The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-30
BY WILL T STEPHAN.

ed that each year gives assurance of a certain income of profit, is the place of William c. Thomas, in the county of Chambers three miles from the town of Gold Hill.
 Even as some years past enterprising merchants in expanding their business conceived the idea and established the department store, so has the farm of Mr. Thomas grown until it bears the comparison to the average farm of Alabama as a city department store bears to the average store of the State. The industry. The close attention to detail which has made possible the de- partment store with its increased pro- fits have built up the department farm of MT. Thomas, on the hills of Cham bers County. As a demonstration as an exhibit of what can be done through diversified farming the Thomas farm has its own peculiar value.
 When farmers are seeking a way to escape the tyrranical domination of cotton, that which can give them the most certain and assured way of escape are such farms as the one over which Mr Thomas presides. Take the single item of butter for instance, he sells 6 900 pounds of the finest Jersey but ter each year. He has found that raising stock in Alabama is most profitable. There is no trouble to raise Alabama horses and Alabama mules and no trouble to sell them at a considerable profit. The two items of mules and horses each year brings into the Thomas farm no small considera- tion of profits.
 He has, too, a herd of sheep. For there is always an open and satisfacto- ry market for sheep and wool. Hogs of the Berkshire breed are raised by the score each year. His barnyards are covered with feeding chickens of the finest quality and the partiality in which they are held is loudly protested by an insistent flock of Hong Kong geese.
 The staple crops are by no means ignored The farm is not run as an experiment or a demonstration. It is run to make money and which is more important after all for the making of a home. This Chambers County farm produces each year between sixty and seventy-fv bales of cotton, but as has been mentioned before cotton is not the farm king. Equally as much land Is put in corn as In cotton. The corn, however. is not offered for sale. There are so much cattle and stock on hand that all the forage and feed produced are demanded by the inhabitants of the two immense barns on the place.
 The land on which the Thomas farm is located is typical of Chambers Coun- ty and of East Alabama. It Is upon series of hills whose formation is. mostly red clay. The hills wash badly, that is they wash badly on most of the farms There are terraces on the Thomas farm intelligently and scienti- fically made and therefore there is no washing away of the red hill sides.
 It's Early Settlement.
 There be many farms. whereabouts, which are fn direct contrast to the one of which I write. This Is an old sec tion as sections go in Alabama. It was settled in the neighborhood of 1S40 by the wealthy Georgia emigrants who came in when the Indians had been eX- pelled. From that early day until now these Chambers County farms have been cultivated. And on many of these hillsides there are gashes and gullies, where the farmer lets the rain water have its own sway and run It's own course To some farmers these farms with the gashed hillsides would offer anything but an inviting prospect, but appearances would be deceptible for all that is needed to make them model farms is the care, the attention and the intelligence that William c. Thomas has brought to bear in the up- building of his own farm. All the land, in this section of Chambers is stiff, strong and promising.
 In the whole section no farm has had a longer continued term of usefulness than has that of Mir. Thomas. No farm has had steadier or more continued de- mands made upon 1t. For three gen erations the same family have lived and prospered upon this Chambers County farm, and beyond doubt it is today in higher state of fertility, 1t gives forth richer returns than at any time in it's previous history.
 In liam C. Thomas came to the farm and settled 1t in the early forties. In own ership he was followed in turn by hlS son and his grandson, and throughout all the years the farm was productive and remunerative. The families oE each succeeding generation lived in ease and comfort in the fine old home upon the hill. When the boys and girls came to the appropriate age there was always money enough coming from the farm to send them to college although the time has come more than once when four or five were in college at the same time. The home has always been a home of culture, of education and of information.
 MT. Thomas, the present owner, has eight children, all of whom has been given or are being given, college edu- cation. And every dollar that has gone to the colleges for the education of the sons and daughters or tHlS nome came from the red hill sides of the farm. What is best in the Southern country home is typified in such homes as these, the strength the culture and the moral tone which has so greatly contributed to the strong character of the country youths have gone to the city and made them great.
 Home on the Hill.
 Mir. Thomas throughout his life has been held in the high esteem of his neighbors. He Is now and has been before this a representative of Cham bers County in the Alabama Legisla- ture. His eldest son is a Judge of the City Court of Montgomery, Hon. Will liam II. Thomas Another son, c. F. Thomas. is a leading business man of PrattviIle, and one of the most progress sive citizens of Autauga County. The third son is J. R. Thomas, practicing attorney of Prattville, and the fourth pr. M. D. Thomas, is a physician prac- ticing in the hospitals of New York City. The fifth son is still in school The names of these sons that have gone out in the world are recounted here for no other reason than to drive home the point that the greatest, the most val uable environment boy can have to eduip him for a struggle with the world is that furnished by a cultured and religious country home.
 The Thomas place consists of 1900 acres. For the large stockholding in terests of MT. Thomas, one-third of it is given over to pasturage. Another third is devoted to corn and forage crops, with the remaining third put in
 to cotton. The home sits upon high