The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-02-04
The South Is
The Next West.

In the southern numDer OF SOllleT .
Weekly appears ar article by Clarence
II. Poe in which the writer predicts
that the South will be the next West
and that the expansion which began in
the West 20 years ago is now being
duplicated In the South.
It In easy enough to make such an
assertion; the next thing Is to prove
1t. This the Golfers Weekly writer
does by many statements OF fact. a
sample OF which is as follows:
GO West, young man." said Horace
Greeley a half century ago. Go
South, young man." would be his mes
sage II he were alive today, and with
even more reason than that on which
his former advice was based. For in
the South today are pioneer opportuni.
ties without pioneer prlvations. 1t is
a land old enough to have all the ad-
vantages of well-rounded civilization,
and vet without industrial possibilities
as dazzling as those of the Golden
West to which Greeley called atten-
tion.
The average acre of land In the
South today sells for only one-third as
much as land OF the same fertility in
the West, and as surely as water
seeks it's own level. so surely will
these land values also adjust them
selves. Only this week there has
come to me the complaint of an In
diana man who is making only thirty
bushels OF corn on land worth $500 an
acre. A few weeks ago l rode from
my Office to see a field of North Caro-
lima corn which produced 226 bushels
per acre-and it was bought within a
decade for S20.53! Within four miles
of my Office Mr. w. A. Simpkins made
two and one-haf bales of cotton per
acre last year (the seed and lint from
this quantity is now worth about s250)
on land he bought few years ago for
less than $50 per acre, If the value OF
buildings are considered.
The worlds record for corn yield is
held by South Carolina; the next high.
est record Is that of the North Caro-.
lima farmer to whom l have just re.
ferred, and I have before me now a
photograph of a Virginia boy in knee
breeches who made 122 bushels per
acre this year at cost of IA IL cents
q
last that the South can compete with
thu Corn Belt itself growing corn
with the determination of the cattle
tick we shall find that we can compete
with any other section of America
growing stock
With a milder climate and a longer
growing season than any other section
enjoys, we are able to grow every cror
30 r.
farm corn, wheat, oats, cotton, pea
nuts, and tobacco all are cultivated
and In addition to all this, the South
has monopoly of what is today the
most profitable staple crop on earth
the Southern farmers pockets now
bullying with nearly a billion dollars
received for his 1909 cotton alone
with proper attention to stock raising
and legume growing you can in six OIL
seven years make your Southern lands
worth 800 per acre." declared Secre
tary Of Agriculture Wilson to me last
spring, and there rs no more alluring
agricultural opportunity in America
than that Of taking SO or $40 South
ern land and increasing its value five
or ten-fold IN a decade, besides max
ing good profits while doing it.
This is, what the South. with only
two-fifths Of its land cleared and under
cultivation, offers to Northern anC
Western farmers. and It is small won
der that thousands of them are COMING
to Texas and Florida, while other
states viii soon get their quota Of
this best class Of immigrants.
And this argument-this statement
Of fact-could be multiplied many time:
over in every section OF the South ant
particularly in Florida.
The only thing of watch the South
now stands in need is peopIe-mor:
people. It was peopIe-Icts of them
that made the West peopIe-more
of them-will make the South. We
have the climate, the soit resources
the demand for the prod IS Of thu
soil, and everything else--ar thes'
things lack Is development And al
that is necessary for deTe Dment j.
the requisite number OF people to ac
complish It
Golfers can say nothing too stroni
in support Of the South's resources o
Soil and climate for evan tho NOR