The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-12
LEIGH HUNTS
 EXPERIMENT
WITH FOUR ALABAMA NEGROES IN
 AFRICA.
Says They are Success, Others J"in- ing Them-American Promoters Latest Enterprise Is Cotton
 Growing on Upper Nile.
New York World.

| New York World.
 | There is a field for the edu:ated | American negro in Africa, and he mas
 already found it out. according so | Leigh Hunt, the American business | man and traveller. who arrived her | from abroad last week for a stay ol | several months Mir. Hunt has impoI- | tant mining interests in Corca but ms l latest enterprise is d cotton growhs s experiment in the Soud&n. Last year | he purchased tract of 5O,001 acres or land fer agricultural purposes from l the Soudanese government on the rail road route between Berber and Suaklm and spent the winter there superlh-
 tending the cotton experimsnt ro In an interview with World re- porter in his apartments at the Hol- land House yesterday, MT. Hunt out
 lined an experiment with the American negro in the Soudan quite as interest ing as that of cotton growing.
 Tn the first place. said Mir. Hunt, please don't call me a millionaire or a
 that is what l am. make my home on the, frontier. This city life with It's
 luxuries and confinement would be the
 death of me.
 Now, as regards my bringing Amer
 ican negroes into the Soudan, am re-
 luctant to talk on the subject. some
 Of the stories published about it have
 been absurd. 1 am not fatherinS a colonization scheme nor planning to
 take 10000 negroes to Africa. The clphers were gratuitously added.
 1 lution of our negro problem IS difti- cult one to answer. It is big sub ject and l don't pretend to know what can be accomplished in that way. What
 I do believe Is this, that. given favor able conditions, the educated negro can establish home for himself n tor- eign land and prosper there. TWO inI- portant desiderata in such move are congenial climate and the absence of competition with white men, especially where racial prejudice Is operative: f1a faf hi hal al
 when 1t came time to find men 70 fill position as overseers on my plantation. 1 requested the Rocker Washington Institute at Tuskegee to send me four negroes who had been educated m that
 school. These men came over about a year ago, and l can say that thus far
 there has been no cause for disa opoint- are technically educated men and good workers. They have got along well
 with the Soudanese laborers, and the influence of the Americans on the natives has been the best.
 After being with me some months these men sent for some of their Tus- kegee friends in the South, who Joined them, and there are stilI others ar | ranging to go over. All these are edu- caeed negroes; there are no places for the others.
 T don't say that the educated Amer l ican negro only has to go oyer there
 to conquer. He has a rival in tho
 Egyptian fellaheen. or peasant. It was
  leave Egypt for the Upper Nile. but 1t looks as If this was wrong. If he does take kindly to the Soudan 1t means | that Lord Cromer's dream of the Sou
 dan as the outlet for Egypt will ba IfealiZed.F
 "The Soadan Is not a white mans
 country. That Is one of the points in favor of Ghe negro who goes there. Moreover, the climate seems to Sgree with him excellently. In fact, l am
 now convinced that the ancestors of ! lFva1 nG nNNw Nile region.
 '"The land in the Soudan is wonder fully rich. It is easy for an educated negro, who understand agric uIture, to
 make a home for himself there, and, | If he is industrious, to prosper. If he
 leases more land than he is able to
 natives and thus find himself. in a
 way, a landlord. You might add. too. | that the experience of having men in
 his employ, or dependent on him, is no
 small factor in his success as an emt-
 Speaking of the results obtalaed in
 his Soudanese enterprise Mir. Hunt
 said:
 Our experiments in cotton show a | larger yield per acre than Egypt pro- duces, and as for quality, 1t Is quite equal to the best American product.
 The Egyptian varieties will 10 as well as in Egypt if planted early. But early planting involves the question of water at low Nile, which Is the chief problem of the future. For eight months of the year when the water is running waste l to the sea we are happy, but fcr the balance of the year when the low Nile
 water is needed in Egypt we are in the hands of Providence. However, we have tremendous confidence Tn the way Cromer. Garstin, Wingate and Cecil the big four-do things, and, some
 Tow, we feel they will solve the water problem too.
 '"The railroad connecting She.kh Bar ghut, on the Red Sea, with Damer, on the Nile will nrOb1hlN he cDmIIl1tGd DV the summer of 1906, and then the doors, which have hitherto been closed on that great country. will swing wide
 open for an era of peace and prosper ity."
 MT. Hunt has spent many years in Corea, but has tot been there since be-
 fore the beginning of hostilities be-
 tween Russia and Japan. Speaking of