The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1912-05-16
(EI Paul Moffett, Columbus,

plcluGes gross return of twenty dol
lars an acre each year, will bring
close to $4,000 an acre, 1t should
low that land which will! yield,
Se4. .Iter year, an income of more
l..an $4,000 an acre, should sell for
c,ose to 5000.
If, instead, the richer land brings
$50 an acre, the cause of so startling
discrepancy between theory and
practice is a subject to concentr1'
the attention of even the most casua!
observer.
To the resident of Ohio, accustom-
ed to prosperous farms and enlighten.
ed farmers, 1t is matter of accepted
fact that good farming land, which
will never yield more than $40 an acre
annually should sell not far under
500, and when that same resident
steps on a railroad train, rides TWEEN.
ty-four hours and alights to find a
country Of utterly neglected opportun-
tiles, of low land values and high
land returns; country whose face
is pitted with barren chimneys, stand
ing desolate amid the ruins OF aban-
doned homes, and whose fields lie
falow beneath decades growth Of
scrub spruce and pine, he seeks the
reason. And when the reason is fol
lowed without prejudice to its final
analysis, It is roads.
To the visitor from the North there
is nothing more astonishing than tho
backwardness of certain portions Of
the south, particularly in those sec
tons where the country has been
largely denuded of its first growth of
timber and where the quality of The
land and the climate is not such that
II will net the enormous returns which
prevail throughout the far South.
Parts OF tire Carolinas seem utterly
desolate to the Northern visitor, and
while he may wonder at the cause. he
cannot know with the reason until he
has tramped and talked and broken
bread with the natives who live in
poverty on land which would make
the northern farmer wealthy.
In poverty? Yes, from the stand.
point of the northerner, they live in
AFFECT poverty. A man who owns 500
acres of $40 year land can scarcely
support his family and as for he
comforts, the conveniences. and the
little luxuries of gas light, furnace
heat, artistic homes, they are utterly
beyond his reach
And, briefly, the reason is found in
the miserable roads of that part OF
the country.
What hope of development may
there be when by the closest figuring
It costs $500 to haul a thousand feet
OF lumber fifteen miles to market,
where it must be sold for 500 a
thousand? When great areas OF any
country must depend upon the roada
for connection With roads, which ne
separated by greater intervals than in
the North, can that country be worth
anything when it cannot get its prod,
ucts to market. II an acre of ground
win raise from $4,000 to $4,000 worth
OF cotton, when one man and his en-
tire family, including mother and ;he
children, can tend not more than five
acres of cotton, and II it costs a
days labor by two men and team
to get the cotton to market, 1t fol
lows that not many men are going &c
take the trouble to cultivate the
ground.
And that is the reason for the lov
land values. 1t is also the reason
why women work in the fields anC
why the children grow to manhoo
and womanhood, Oftimes without
learning to write their own names.
For the Carollnas the lesson is sls
nificant, and leading statesmen of thu
South are working tlrelessly to in
augurate a system OF road construc
ton. To assess community -
pitifully poor for the construction o
highways several thousand dollars
nrle seems pitiless, and these
are advocating bond issue by th
States to pay for the improvements
leaving them to be paid for in PAL
by the generations which will rea
the fitness OF the harvest of develop
ment which the roads will make pc
sible
Ignorance and uglness of wome
and children, lack of opportunity Il
every inhabitant thousands of acre
of rich land yielding nothing but a