The Hattiesburg news. (Hattiesburg, Miss.) 1908-1917, 1911-12-18
Mississippi The Land
Of Great Opportunities
Wonderful Development of The Industrial and Agri-
cultural Wealth Of a Commonwealth The
Clarion Call Has Been Sounded
"Come South Young Man"

}. j. Newman Lumber Company of
Scranton, Pa, and sold lately to L. A.
Cummings & Co., of Chicago for cor
onlzatlon purposes. Hattiesbu1g is
situated on four large railroad sys-
tens and is the distributing point for
South Mississippi, and. although but
fifteen years old, has 10000 p0pula-
tnon, and has more the appearance of
a Northern than a Southern commune
ty. ~
The day | arrived in Mississippi
Cummings & Co. also arrived. with
their first special train of homeseek-
ers, and when they started to the
North, two days later, every man
aboard had bought a Mississippi farm
and some of them had made purchases
foI their friends. The day | went to
Virgins the same thing was happen
ing with a delegation of homeseekers
brought from the North by the Mis-
sissippi Farms Company.
Same Conditions Everywhere.
The hampton Lands Company re
ports the same condition. and the pc
culiar thing about all these home
seekers excursions into South Missis-
sippi is that a man who accompanies
one of these excursions and goes
North without purchasing is a curiosi-
ty. Many Of the heads of families
actually remain and commence the
construction of their buildings and
send for their families to follow.
Land in which these settlements are
being made comprises a tract extend
ing seventy-five miles north from the
gulf. The United States Government
Weather Bureaus report shows an
annual rainfall of about sixty inches,
evenly distributed throughout the
" r. 1t also shows that there are no
extremes of heat or cold, and the tenn
perature during the last summer,
when the hot waves were prevailing
in the North, was from ten to fifteen
degrees cooler in this South Missis-
sippi country, which is invaded at all
times by the cooling breezes from the
gulf
1t is also true, but seems strange,
that where a farmer has taken tract
of this land and placed it under cult
walton, putting on very moderate i'm
he can readily find a Gus
toner at $50 an acre or more.
Grapes Yield $500 An Acre.
There is one Mississippi farm, about
seventy-five miles from the gulf coast,
at Hattiesburg, which is a fair sam
pie. This particular farmer has been
on his land for about four years. He
planted one acre in Concord grapes
In 1910 that one acre yielded him $500,
the crop growing and being marketed
ahead of the usual Northern supply. In
1911 he produced the same $500 crop.
On the five-acre plot adjoining this
small vineyard his first crop in 1911
of Irish potatoes. which
were marketed before June.
At the time of digging his potatoes,
his corn was growing between the rows.
Following the gathering of his corn.
he planted cabbage. He has a farm
Of eighty acres and all Of this land
he rotated the same as on the five
acres he harvested three crops. His
sweet potatoes occupy several acres
and produced over 300 bushels to the
acre. AS these sometimes reach as
high as 400 and more bushels to an
acre, he considers his crop this year
only ordinary. An oats crop was har-
vested from this same land earlier in
the season, and turnips or cabbage
the sweet potatoes.
Another striking instance of success
full farming in the Mississippi "piney
woods" territory was that of a mer-
chant named Ford. He decided that
the development OF the unoccupied
land about his town might help bust
ness some. He bought fifty acres in
December, 1910. The land was on the
edge of his town, so it cost him 81 200.
(CpnchnSad. on Pace is, this Sec.)