The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-04-27
PAYS ROYALTY FOR
RATS KILLED ON FARM
REPORTER OF MOULTRIE PAPER
INTERVIEWED j. II. MERCER
ON HIS VISIT TO THAT CITY.
HIS A MODEL TERRELL FARM
Transformed WOrn-Out Farm to One
Of SOuth's Show Places. Splendid
Roads Traverse Place and Tenant
Houses Are Model Ones.

While in Moultrie the other day
Hon. John r. Mercer was interviewed
by a reporter of the Observer, and
the following interesting article,
which appeared in recent issue of
that paper was the result:
Hon. John R. Mercer, of Dawson,
came over to Moultrie Tuesday with
the party from that city and Terrell
county to see the packing house and
the Battle farm. Mr.. Mercer is a
brother of Hon. Jesse E. Mercer, for
mer state game warden, and was can
didate for congress two years ago
from the Third district.
Mr.. Mercer is a capitalist who
gives most of his time and much of
his means to the development of high
class farming in Terrell county. He
owns quite a number of farms in that
county, and just in the vicinity of
Dawson he has thousand acre farm
which has become one of the show
farms of the South. Mr. Mercer took
that farm when it was in old fields
and gullies, some of them deeper
than a mans head, and developed it
into the finest farm in the South.
He employed a farm engineer to
lay it off in such a way as not to
make any row run with an incline of
more than half foot to the hundred
yards, and where there were once
great red gullies are now rich lands
growing a bale of cotton to the acre,
underlaid with thing. Nearly all
the drains on the farm are under
ground, and there is not a wash on
the thousand acres, although the land
is rolling and broken in places.
"Mr Mercer had constructed beau
tiful roads all through the place,
splendid tenant houses which he and
his wife personally inspect at regular
intervals. No trash of any kind is al
lowed in, under or around the
houses, the tenants are required to
keep the beds and furniture spOtless-
ly clean, deep wells are provided for
pure water, lots and outhouses are
kept in perfect cleanliness and order
and the stock is fat and sleek as it
can be kept.
1.-THE barns on this farm are built
according to the most modern man
ner, every one being rat proof with
concrete bases, and he keeps bichlor-
ide in them all the time to prevent
weevils, so shat he keeps his corn
from year to year without injury.
eff a rat gets on Mr.. Mercer S
plantation he has poor chance OF
making a long stay or getting away
alive. He offers a royalty on rat tails,
and the little negroes at one time
made quite a good deal of money kill
ing rats, the price received being
three cents for rat tails and one and
half cents for mice tails. Rats
have become so scarce on the place
that Mr.. Mercer has had to pay but
few royalties in recent years. Re
Gently he paid out sixty-eight cents
for rat tails, the first he has paid
since last year, showing that he has
virtually eradicated the rats from
this large plantation. AS for weev1ls,
he has had none in two or three
years.
"Mr. Mercer finds great pleasure IN
agricultural pursuit and he was much
pleased with the Battle farm in that
he is now changing his place into
big stock farm, and he was interested
in the fine clover and alfalfa he saw
at Mr.. Battles. He thinks, as all
the Dawson party did, that the pack
ing house has marked a new era Tor
country ,,