Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-01-11
THURSDAY, JANUARY il, 1906.
THE BIG PLANTATIONS DOOMED.

Tn the delta. where the large plan- tati0ns still obtains, relying for us cultivation exclusively upon negro la bor. the immigration problem is, per haps. more acute than with ns; hence MT. Charles Scott's visit to Europe last summer in this behalf. He went to inquire into the adaptability Of certain agricultural classes in Italy and elsewhere 10 meet the delta need, which he recognized was pressing and exieent, and he was fayorably inn pressed with the results of his inyes- tigation,
 The conditions prevailing in the re- eions of large plantations. not only in Arkansas, but elsewhere in the south. must be remeaied They can not 20 on as they are; labor is be- coming scarcer and more unreliable every year. and the remedy must be found in immigration. But immigra- ton will not respond to the call of plantation labor. The desirable kind wants something better than farm wages or a share in the crop. It wants a hope and q prospect of inde- pendence as a reward for it's toll; and that. the plantation, as at present constituted, does not yield. This fact is recognized by the Monroe Ua.) Star that in q recent issue, points the necessity for tbe abolition of the big plantation as follows:
 Labcr conditions on the planta-
 tions have grown 50 had hat all
 nov. recoanfze hat #the only sal
 yation of inc agricultural inter-
 ests-tbe backbone and main-
 stay of the eoants4-fs 10 he
 found in fae partition of the Dlan-
 tations and flae importation of
 small white farmers. men who
 will own and efflfz7a4e their own
 lands and make good citizens If
 this policy is carried out this sec-
 ton in a few years will become
 the richest in the world There
 is none more highly favored by
 nature and with proper drain-
 age and intensive farming 1t
 would be tenfold more productive
 than now. And there is every
 reason to believe and hope that
 this policy will be carried out.
 The conditions referred to have
 brought the subject of mmigra-
 ton into more prominence than
 ever before, and the best men of
 the country are givinig it deep
 thought and study and fOrmu-
 lating plans 10 secure the most
 desirable and adaptable class of
 settlers and home builders. Of
 course there are some large plant
 CTS who do not want to part with
 their land holdings and will try
 10 solve The labor problem for
 themselves by inc importation
 of white labor. as Col. Maxwell of
 Madison parish has done. but wo
 submit -haGta fAf4=m matter Of jn>-
 migration t is Hat the moro la
 boror thai is Che neel of th.s sec
 tion. Land awneFse homc build
 CTS hiah gpa of citizen is
 He demaad
 Thora will 5e no tda of desirable mm'e at.oa seIdaz towards th sonth mn the biz lantation is alan ned is an zos.5.I.foa of tla4 past, croated ont Of eaad:tione hot are impossible tojay. and i. has no 9'aoo n present day ecoaomy. It is bound to 90, and the ooaer the hof ter. II may cause 2 wrench to the oW-!ers to part with the baroai2l ac~.e and all the traditions that attach tc then; but time is inexorahle. and nv elywhere, the old order changeth yielding place unto the new" and southern agriculture cannot hope te be an exception to the rule.
 The kind of immigration that the south needs and desires is not the Kind that will be content with the ne