The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-08-28
A MODEL COUNTY.

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 Clay county is divided up into smsl farms The farmers own these farmi for the most part unincumbered witt | mortgages. They do their own work | raise good crops, live in good houses
 fSeir children good sducati6nai advan. tagea Take the farmers up one side and down the other. they are the hap | piest lot in the bunch.
 A higher compliment can hardly be paid to an Alabama county than this There are counties with much greater area and population than Clay has, There are counties with larger and more diversified mineral wealth than it has. and there are counties with vastly greater artificial wealth than can be found in Clay but hardly one that is in a more thoroughly creditable condi- ton. | A county which is composed of small holdings, where the farmers control and work their own farms, where are few or no mortgages. and where these same farmers are mostly self-support- ahH 1A1 tsoSPGhdSht AS a G0utAty bC Oc ehvied It may not show up so prom inently in the census returns, nor cut such a large figure in the financial re- ports. and it may not patronize the | railroads so extensively. but in spite of all these seeming points of inferior ity it is not to be pitied, for it has within it and of it all the clements of industrial independence.
 We are not among those who be- lieve that great land~holdings are best for Alabama. It was different once. Then the plantation containing thous- ands' of acres was owned by the man who also owned and controlled the la- Dor to cultivate his land. There has been no finer citizenship known than that of the old days. Each planter was a lord of his own domain and each could manage his own property and make 1t profitable. He knew both the possibilities and the limitations of his plantation and knew that he could de- pend on his own slaves to cultivate all his land.
 Times change and men change with them. we are told, and in the great cotton region of the South this change has been most marked, but there are still those to be found who refuse to recognize the change or adapt them selves to the new conditions. They still hold to the immense plantations of the old slavery days. and occasion ally one will be found who can secure and retain the labor necessary to cul- tivate the land, in way, but they are exceptions. Throughout the black belt of Alabama negro labor Is inefficient and uncertain and is yearly becoming more SO. Tn consequence. much land is poorly cultivated and much Is lying waste, of no value to any one. The necessary labor can neither be obtained nor controlled, and many of the once rich plantations have fallen on in value ana prOIlLdDleneSS.
 1t is useless for any one to argue that such a condition of affairs is best for the State or for the people. Much is being said and done of late in the interest of mmigration to Ala bama. but the section of the State where 8 good class of immigrants is worst needed is the section that cam not procure the kind wanted. The kind of white settlers who would\ be of most value to this region and a creditable addition to our population will not as a class engage themselves as laborers where they work in conn pany and comradeship with negroes They are not familiar with the colored race and do not care to mix with them. More than that, the foriegners who would be most valuable here are not willing to be scattered apart from | those of their own race and kindred. For the same reason these people, the great family of Scandinavians from Europe, are unwilling to buy homes where each will be surrounded by the most ignorant and undesirable mem bers of the colored race. When they come here they at first feel themselves strangers in a strange land, and are not satisfied unless they may have those within touch whose habits and tastes are alike. If a number of fami- lies could obtain homes contiguous to each other, so that they would not feel like aliens. they would gladly ac- quire homes in the black belt region of Alabama and would at once become industrious. quiet and useful citizens.
 There is not a shadow of doubt in our Judgment that It would be the best thing that could possibly be done for the black belt region of Alabama if the unwieldly and mostly unprofitable plantations could be divided into home steads of forty. sixty or eighty acres each and sold on easy terms to a good class of white immigrants. They would come and purchase homes if they could get them within touch of each other. They would not only form a valuable addition to our agricultural resources but would be a vast improve