Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1909-12-03
Farming in the South.

By his remarks before the Ma
tional Farmers Congress last
week Secretary Wilson of the
Agricultural Department has
made timely and helpful contrib
ution to the publicity which the
South needs, and of which it
cannot have too much, Never
before, perhaps, has the combi-
nation of farming lands cheap in
price and rich in productiveness
possessed greater attractions.
During the past twenty years
farm land values in the Middle
West have doubled and trebled.
Hundreds of Western farmers
who entered that section as pi-
oneers are taking their profits
and looking for new opportuni-
ties, while their sons, to whom
the present prices of farm land
about their homes seem almost
prohibitive, are migrating into
other sections, or even, in not a
few cases, emigrating to Cana
da.
For some years the movement
from Northwest to Southwest
has been large. There the set
tiers found a new country and
virgin soil. That the drift to
the older Southern States was
slower and for smaller volume
has been due to several causes.
One of these, beyond any ques-
ton, has been the wides1 read
impression that the soil was
poor and the lands "wornout."
Secretary Wilson's emphatic as
sertion that "Ihe rundown farm
ing lands can be brought back
to their original state and made
as fertile as ever" will help to
explode that fallacy. It is also
coming at last into general
knowledge that there are hun
dreds of thousands of Southern
acres Of virgin soil awaiting cul-
tivation and that these areas are
being steadily enlarged by recla-
nation of swamp or overf1Owed
lands, and denudation Of timber
ed lands admirably adapted to
agriculture.
Lack of enterprise and of pro-
gressive methods on the part Of
the average Southern farmer has
pre- oably contributed something
to the small esteem in which his
lands were held abroad. Of
their adaptibility to cotton cul-
ture, of course, the whole world
knows. But the settler from
North or West, accustomed to
grain and stock raising, has been
chary of risking his money and
labor on "one-crop" farm.
Now he is learning, as the South
ern farmer himself is learning,
that the all-cottOn programme is
but another fallacy. The doc
trine of crop diversifcation is
preached throughout. the South
and the success Of its practice is
attested in many ways. The
South's corn crop, for example,
is this year the largest in it's his
tory, and the yield per acre has
shown significant increase.
1t is row only a question Of a
short time, as Secretary Wilson
says, until the errors of the past
are overcome and the agricul-
tural South comes into its own.
Right now." declared Mr.. Will
son at Raleigh, more progress
is being made in the South in
improving farming conditions
than in any other section of the
country The boil weevil is
forcing diversifcation and the
Agricultural Department and
splendid State agricultural
schools and experiment stations
are teaching improved farming
methods. With systematic and
intelligent publicity, the tide of
emigration from the agricultur-
al North and West will soon be-
gin to flow in this direction.
Once they are recognized. the
opportunities offered by this sec
ton will be seized by settlers of
the class most desired. with ad-
vantage both to the South and
the settlers. .-TimeS-Democrat.
He made a run around the