The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-10
NOVEL RAILROAD IS RICH IN ITS FRIENDS Sumter and ChOctaw Devel- ops Allison Lumber Co. LIVESTOCK GRAZING Cut Over Lands Are Being Utilized to Prove What Can Be Done
 In Raising of Fine
 Cattle
LIVESTOCK GRAZING

Bellamy, January 9.-(Special.) .)-This is
 a novel town; it is reached by novel
 railway, which has for its president
 very novel man in that he is a town
 builder, lumber manufacturer, a cattle
 grower and a farmer. Up in Birmingham
 we have a man who less than 20 years
 ago could hardly buy the kerosene to
 pour on his cross-cut saw to keep it from
 cumming, but who now has accumulated
 a competency, and whose properties pay
 the largest taxes of any in Sumter county.
 This novel man has disproved the oft
 repeated statement that nobody but a northern man. can make good in the mill
 business. He has made good, and has pursued policy in making good that a great many men would have counted as financial suicide. For every piece of timber he has bought fair and full price has been paid; he runs his railroad on the principle apparently, of not seeing how much in charges the traffic will bear, but rather what rate will give reason- able return on his investment into which no water has crept.
 The man is further novel In that all his employees of every kind are recruited from the counties through which his rail- road runs. His superintendent is na- tive who rose from the ranks to his pres ent position. His trainmaster began at the bottom and by sheer force of char acter has risen to the responsible place he holds. His mill superintendent came from the ranks; the company physician is q native of the county; in fact, every man
 he has in a supervisory capacity may be classed as self made. And it has its ef- feet on the patrons of the Sumter and Choctaw Everybody likes him and his men. I have travelled all over the line today and at every point one could hear
 commendation of the president and his officials That it pays is shown by the fact that traffic comes to this line that rightfully belongs to the A. T. x N; it
 comes because the public likes the treat ment it gets, and because mayhap, some of the relatives of the shipper have em- ployment on the road.
 At the end of the line at Choctaw City today I saw a seedhouse that was act ually broken down with its load of seed there was some cotton and other farm products assembled for transportation all along the line.
 This line, only 9 miles long, takes a deep interest in agricultural matters, and even President Fairfax Harrison of the Southern or Vice President Powell of the Queen and Crescent has no edge on Pres ident Allison when it comes to promoting agriculture
 SERVICE IS NOVEL The railway service is novel in that they use a gasoline engine for the trans portation of passengers, mail and eX- press. The service is very expeditions, and quite satisfactory to the people. This gasoline motor solves the question of cheapened cost for small railways with limited passenger traffic. and from it's
 marked success here it would seem that it is destined to come into more general use.
 The Allison Lumber company, unlike Marbury and lots of others, is not trying any colonization schemes for it's cut-over lands. but instead is fencing acres in and going into cattle raising on a pre- sumptuous scale, but one entirely safe.
 It Is along the line of the Sumter and