The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-21
Lumber Industry Will Clear the Lands. The Claim Made that the soil on which Now stands the stately Pines wim Prove It's AbiIity to
 Grow crops. ~
BY wllI T. sheehan.

By VIII T. sheehan.
 Mares, Nov. 20.-(Staff Correspond ence. )--Across the street, an automo- bile, a big touring car, is standing be- meath a shed. Three telephone wires come out of as many buildings, and are lost to sight in the pine forest. A noisy little engine runs a logging train up and down the timber railroad to Dixie Landing, fifteen miles away. on the Alabama River.
 But for this. the ringing of the tele- phone bill, the whistle and white steam l of the locomotive. the strange newness of the automobile, Maros might be a l pioneer town of 1S10-1S20. It is set | in the heart of the priIneval forest. Around and about 1t are miles and | miles of pine woods, solemn and in- scrutable Atmore and the line of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad is 1 twenty-five miles to the southeast. Maros is not to be found upon the ordi- nary map of Alabama. Upon the big maps 1t is a mere speck down in the remote corner of Monroe County on Little River.
 It is a lumber town, an outpost of civilization, built up within the past few years around the lumber camp Of the Blackshear Lumber Company. 1t Is the capital of one of the richest farm ing strips in the State of Alabama, d strip that stretches through the lower portion of Monroe. the southern portion of Conecuh, and the northern portion of Escambia Counties. with width of fifteen or eighteen miles. and aslength of thirty-five or forty miles.
 The land now is in a primal state. It is barely scared by the axe of the turpentine man and the lumberman, and hardly touched by the blow of the farmer. For the present it might as well be an Indian reservation secured to the red men for their use as hunt ing ground for years to come.
 The opening of this land to agricul- ture. when the timber is cut away is a thing of the future. The timber is Dee ing cut away now, steadily but slowly but there are miles upon miles of it to he moved. Even when 1t is all moved, the opening of this strip of the pine | belt to agriculture is a thing of un- certainty. It Is not that the Govern ment stands in the way or that there | ia any Indian claim to ownership. Cor lporations own the land and corporations have decided that 1t is not to the inter i est of corporate interests to sell the land. even when 1t is bare of timber . The directors of these companies have talked vaguely of disposing of the lands for $2O or $25 an acre.
 twenty-five dollars an acre Tor uh- cleared land in a remote part or the state. twenty-five miles from a ratl- | road ia considered an exorbitant price by prospective buyers. But some day | in A business way, and with some den nite pIan of development, the strip VIII be thrown open to agriculture.
 Rich Agricultural Land.
 l Those that know 1t well say that
 neither the Cherokee strip nor any Gov arnment section of Oklahoma or the
 Indian Territory thrown open to settIe- 1 ment is richer or more productive than 1 these virgin acres in the Alabama plhe belt. The thought is forced home here tbat ali the riches of Alabama that the l future Is to develop, are not mineral nor timber, nor yet commercial. Buried fortunes are in the virgin, fertile acres of the State to be discovered ana se- cured by the blow and the hoe.
 | The thoughtful visitor is impressed 1 bv the dollars and cents possibilities of this section of the pine belt It Is a look into the future with the interest that a play of fancy can bring.
 But more than this and instantly ne Is impressed with the picturesqueness the unusualness of Maros and its sur roundings. They show him Alabama of the pioneer days. He knows what 1 Alabama was when it was territory and William Wyatt Bibb was riding from his Georgia home to become Its Governor.
 Life here is the life of the State when it's was in it's childhood. It is | the lumbermans life, the woodman' life and the life of the remote and lonely farmer. except for the ring of the telephone bell the rattle of the l logging train and the choo. choo of the big automobile. And, yes, there is the mail carrier with the brown overcoat and the bushy whiskers. He is the connecting link between Maros and the Alabama of the twentieth cen tury for he makes a trip to Atmore once a day to bring in the letters and the daily papers
 The roads that lead to Maros, wind and twist through the eternal woods They are the characteristic piney woods roads. hard and firm and Q Iit- tie rough with roots. They are not clear cut nor well marked and the eye Of the unpracticed visitor would go astray in picging out the right road He could not of his own iniative pick