The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-26
A MILLIONAIRE FARMER.
Has Shown What Can be Done Southern Agriculture.

Southern Agriculture.
 Harry Hodgson in The Worlds Work.
 MilIionaires who have won their
 wealth by farming are few, for men are rare who can make a farm an institu- tion. It is therefore not strange that Col. James M. Smith, of Georgia. is considered the most remarkable man in
 the State. He began to grow corn and cotton in oglethorpe County directly after the war. The result of his first
 years work was a loss of $400. Now
 his net earnings are more than $100, ,000
 a year. Yet this Is but one measure of a singularly successful life. For "Col.
 Jim or ''Marse Jim.' as he is affec-
 tionately called. has shown what may
 bo done in Southern agriculture, and
 he has made Smithonla. his farm. a
 monument to an individual kind of
 unusual efficiency.
 His first years farming. on sixty five acres about ten miles from Athens, resulted in a yield of two bales of cot ton and fifty bushels of corn-an un-
 profitable crop, though cotton was then
 worth 42 cents a pound. and corn $2 a bushel. That was in 1866, when the land was depleted and a drought had blighted the crops so that many farm CTS made no attempts to harvest the little that grew. Last year there was produced on his 23,000 acres, much of which is In timber and pasturage. 5000 bales of cotton, 25.00O bushels of corn, 12,000 bushels of wheat, 15,000 bushels of oats. 5000 bushels of cowpeas, 5000 bushels of sweet potatoes, t0,000 bush els of turnips and 800 tons of hay and forage. But this is not all. On his highly diversified farm he raises great
 numbers of hogs. beef cattle, etc, and his dairy turned out last year more | than 20,000 pounds of butter.
 Facts like these tell the story of his achievement. He has wrested prosper Iity from devastation. He Is now GA years old. His life has been one long
 struggle, and the habit of fighting through difficulties has so fixed itself
 upon him that he cannot shake it off
 Though possessed of great fortune. he stlll works as If his very life depended upon 1t. On his front porch. all through the day and often until after midnight Colonel Smith receives couriers with
 re ports from all parts of the farm. and here he gives them his orders to carry back For several years Colonel Smith has received more than $100,000 for his Hint cotton every year. His cotton seed also yields him very large returns. And when other products are to be bought | or sold there are always a number of traders on hand. Large sales of farm supplies of all sorts are made to him at frequent intervals, and in nearly every case the seller has many trips over the country roads before he closes the contract.
 On the farm itself one of the note worthy features of administration is the | treatment accorded his laborers. His are among the freest and happiest la- borers in this country, and yet they are like the ante bellUm slaves in their dependence upon their employer. He directs their work with fatherly kind ness. He keeps them busy and provides them with comfortable homes and colthing. They seldom leave him but stay as his tneants for long terms of years. Colonel Smith maintains on the farm six schools. three for the negroes, three for the white children. During the school season every child Is encour- aged and given every opportunity to attend.
 Another notable feature of Smithonia one finds in Colonel Smiths methods. Some seem wasteful of time and labor. One sometimes sees forty women and children failing seed from amber cane. when two men and a machine could do the work just as well and in much less time. His wheat Is cut with the old fashioned scythe and cradle instead of with the modern reaper. The reason is that no machine has been Invented that | can successfully pick cotton, so that an abundance of negro Iaborers must be kept on hand to pick the crop; Col IoneI Smith employs old-fashioned methods to keep his laborers at hand for picking time. In the interim he must keep them busy.
 | He grows wheat and corn, though Icotton is the main crop. Smithonia, by
 uberaI fertilization and by close per sonal attention, has been made more productive by far than the average cot
 ton farm in Georgia. Two bales an acre are produced on some of the fields lcontaining as much as 100 acres. The leverage crop is about one pale of 50O
 mounds to every two acres. Cotton
 seed. formerly thrown away as worth Hess, has become an important source l of revenue. Colonel Smith was among
 inc first to build in the South q cotton
 seed oil mill and convert his seed into oil and cotton seed meal. He has a fer tilizer plant, and makes about 3,OOC
 tons of fertilizers a year. all of which
 Is used on the farm. He has black.
 smith shop equipped at a cost of 5.O0C and nun by steam, which is kept busy 1 all the time in the necessary repair
 work There are about 800 houses on
 the plantation. The barns are numer- ous and spacious, with every conve- nience. There Is an electric lighting plant. There are corn mills, grist mills
 cotton seed mill, a syrup mill, a wood
 working shop. q buggy repair shop, a system of water works, and, in fact ] everything necessary for so large an l establishment
 F CsOsmfny C0rner