nursery centre of the South, and large as they
  industry that is certain to develop into vast proportions.
 'As evidence of the latent qualities of soil and climate in North Alabama, it may be said that fruit trees produced and budded in the Madison county nurseries grow to height of six to eight feet the first year, That is showing that far surpasses anything else in American nurseries. and 1t is such as that which will make the industry of growing fruit trees one of great importance, especially to Madison county. And Alabamians are beginning to realize that the welfare and prosperity of the State depend upon dI- versiied industries and diversified farm pursuits''
 MT. Clay will remain several days in Birmingham, having come hither for the main purpose of attending the grand op- era performance Wednesday night Signs on New City Hall. high judge and an eminent lawyer were viewing the new City Hall of Birm- ingham, now nearing completion. and making vigorous protests against two signs on what will be a handsome build ing. They referred to the huge metal let ters A. D. MDCCCCI on the Nineteenth street front of the building and the other huge metal letters spelling National Guard on the Fourth avenue front.
 Those grotesque letters of tin or sheet iron on the Nineteenth street front are not only utterly useless but are utterly absurd and ridiculous" said the judge. "The whole thing mould be Imaginable if 1t were not that 1t will tend to bring the city into ridicule in the estimation of vis- itors. Until the other day huge metal let ters about a yard long each spelled City Hall on the front, but the absurdity of it appealed to whoever is responsible and tho unsishtly thing was taken down. But high up wonder giitters in bright new metal that ugly A. D. MDCCCCI, which I suppose they will paint in some bright color.'
 Any stranger seeing the building from Fourth avenue will at once assume 1t to nothing but an armory," tho lawyer said. There is that fiaring unsightly sign Ma tional Guard in hugh metal letters, an en- tirely useless offense against artistic taste and sense of propriety. I take 1t that some one who has been to New York and seen the regimental armories of the National Guard there has made the suggestion that big metal-lettered sign to the effect that the city hall of Birmingham Is an artnory would be high ly effective. In point of fact 1t Is highly ridiculous"
 Much Scarlet Fever In the State.
 There is still great deal of Scarlet Fever in different sections of this state as well as throughout the country, there being probably twenty Alabama counties affected said Dr. W. H. Sanders, State health officer, at the Morris last night "The type of fever in Alabama is mild fr, inc httf ~fu