davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

1 his machine to put his last $2o0 to such test" said MT. Price. certainly is worth that much of chance on my part. I'll send a man and I'll pay the expense"
 He sent an expert, and the report the man made was so glowing that MT. Price got busy at once. The report declared that the machine the cotton world had sought so long had arrived.
 It was not long after this report was received that MT. Price invited small party of distinguished men to accom- pany him to Texas to examine the ma chine at work. One of the party was 8 former president of the New Eng land Cotton Spinners' association. An other was connected with the Carnegie Technical school of Pittsburg. Another was the American representative of a big English cotton house.
 They went to Vernon and travelled out to the plantation on which the test was to be made. MT. Campbell, outward ly serene and confident, but probably a bit excited, stood by the machine which was to make or break him. When the visitors had taken positions of van tage from which to view the progress of the machine along the cotton row, the word was given to start.
 But the machine would not budge.
 Wheels were turned and gear was ad- iusted, but not an inch would the big machine move
 It was a blstering hot day. MT. Campbell. working he never had worked before, did his best to get the big vehicle started, but something was wrong with the locomotive end of the affair. The gentlemen invited by MT.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

tically lapsed.
 Late in 1908 MT. Campbell came to New York to see Theodore H. Price, one of the most prominent men in the cotton market. He told him the cotton picker was perfected. MT. Price had heard this story before He had heard it from MT. Campbell and he had heard 1t from several other inventors. At various times he had put money into financing inventors.
 He was skeptical. Once he had gone to see a trial of a Campbell machine, the ponderous affair that would pick cotton. only the oxen that drew it trampled nearly all the cotton before the picker got to 1t. MT Campbell said his machine was at Vernon, Tex, and if MT. Price would accompany him there he would see that the end so long sought had been attained at last MT. Price was polite. but said he had so much business he could not spare the time. He had given so much at- tention in former years to cotton pick ing devices that he did not feel like wasting any more.
 MT. Campbell asked him to send a man to Texas to see the machine and report as to It's work. MT. Price said he did not think much of the idea. It would be an expenditure without prom ise of much result. MT. Campbell said he had $200. That practically was all the money he had in the world. If MT Price would send an expert to Texas to examine the machine in operation MT. Campbell would pay the mans ex- penses out of the s200. This made MT Price start
 Any man who has faith enough in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

of land. but to not as much as was originally planned.
 Going north from Florida there are vast tracts along our south Atlantic states which have been mapped and which might be redeemed. South Car olina has large area of swamps and the same is true of North Carolina and Virginia. On the eastern border of the latter two states is the Great Dismal swamp, which alone contains more than 150 0OO acres. The swamp begins a lit- lie south of Norfolk Va, and extends southward across the boundary into North Carolina. The greater part of 1t is still covered with trees, although some of it has been drained and de- voted to trucking. At one end of the swamp Is Drummond lake, reached by the Jericho canal or ditch. There is also a canal which runs through the swamp connecting the Chesapeake bay with Albemarle sound.
 This canal was, I think, made by the originad Dismal Swamp company, which was organized by George Washington who believed that the swamp might be drained. It will thus he seen that the father of our country was really the father of the reclamation and conser- vation policies of the present.
 This Dismal swamp atd the great b3arsh lands which lie. lHjacent to tt wouldp be very profltab1el they should Do reclaimed. They are ci le to the wa,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

recently surveyed by the government go. ographers, and their maps outlining the possible canals and ditches now lie be- fore me. In preparing them the geogra- phers had to make their way over float ing bogs and travel by launch, canoe, on foot and on horseback for hundrsd of miles. Much of their work was done in the winter when the swamps were frozen and they carried the shack in which they lived along on a sled. They found farm CTS living on some of the islands of that great swamp and grazing dairy cattle there. The butter could only be gotten out in boats or over the ice, and yet r. brought several cents above the market price when shipped to New York.
 Two Dollars and Upward Per Acre
 As to the cost of these great reclama- ton schemes. the geographers estimate that those of Minnesota would range all the way from 70 cents to $40 per acre, and it Is safe to say that there are many million eacres in different parts of the country which could be drained for g, while others might cost as much as s2O per acre or more. Much of the draining can be done by gravity, and some, as In the tide marshes, will be controlled by flood gates and dikes. In other placos there will have to be great pumping sta tions and in others, as in Holland, tho windmills will aid in the work. As to thiss ! max wElte. .tp tho future sl--
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

