The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-21

| cent was made in the spring, and the reduction was made greater through a | later abandonment of lands already planted, made necessary by floods or by | shifting of laborers. Moreover the season has not been as favorable for l making crop as that of 1s04-1905, which was ideal and which resulted in the heaviest yield of lint per boil of which there is any record. Rains at the wrong time and droughts at other wrong times have wrought their ills, to which have been added the devastation Tn spots of the boll-weevil and the army worm. No top crop is looked for over wide area. and in many sections the earliness or lateness of heavy frost will oSterm1ne the final quantity to be pick ca. These facts explain the wide diversion of estimates of the crop as oeins from 50 per cent to 80 per cent or last years abnormal one.
 Generally speaking, the labor ques- tion does not seem to be as momentous as 1t has been at times in the recent past. Early maturing crops, reduction m acreage, either through natural causes or as result of the policy of using greater amount of fertilizer upon smaller area, stringent quaran- tine regulations preventing the migra- ton of faborers from their homes, of the temporary shifting of many indi-
 
 growers to workers for large planters, has insured in some communities a supply of help sufficient to keep up with the crop. In other neighborhoods, where extensive public works or rail- road constructions are under way, where cotton mills. furnaces and other industries have created competition in prices or where there is any easy &C., cess to ready transportation to North ern cities. the cry of shortage of labor IS the most persistent. This Is the case at many points in the seaboard cotton- growing States and in Alabama and Mississippi, with the addition of com- p1afnts of vagrancv and loafing, with plenty of work offering, on the one hand, and on the other of an independ- ence on the part of short-sighted labor brought about by the general prosper ity in the South of the past few years.
 With exceptions here and there, the cost of picking has tended to ad- vance from 20 per cent to 50 per cent. the total increase, in spite of spots of shortage in the supply of workers, ag- gregating, perhaps, several millions of dollars, which is just so much more ready cash put into circulation, to the direct and indirect advantage of many towns and country districts.
 All along the line, indeed, from wage earners through tenants to pro- prietors. are evidences of betterment Diyersffcation of crops is gaining yearly a stronger and stronger hold upon the farmers, notwithstanding dis couragements of this year in the shape of untimely rains or drouths, and more corn, wheat, oats. peas, potatoes, sugar cane, tobacco, hay, rice, peanuts, peaches and small fruit are placing hundreds of thousands of men in greater independence of the fluctuations of the cotton markets. They are rais- ing not only home supplies of food for their families and their stock, but in many cases have a surplus to sell. Lo- cal banks reflect the prosperity which otherwise appears in new fences, new barns, improved machinery and addi- tions to dwellings. Desposits have doubled in one place within two years. At another deposits have grown from $279,000 in four banks in single county in 1900 to $7s9.00O in seven. two-thirds of which deposits belong to farmers, and from Texas comes one report of a bank with S217,000 on de- posit. with not borrower in sight, so successful has the theory of living at home been put into practice"