The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-17

l that it's cultivation Is compulsory alternative to starvation. IL will sur | prise many. as 1t did me. .o learn that | during the past year the combined val
 ne of the lumber. mineral and garden 1 truck marketed from the Southern | States exceeded that of the cotton crop. Drawing Negroes From Fie1da. In Florida it is no uncommon thing ! for truck farms to pay an annual profit l of from $500 to s1,500 per acre, and in that State MT. Flagler has employed
 East Coast Railway some ls.ooo men. l chiefly negroes, thereby withdrawn | from agricultural activity.
 Throughout Georgia and the Caro- linas the Southern Railway Is practi- cally double tracking its line from Washington to Atlanta. and many oth-
 CT lines of railway in the Southern States are employing many thousands sion.
 Along the .Yadkin river. in North and South Carolina, plants for the elec- trical transmission of water power are m m process of construction that involve ehey et fop asos % ,sn sGms fbe years. R. H. Edmonds. of the Manu- lecturers Record of Baltimore says that one little town in North Caro- lima. scarcely. heard of ten years ago. Is now the site of over forty furniture factories, whose annual product. az gregafing several million dollars Jcat, nnuS d uldTket alI over the W0Ti0
 If, in addition to these few enter prises coming under my personal oo- servation as augmenting the demand Tor labor in the South. there be consid- cred the increase of nearly 200 per cent in the cotton spindles of the South since 1899, and the marvellous indus trial expansion in almost every other troleum wells and aluminum produc- ticn, some Idea may be had of the im- portance of the labor factor as affect ing the cotton production of the South.
 Gets But Few Immigrants.
 To fully understand 1t. however. 1t Is necessary to remember that practi- cally none of the enormous immigra- ton pouring into this country in the last decade has been directed to the South.
 There. as in ante-bellum times. the reliance i of ,pe the hso cotton taI planter The latest figures that I have been able to obtain of the Southern population and it's distribution indicate a maximum increase of about 5oo.Ooo in the ne- gro population of the cotton States during the six years ended with 1905. Applying the usual rule of one in five more than 100000 abe-bodied negro men have been added to the available labor of the cotton States during the period under review.
 this unskilled labor in the mines, lum- Der camps. on the railroads and at the factories, have practically doubled, and average twenty cents to thirty cents an hour. or s1.5O to S2 per day. earned under conditions which admit of the enjoyment of city life. while the cot tent with SIP month, isolation in a log cabin. and a little pork. cornmear and molasses, or the alternative of tenant" share in the the crop of doubtful ts son, after deduction has been made, at exorbitant prices and usuring inter- est for the supplies furnished on
 Consumption Expands Enormously.
 Small wonder then that the cotton production of the South has become PnrSa ;nd It is to be between 1S9s-99 and 19O5-06, between the crop of 11,256,000 bales produced from about 25,o0o,000 acres and crop of 10,690,000, produced from about 2S.00o,000 acres, are the years of the marvellous prosperity following the Spanish American war. the irrevocable adoption of the gold standard in America. and the enormous Increase in the worlds gold production.
 This period, which will probably be known in history as the Mckinley era; progress the world has ever known. As was inevitable under such con6i tions. the expansion in the eonsump- ton of cotton has been enormous. and foreshadows a demand for an annual production of 25.00O,ooO bales even sooner than the most sanguine had anticipated. How is this production to be secured In India and in Egypt. the production, as in America. seems almost stationary.
 decade at least. the. increase must come: but with industry bidding against industry to attract the labor from the cotton field. substantial, a sustained. and an almost sensational advance in price seems to be necessary to draw and to hold the labor essential to even sufficiency of cotton for thV next few years.
 THEODORE H. PRICE