For nearly two years Campbell put
 in all the time he could spare from his regular employment in Chicago on the building of a cotton picker, and in 1889 he made a second trip to Texas On plantation near Dallas his first machine Tad a trial. There was nothing par ticularly elaborate about it. There was a horizontal cylinder that stretched between a pair of wheels, In the cyl inder were set a lot of wooden fingers and these fingers were coated with bristles. As a mule dra gged the affair along thea cylinder revolved and the bristles caught hold of the ripe cot ton.
 There was no doubt in the minds of those who saw the trial in 1889 that Camp bells picker would pick cotton. It did more than that The bristly wooNn fin- gers tore out the cotton, cut into &rip- ened bolls and damaged the plants. Not only that, but the cotton that was picked was scattered over the ground for the fingers only could hold a certain quantity.
 Hundreds. perhaps thousands, of men of inventive ability have devised cotton picking machines. Tens of thousands of men In the south have gone to see exhi- bitions of mechanical cotton pickers. Failure has been so regular that 1t is not unnatural that those who witnessed the trial of the Campbell picker of 1889 shook tnelr nedQS or smiled. The lalnQDell ma chine was a failure. There was no doubt about that. but it had in it the germ of the idea out of which success was 10 be achieved.
 MT. Campbell went north disappointed but not dispirited. One year later he was back in Texas with a neN-fangled ma chine. This time he had two cylinders in stead of one, and they stood upright They were intended to pass on either side of the plants and the bristle fingers, reaching out from them, were expected to take hold of the cotton. In setting the cylinders upright MT Campbell had struck the right principle, but he had made no progress in the matter of the fingers. They caught the cotton fibre and drew out the lint and seed all right, but as before they soon had more than they could han dle, got clogged and. after that, much of the cotton fell to the ground. And, as be- fore. the whirling fingers injured the un-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

hollows and sounding the depths, Their work is so carefully done that the civil engineers can run their canals by look at the maps, and they really form the basis of the working plans for the swamps.
 This great undertaking is in the hands of the geological survey. It is done oy the topographic branch, and the scien- lists in charge of it are known as geog raphers. The chief of them is MT. R. B. Marshall. and under him are four others, each of whom has one great division.
 The swamps of the Atlantic states arc under MT. Frank Sutton; those of the central states under MT. w. H. Heron, while the Rocky mountains and Pacific coast are respectively managed by Mr. Sledge Tatum and Mir. T. c. Gerdine. Each of these men has large corps of surveyors, and all visit the various sec tjofis and work together after fixed plans. During the past week have talked with these geographers, and through my in at the geological survey and in the agricultural department am able to give some idea Of what may be done.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

 Price only had limited amount of be- lief in the machine to begin with. Some of them, in fact, had none at all. This development and the broiling sun were not conducive to improving their spir- its, but they were too well bred to express an adverse opinion under such cirmucstances. They stood and waited and suffered And MT. Campbell, who felt that if these men left without see- ing the machine work, it would mean ruin for him, toiled with the machinery until he was dripping wet and almost exhausted. He labored for half an hour and then suddenly the seat of trouble was located, the wheels began to re- volve and the big machine started.
 It was relief to all to get that much action. Anything to tighten the tension and divert the mind from the heat. But within few minutes those calm, con- servative men from the north had forgot ten the heat, had forgotten everything but the machine.
 It had gone along down the field, fol- lowing the furrows and had picked cotton as cotton never had been picked by ma chine before. The ripened cotton had been picked seed and all The unopened bolls had not been damaged in the slightest.
 
 particle The machine had operated with almost human intelligence. And the se- oret of it all was in that steel finger, with the indented teeth. The cotton caught on the fluctuations, but the smooth, rounded surface brushed over the leaves. the un- ripe bolls and the stalk without affecting them. The cotton that was picked was taken from the revolving fingers and car ried through channels on either side of the vehicle to baskets hung in the rear. And the machine did the work of 50 negro piclSers. It meant an industrial revolu- ton in the cotton world.
 When the test was ended the men flocked about MT. Campbell and showered congratula tions upon him. Some of them were so enthusiastic that MT. Price called them aside.
 "Go easy" he suggested "I may have to do some business with this man later on and I do not want it made too hard"
 But Angus Campbell did a thing that few men do. In the hour of his triumph he turned to Mr. Price and said: There's the machine. It's yours. Whatever you think is fair will suit me-
 The world has an idea that inventors get little out of what they create. Tho world has an idea, too, about Wall street that is not hattering to the men of that district. There is reason for the belief, but sometimes the unusual happens in Wall street.
 If the cotton picker proves to be the great success those who know 1t best pre- dict Angus Campbell not cnly will be fa- nous but very rich. Not only that, but the men in Pittsburg who backed him for a time and then gave up the job will have no reason to regret, for they, too have been provided for.
 Copyright. 1911, by Richard spillaneJ
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30
DRAINING THE SWAMPS-By Frank G. Carpenter

