The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-17

Geiger. June Especial. .)-Geiger has just wound up the most exciting ard strenuous week in it's short life of two years. The advertising campaign cohduct- ed for Is months closed this week with an auction sale of lots and farms which Aas no parallel in this section of Ala bama, since it was opened for settlement in .e32
 During the three days in which the auc- tion sale of lots was conducted several thousand visitors were entertained. a bar becue was given daily, asband played all most continually. the young folks danced nightly. while the old folks watched the fireworks. It develops that the crowd had representatives of probably 10 states of the union, and that as far apart as Vancouver B. C.. or Miami Fla, invested in town lots or farm property in this Alabama town.
 Beyond the business aspect of the oc- easion, on which s15o.o0 was invested in and around Gefger. the event had a deeper significance. It was an answer to the ques- ton: How can we get more people on the rich acres of the Alabama black belt2'' In middle Alabama this question is re- garded as the most pressing agricultural problem in all Alabama On one point the entire citizenship of the black belt is united-there must be more white farm CTS on these, the richest acres of the state But doing a thing is quite different from resolving that il ought to be done. Of certainty there ought to be more farm CTS in the black belt but getting them here-that Is the question
 J. H. Pinson and W. L. Waller. who founded Geiger in north Sumter county. have come nearer solving that problem than any firm, corporation or individual. They went about it like the proprietors of a big department store would go about selling &o0,0o0 stock of goods. They first mapped out an advertising plan, and they carried this plan to it's limit. 1t Is said that they spent between $So,000 and S40,- OJO on newspaper advertising alone, and in Alabama. It is declared that-no land development enterprise in Alabama has had such newspaper advertising as this Geiger proposition. Pinson and Geiger after pitching it's advertising campaign in Alabama newspapers, organized one of the most systematic selling forces that ever worked in this section The south was literally drawn with a fine tooth comb As result Of advertising and modern business methods. Pinson and Geger have
 
 But what Is more to the point they have built town where there was a COW pasture few months ago. and they have drawn attention to the rich acres of the black belt as attention was never drawn before
 The development enterprises in this sec- ton were fortunate in having the splen- did asset of fertile land. Ii fs of Hous- ton clay with rotten limestone founda- ton. soil which is claimed to be the best in the world for grain and stock But what has made this section more than anything else has been the adaptibility Of this soil for the growing of alfalfa. the best money crop now produced in Ala bama. The alfalfa farmer figures confi- dently on an average profit of $50 an acre each year. The immense possibilities of alfaufa. with its coralary industry of stock raising has had much to do with the favorable attention the entire section has attracted. and with the unprecedent- ed increase of over 800 per cent in the price of lands within the past four years.
 IT. the auction this week at Geiger over 100 farms, ranging in size from five acres to 36O acres, were sold, as we'll as 1900 lots in the town of cieiger This is taken to mean that the population of this section of the black belt will show an accelerated increase, for 1t Is probable that the pur- chaser of every farm will move in The auction sale, however. was but one step In continuous plan of bringing white, people to this black belt section So, for the present al least, Geiger, with John H Pinson and w. l.. Waller as its leading spirits, will stand as an object lesson to other portions of the black belt, where the land is rich. but where the white people are few.