The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-17

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 In the Country Gentleman of Novem-
 Der 21, 1914, MT. C. J. Blanchard, sta tistician of the reclamation service
 gays: "The war is having the effect
 of emphasizing the necessity for more
 live stock, beef animals and dairy cat 1 tie. If eastern capital is looking for
 a chance to invest in something worth
 while let it look into this question of financing the purchase of beef and 1 dairy cattle for the projects z 1 The south has a rare opportunity to l produce cheap beef by feeding the war 1 hound cotton seed meal"
 | In the December number os the Worlds Work in answers to questions
 about farm lands, you will find. T | want to get started in beef cattle | where the cost of housing ....d w..... i feeding is lower than here North Da- lsota). What do you think of the Ozark ! section of Missouri and Arkansas?" Undoubtedly there are good oppor- l tunities for live stock raising there. but for your purposes you will want to locate some of the less broken, more l lightly forested country where you can | raise grains and corn for silago as we'll as pasture. Make a careful tour of in- spection and if you don't find what you want, work into Oklahoma or any of the gulf states north of the tick fever quarantine line.
 In The Age Herald of January 3, 1915, MT. B. Steiner IS quoted as say
 ing: If Alabama could secure immi-
 grants from Belgium, Holland, Austria
 and Germany to settle on the idle
 lands of this state, no money cost
 needed to obtain them would be too
 high, nor could any just money value
 be place/ on what the state would re- ceive in return. It would literally
 mean millions Of dollars to the state.
 This result can be accomplished
 if the right kind of a man is placed
 in charge of the Alabama :mmigratioi
 department and he is properly sus-
 tained in his work"
 '1 have a letter from a wholesale
 merchant of your city in which he states that a carload of butter Is shipped each week from outside the state to one dealer in Birmingham. Have you ever thought what it means to the cities, towns and farms
 of Alabama to ship out cotton seed
 meal and ship in beef and dairy prod
 ucts? Is 1t good business to impovelish
 the soil of the state and at the same
 time pay some other section for en-
 riching it's own? Have you investigated
 what it would mean were Alabama us-
 ing its cotton seed meal for making
 beef and dairy products? Is the Worlds
 Work prejudiced in Its advice vfen it
 says locate north of the tick fever quarantine line? After 12 years cNper-
 fence in the cattle business and having
 breeding cattle to sell, I cannot con-
 scientiously advise anyone to raise cat
 slt in Alabama under tick conditions. To my judgment, the eradication of the fever tick in Alabama would benefit the state as much, if not more, than
 the securing Of immigrants from the countries mentioned by MT. Steiner and am sure tick eradication will have
 strong advocate in MT. Steiner If he in vestigates what well developed cat
 tie industry in the state will mean. Will tick eradication increase the as ricultural earning power of the state? Is tick eradication practical? From ac- tual experience on the same farm un- der tick infested conditions aud free of ticks. am prepared to say that my oattIe' without ticks attain greater size. produce a larger percentage of calves, go into the winter season stronger, and come out in the spring in better condition with the same amount of feeding than they did when
 hundreds of ticks covered them. I am frank to admit that several years ago V hen we began the work of tick erad- ication that it looked like a heavy up dertalSing but from practical experience in the use of the arsenical solution in , the dipping vats I believe the state of Alabama can be freed of ticks in one year from the date of the completion of the vats
 I will admit that the idea of having 1900 gallons of a deadly poison in solution on my farm staggered me when the suggestion was first made and that rather than take the chances, as I thought, of poisoning every living thing on my farm and my neighbors' farm. decided it was best not to take the risk and refused to put In a vat. I had no idea as to how to dispose of the solution when the time came to clean out the vat, I was really afraid
 that by empting it into a ditch it
 right kill everything over which it flowed from my vat to the Gulf of Mexico. Now. I draw the solution from
 tte vat once a year and at a time when a heavy rain is falling and so far as I know, there has never been case of poisoning when this precaution was taken. As to the use of the milk from a cow that is dipped, I will say that we used the milk from a COW that was s delicate child, a child so delicate that I had the COW milked at every feed ing time. fearing that the milk might sour slightly on ice. The boy is living and strong today.
 Now, some may ask. why not let those who wish to free their farms of ticks do so and those who wish to keep ticks do so? To which I would answer for the same reason that I would not want someone to introduce the foot and mouth disease into Alabama; he might not be able to control the spread of the disease While the cattle tick is not so likely to be carried from one farm to another as foot and mouth disease, there is always the danger that an animal from an infected farm may break through and infest the premises of the man who has spent his time and money freeing his property of the very costly pest. Theoretically per- son might have the right to use his property and premise as he sees fit, iut practically and morally, should he wish by refusing to comply with re- Quirements that are neither expensive TOT onerous, hold back his nelghbor
 and community from attaining results that mean more financial ability to as-
 sist in the bettering of his family's end his community's condition?
 Laying aside the financial aspect of the proposition and having a cheap ard effective method of exterminating the parasite, should we, from humane point of view, allow parasite to prey upon an animal that furnishes nourish . inent for the infants and lnvalids of the state. that furnishes products that all