We look upon Illinois as thoroughly
 settled. We know it is one of our great
 est corn states and that the land is worth from s100 to $500 an acre. Nevertheless that state has more than two million
 acres of flooded lands that might be TO- deemed, and which will be richer than
 any now farmed. There are altogether, in
 the east, 1T states, every one Of which
 has more than,a million acres of swamps
 and there are 12 others each of which
 has quarter of a million to one million
 acres that could be easily drained.
 The Sacramento Valley
 The average man of the east thinks of California as arid rather than wet
 He knows that a great part of 1t is ir-
 rigated, and he looks upon much of 1t
 as a desert. Neverthless that state has
 some of the richest swamp lands of the
 world. The Sacramento river. which runs
 through the middle of it. has a valley
 several hundred miles long, and in that basin there are some millions of acres which the government geographers have just finished mapping. Great drainage works are going on there, and these in clude some of the biggest swamp recla-
 nation schemes of the union A few years ago that land was worth nothing.
 As fast as it is reclaimed 1t will sell for from $100 to 5000 an acre, and some of 1t is already covered with farms where asparagus, celery, tomatoes and potatoes are raised for shipment to San Francisco
 and other parts of the west. In the Sac
 ramento river they have put dikes about
 an island and pumped out the water and
 that island has the largest asparagus
 farm of the world. They have made
 great drains which have redeemed lands
 now devoted to celery, and vegetables are
 raised which are shipped from there to the east. Some millions of dollars have | already been expended upon that work,
 and now tbAt the surveys have been com
 pleted the drainage projects will increase
 manifold
 In talking with the geographers as to the Sacramento valley, one of them | told me that the trouble there was that
 man had taken possession of the coun- try about thousand years too soon. For | ages pest. nature has been bringing down the earth washings from the mountains, but she has not by about one thousand | years finished her job. The silt has lodged along the banks of the rivers and built up the land there, leaving troughs or each side which the floods have turned | into swamps. These can be reclaimed,
 but channels must be cut, and the land
 so protected that the streams will not
 overflow Some of the islands which have been redeemed at the mouth of the Sac ramento will have to be taken away and | a channel sufficiently large for the river l created.
 An Empire on the Mississippi | About the same might be said of the | lower Mississippi valley. It is still earth in the making. The Gulf of Mexico, so l the scientists tell me, once extended moro
 than 600 miles farther north, and all tha
 land of the delta is made up of the rich
 earth washings brought down by the great river. They have built up the bed of the gulf and forced the sea back. Moreover, the streams have dropped theis
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

and on the rivers. A part of them con tain great lakes like Okeehobee. which
 measures three quarters of a million acres and more. The Everglades, which are almost solid swamp, are at the south. They have a rim of mangrove trees and other vegetation which sep
 arate them from the sea, and 1t Is said that if this rim is cut and canals are made the tract can be drained. I am told, however, that there is some ques- lion as to the prospective value of the land when it Is once redeemed. Some of the scientists say that it lacks min eral matter and that it Is altogether humus. They say it would not hold the rainfall and would become as dry as sawdust after being drained. As to this. it is claimed that irrigation could be given by Lake Okechobee; others as- sert that this soil Is rich in fertilizing materials. The Disston drainage scheme was, as I understand 1t, just north of the Everglades. It resulted in the partial redemption of large tract
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

Talk about your acres of diamonds! These wet spots on Uncle Sam's farm are worth more than any diamond field .n the plateau of South Africa. They con- tain thousands of millions of easily avail able wealth and they are scattered all over the union.
 First let me tell you what they amount to. The experts of the government have estimated their area at between seventy seven and seventy-nine million acres, and the probability Is that they will run mil ions more. At the lowest calculation they represent a country bigger than Great Britain and Ireland. and equal to the three states of Indiana, Illinois and Ohio. They have soil which is richer than Holland, and their area is ten times as great Holland is now feeding almost six million people and at the same ratio these wet lands have a potential food supply for almost sixty millions, or ten
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30
opened bolls and the plant proper

