The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1907-08-22
FOR GREATER MISSISSIPPI
Industrial
The Wonde Of
By II. BLAKESLEE, Jackson, Miss.

about sinking his good money in tile.
The next year was wet and after a
strong fight, the neighbor across the
fence was compelled to abandon his
land to the weeds. My friends land
produced about three-elghths of a
bale to the acre. The next year by
friend completed his system of add
ing two more strings of four inch tile
and since that time he has raised
fine crops every year. The compari-
son is really amusing, for the neigh
Dor across the fence will not put in
tile. The case now stands something
like this: Tract No. l, (my friends
land) has about 81 acres. During Z
years it has produced ITS bales Of
cotton, although it has been in corn
and peas three years out of the seven.
On tract No. 2, during TIE same per-
iod his neighbor across the fence has
gotten 118 bales Of cotton and no
corn and peas. If he keeps on farm
ing that land without tile, how much
will he lose on it in the next ten
years?
"Now there is much food for re-
Election in this incident. Suppose your
county has $4,000 acres of wet land
which is farmed every year at loss,
and suppose that land should be tile
drained and made to yield this profit
of So per year per acreg The differ
ence in your prosperity would be the
difference between $120,000 gained
and the Lord only knows how much
lost. The moral of all this is, that
that so soon as prosperity comes again
in the delta as it did in 1904, when
your people went wild over buying
land and laid the foundation for years
and years of debt and blasted hopes,
laid the shadow of the mortgage over
half your plantations, crippled your
public works, took boys and girls out
Of school, checked the growth of your
towns and ended the improvement OF
your lands-just ss soon as prosper
ity comes again, let your planters be-
gin to tile their lands. Then Mr..
Editor you will show to the world
what the delta really is; kingdom
in itself; country where there ls
less waste. land than any other coun-
try know of and the most valuable
tract of cotton land on the western
hemisphere. When Coahoma county
is tiled it will be demonstrated that
it will take not three but dozen oil
mills to handle the cotton seed pro-
duced that Clarksdale will ship not
10000. Clarksdale WILDE the fnan-
cial center of the delta; railroads will
be built, even if they have to be built
with home capital, and a flood of ener-
getic, ambitious people will flock to
Clarksdale and your county. There
is money to be made there and un-
limited opportunities for he who will
work.
Georgia is already pointing the
way and all things considered, the
delta has every natural advantage over
Georgia in the production Of crops.
Your future is whollyagricultural.
You have no chance to become great
manufacturing country and you do
not need to. When your country be-
gins to grow from five to eight mil
lions of dollars worth of agricultural
products, there will be powerful
lot of money floating lose around
Clarksdale, and somebody is going to
make a fortune. As matters now
stand, you are hanging on to the
ragged edge of ruin, and will con-
tinue to hang there indefinitely until
you realize that to farm in country
Of heavy rains and long droughts, you
must adopt some system which will
save you from the rains. tide you over
the droughts, and that tile, more than
anything else that man has been able
to discover, will bring about this re-
suit -
There is undoubtedly great deal
in what this Illinois man says with
reference to drainage in the delta
The good people of that section are
fast awakening to realization OF
the necessity of doing something to
drain their land as has been evil
denced by the formation of num-
Der of drainage districts. Also, a
number Of the farms are already tile
drained or in the course of complet-
ing a system. The-late Senator George
wisely provided for this in his will
and the scheme is being carried oul
from year to year. The delta will be
drained, and as the gentleman says
it will be by far the richest section
Of the western hemisphere.
Lawrence county will vote this week
on the proposition to work the roads