Arizona republican., 1913-02-16
LATE VISITOR
 MR. ]. 4. SMITH
N Orth Carolinan Muc h Pleased With Salt River Valley; Phoenix Named as First of His Three FavOrite Cities

Readers of The Republican will re- member an interview with MT J. 4. Smith of Bessemer City, N. C., a brother-in-law of J. C. Irwin who was in the city d short time early in the winter. MT. Smith who is editor and owner of the Bessemer City Mes senger, a man of affairs and a prom
 nent progressive of North Carolina talked interestingly and instructvely Of cotton growing and manufacturing MT Smith who went from here to Calforna has published in his paper his impression of the country he vii sited. The following are extracts from an editorial by Mr. Smith:
 "The writer has recently returned from a trip through New Mexico, Arizona, California and part of old Mexico. And comparatively speaking the west Is on a boom. to use a pop ular phrase While North Carolina under exploited, under bOomed This winter has been an exceptionally cold one for the extreme west. in fact the proverbial Oldest inhabitants" assured us they had never seen such a cold winter in Arizona and Califor- mia. The newspapers out there re- ported the temperature to S degrees above zero and the orange and other citrus fruit crops are almost ruined. We saw hundreds of thousands of acres in Southern California almost a total loss. It was a pitiful sight long to be remembered. But the ci- trus fruit crop is not the whole cheese out there Apples, peaches, olives. apricot and plums will only be the better on account of the freeze holding the blooming back in the spring.
 Alfalfa is the money crop in most sections of Arizona. especially in the Salt River Valley. But this crop only turns $50 to $25 per acre and the price of the land is $250 per acre We :have plenty of land here right in Gaston county that will bring $50 to $50 per acre in cotton and can be bought from g to $G0 per acre. So we say we are terribly under-eX- plotted on general averages of re- spective values And there is a rea- son for it. And the reason is out west, in Arizona. West Texas, New Mexico and California about nearly tN cry 'IitT tbbi l> q real tSldlt Ol co flee with from one to a dozen run ners and boomers exploiting their lands and houses, talking day and night and advertising in the papers. Here in North Carolina nobody is saying a word, no real estate offices runners, or boomers, though values are here 50 to 100 per cent cheaper than west and this is the reason We remain in a comparatively dormant state. Of all the spots we would se- lect if We had plenty of money to in vest, Phoenix, Ariz., san Francisco and vicinity and Fl Paso, Tex. would be the three.
 The big dam now being built on the Rio Grande river above Fl Paso solves the irrigation problem for the Rio Grande Valley around Fl Paso which will make it a great city just as the Roosevelt dam above Phoenix has made and is making a great city,
 MT Smith was most favorably i'm pressed by san Francisco of which he writes:
 As everybody knows San Francis co is the gateway for America to the popuIOus orient now and always will be, and also We might say the gate way as well to the greater part of South America, besides being the na