1 opened bolls and the plant proper.
 Once more MT. Campbell had to go north chagrined and decidedly poorer than he had left there. Once more he set to work to construct a machine that would overcome the obstacles he had encountered. Next year he was back hopeful. if not sanguine, only to have the same experience. Year after year he went south and had to return re- pulsed. It got almost to be a joke t. some people. It would not have been so bitter to Campbell had 1t not been that trivial things at times set him back year. Machine shops are not plentl- full in the cotton belt. Sometimes, when something went wrong with his machine or he might, by slight alteration, have worked out new idea, he could do nothing for there was no place near by where repairs or changes could be made
 The machine had been made in the north and had to be sent back to the north. It was nerve-racking to have to delay a year on that account, but there was a still greater hardship that had to be met. Nearly every inventor encoun- ters 1t. Machines cost money-lots Of
 it. Those that falkland 99 per cent of those turned out for experimental pur- poses do-go to the scrap heap. Camp bell. who had a little more than his earnings, exhausted his money early, and each year had to struggle to get enough together to make such Improvements as he had in mind and cover the cost ot the next trial. Each year, as he found first this and then that change necessary in his machine, a variety of alterations suggested themselves to him. Some he was able to introduce Some he could not because he lacked the money.
 For a good many years he clung to the wooden finger with the bristles. He be- lieved in it fully, having an idea that the trouble was in it's length or in the kind of bristle with which 1t was coated He tried various lengths and various dameters of the wooden finger and va rious kinds of bristles, some of wire and some from the hog. It was a long time before he solved this problem, and when he did he had made a mighty stride Instead of the wooden finger he made a steel one. Instead of bristles 1t had
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

ter routes to Boston and New York, and would be winter vegetable garden for thoso cities and other parts of the north.
 Swamp Lands of the North
 The swamp lands of the north are of enormous extent and they are being be- claimed in many of the states, Some of the richest lands of northern Ohio were once under water. They are now covered with orchards and farms and are worth hundred dollars and upward per acre. Wisconsin, which has enougl swamps to drown the state of Connecti- cut or flood the whole island of Porto Rico, has patches of soil reclaimed from the swamp which produce twenty tons of cabbage to the acre. Illinois has wet spots fatter than her fattest corn f1elds and Minnesota is doing an enormous work in making dollars grow on her wet lands
 The great tract which belonged to the Chippewa Indians, lying in the northern part of that state, bordered by the Rainy river and Lake of the Woods, has been
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

 indented\ teeth along one portion of it's length. Otherwise it was smooth. And instead of having the steel fingers set solidly in the upright cylinders he had them turn as we'll as the cylinders.
 For more than a decade MT. Campbell figured on a machine that would be drawn by mules or oxen. He endeavored to make it light. but this was difficult. Then there was another trouble. If the power came from the wheels the opera tion of the machine depended on the gait at which the mules or oxen moved. When the driver lashed the animals they sprang forward and the machine worked fast. When they Jagged it slowed. If they halted or the wheels stuck 1t stopped. But it was not possible to make the ma chine light enough to have one mule draw it and it's carriage. A durable machine was so heavy that 1t required from four to six mules or oxen to draw 1t through the fields if the land was soft, and when the mules or the oxen got through tram bling on the cotton there was not enough of it left for the cotton picking machine to pick.
 With the incoming of the automobile MT. Campbell saw new hope. He realized at once that the gazoline engine was the solution of the power question. and ap- piled himself to rigging up a new-fangled machine that bore some resemblance to automobile. It's first trial could not be classed as altogether a success, for de- spised mule had to be requisitioned to help it out.
 Year after year MT. Campbell struggled along, overcoming one obstacle only to encounter another. He had made enough progress after 10 or F years work to warrant some enthusiastic Pittsburg men in forming a company to back him. Five years ago this company put machine in the cotton field and then the company failed. There was a reorganization, but there was not enough money back of it, and in had nd
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30

Copyright, 1911, by Frank G. Carpenter.)
 Washington. D. c.
 1WRITE today of one of the biggest
 schemes of Uncle Sam, patriarch. It A is a science which means the creation of millions of farms, and of new soil which will feed more than fifty millions of people. It means the bringing under cultivation waste land which contains some of the richest earth on the face of the globe. and the creation of new real estate wealth which will aggregate from ten to fifteen billions of dollars. refer to the drainage of the swamps now scat tered over the union. The scientists of the government are engaged in surveying them. They have already plotted some thing like ten million acres and there are sixty or seventy millions yet to be map ped. They are going over the country with spirit level measuring the hills and