The Prescott daily news., 1915-11-15

commodious $10,OOO public school building. Here in the South if is q rare sight to see good frame build Ing supplanted for school purposes by better. As rule the new building is not erected until the old one is about Ito fall down. But the building that this new brick structure is replacing would do credit to even larger com munities. It's usefulness has been outgrown, however, for lack of capac- ity, and in the past three years the at tendance has increased from barely sufficient to keep one teacher busy to the four teacher school that will take its place.
 While the country surrounding Blevins is typical of all these cut-over pine hills and has the general reputa- tion of being very poor yet there were frequent demonstrations of the fact that after all it is the man and not the soil that makes a crop. We saw one man picking from three-ouarters to bale of cotton an acre from one field, while his neighbor, just across the fence, was glad to get a bale to four acres. The soil was the same originally, the same sun shone upon both fields, the same amount of rain fell impartially upon the one as upon the other, but different men were handling the soil.
 That the knowledge that vegetable matter is the basis of soil fertility is being much more generally recogniz- ed on all sides was evidenced in number of ways. Upon various farms we saw decided preparations for the accumulation and saving of ma nure. MT. S. H. Battle was just com pleting a large barn designed to house all his livestock, and his plans includ- ed the use of plenty of litter and the storing of manure in this barn under shelter until it was needed upon the fields or until an opportune time for hauling it out.
 Plenty of feed crops and improved pastures of Bermuda and lespedeza. together with bur clover, also attested to the value that was being placed upon manure. But if the farmers of Hampstead county are going to raise cattle they might just as well raise good cattle and make the additional profit therefrom. At present the great bar to profits from livestock is the cattle tick, but if we are no mistaken we saw signs that the death knell of this pest had already been sounded. Already there have been erected one or two dipping vats, and there were rumors of others. There is still need of education, however, as to the damage from the tick. With few eX- captions the cattle seen were of the proverbia 'tick-infested" country kind. early all of them showed the drain that the crop of ticks had been uHOil NliSlils AiNSHlbN NiiN Ae'NN Nii''N H''t' ture and ranges were unusually good and had been so all summer. One oth- erwise live farmer, with cattle upon splendid Bermuda and lespedeza pas ture, excused their condition because "They had all had touch of murrain" during the summer, and he was not quite convinced that ''murrain' and ticks were synonymous. But he IS planning a dipping vat, so we see where he will be convinced in the near future.
 There is a chance for the implement dealers not only to sell implements, but in doing so to help the country very materially, for while nearly ev- cry farmer we visited was saving and using his manure and was stralnng every nerve to increase his supply, Tn no instance did we see a manure spreader nor did we find any very