The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-25

orders had to be constructed. The brill liancy, the wealth. of the old planta- tion ti life disappeared. but the planta- Free labor replaced the slave. and the share system took the place of the feudal order on the Black Belt planta- tions.
 But cotton was ever king. The Mid dle Alabama lands are the chosen acres for cotton growing. From the beginning 1t would seem that they were set apart for the negro, the mule and the fieecy or not such was their destiny.
 New system.
 And now for forty years since the war they have, these old plantations o frich and fertile acres. been devoted governed by and made subordinate to cotton. Such was the reward of the black lands for their unfailing fertility. They were the finest cotton lands of the South and why should they not be made to grow cotton?
 Their availability, their adaptability for other crops were lost sight of or
 ignored, That they were the best they were for this and other reasons splendidly adapted for stock growing was given no more serious considera- tion. As for fruit growing, dairying and truck farming. these were indus tries that were apparently foreign to the Black Belt, and of them 1t seemed, the Black Belt was not to know.
 Were not the lands practically in destructible7 Were they not rich in lime and phosphate properties. which replenished the land from the inroads made upon it by perennial cotton crops? And being so naturally rich. and hay ing the valuable property of replenish- ing its own losses. why should 1t not have been used for cotton?
 That the same lands would be equally valuable devoted to other crops the same course of reasoning should have, but did not show.
 Such are the lands with which the local land and immigration company began business.
 its movement was logical. It came naturally as a result of an inevitable change, an inevitable development The free negro labor system. the share and the wages system a hsSe sS in recepS years ears manent order can be constructed with the negro as factor He is. if he is anything, changeable and irresponsible. tural South. was wrenched and torn by the abolition of slavery.
 Upon the work of It's former system the agricultural south slowly and painfully & built uP ,i the ,ssro new order wss Q. pass through it's inevitable changes.
 That which has had the most per- manSnI anu HdTASu eicCt hPOH nOW lever, has been the exodus of the negro from the farms and plantations to the lumber and the turpentine camps, to the mines and to the factories of the min eral district and to the towns and cities of Alabama. The labor question is an acute one, a serious one right now on the plantations of the Black Belt.
 Another important phase of this question presents itself. Another im- portant condition has made itself mani lest and it bears upon the new move ment of the sale to immigrants of some sons of the old families and part owners of the old places have moved to the cities to find a field richer in oppor-
 tunities. They are practicing law. medicine or dentistry or they are in stores or business offices, in preference to the uncertainty and the worry of running farms and plantations with negro labor. They are willing to sell the acres of the old plantations if the inducements are sufficient.
 The Property Change And so 1t came about that the fertile cotton lands. the fertile lands that are fered to immigrants at very low figure. And the conditions, which are here outlined at the length justified by the importance of the movement resulted in a radical innovation in the buying and the selling of the Black Belt cotton plantations. And wherefore the Selma Land and Immigration Company came into being l under which are apparently very aus picious circumstances. And for these l same reasons that are set forth here