The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-05
POSSIBILITIES OF FARMS IN ALABAMA J. 0. Thompson Tells How Men
 Can Get Rich TURN TIDE SOUTHWARD Laments Constant Emigration of Northwesterners. To Canada When Alabama Offers Such Glow
 Ing Opportunities.

J. O. Thompson, collector of United States internal revenue, owns extensive lands in the 'blacl< belt' of Alabama and is farming on a larger scale this year than perhaps any other man in Alabama. He has been giving close attention to modern methods of agriculture but in addition to cotton, corn and alfalfa he is cultivating truck for Birmingham and other important markets. In discussing the agricultural possibilities of Alabama MT. Thompson said yesterday:
 'rhe thing that is now occupying my thoughts more than any other one thing is this matter of immigration. When think of that great tide of emigration sweeping from the northwest into Canada as it is now doing, I am appalled, by a great sense of loss, both to the emil grants and to Alabama in that they are not coming to us. This is. however, not an irreparable loss. for all that we need to do is to lay before these honneseekers the tremendous advantages Alabama, with her sun-kissed climate, has over ice clad Canada; not iR climate alone, but in the money value per acre in the pro- duction of crops. The diversity of our crops prevents in Alabama what has often. occurred in Canada-the loss of years toll. When the Canadian farmer loses his entire wheat crop, the work of 12 months, disaster follows and the farmer Is completely annihilated.
 A Business Proposition.
 "An Illinois or Iowa farmer can sell his 100-acre farm for $1O,0OO upon which he has only been producing 5000 bushels of corn and for which he receives the sum of $1S00. This he expends to keep his family from the rgors of his north ern cline. Let him come to Alabama with the $10000-the estimated selling price of his farm. He can purchase 200 acres of our fertile lands for s40OO. He should expend 5000 on fencing and in seeding in alfalfa, invest another 5000 in stock and general improvements and place to his credit in nearby bank the remaining $2000 At the end of the first year .his crop of alfalfa will net him SsO0O for 200 acres or s12OO more than his entire corn crop besides the fact that his crop of alfalfa is all ready in the ground for, the next year The second year he wilf find that the alfalfa has doubled it's production and he will have a s600O crop on an $S000 investment-and so on for years from the original seed ing of the ground.
 "The alfalfa crop comes in installments of from three to five crops per year, making a total loss of the crop imposs- ble for if from any mischance one cut ting is lost in the harvesting, in six weeks more nodding, waving fields of purple blossoms beckon on his sickles to as large a harvest as before and on and on until the frost comes. Thus you see on an investment of $S000 in Ala bama our Illinois farmer will find him. self the owner of farm that will equal any investment of $6O00O In city prop erty.
 AlIuring Field.
 we then have an even more alluring field of operation for the farmer Truck gardening is at once a most beautiful and a most lucrative occupation. It has been demonstrated that celery and other of the finer vegetables can be successfully grown in Alabama on lands where flow ing wells can be secured for irrigating purposes and upon such lands crops can be raised that will sell for from $500 to s1O00 per acre. At Conner, where we have some experienced truck farmers from Sanford Fla, we are growing as fine vegetables as can be produced anywhere The industry there is in it's infancy, but success is already assured Aside from the vegetables and watermelons and cantaloupes that flourish there, it is the home of the fig, peach. apple, grape, pomegranite, pear and berries of all de- scriptions. have one neighbor who re- gently sold his peach crop for s25ooo. These lands are being sold for the n.ere tr,re of s20 per acre.
 "All over the state of Alabama we have acres upon acres upon which un- told wealth could be produced in this