The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-07

government.
 colonel made any reference to the presidential campaign, the reporters failed to record it. If the last Mexi- can crisis is now passed the valiant ex-President, like many other pros pective volunteers, will be disap- pointed. While patience is not one of Colonel Roosevelt's virtues, he will have to possess his soul until the next crisis comes along. In the meantime he will manage to get up few vio- lent remarks about the party in power. IF storm conditions on the gulf ! coast cause the price of cotton 10 advance, what will the market do when the boil weevil is heard from
 The governments estimate of 14,- 100000 bales for the new crop, pub
 lished last week, Cotton Crop was higher than and the Market had been expected.
 It brought out two facts: First, the farmers did not act on the advice of their friends, the bankers, and reduce the acreage to any appreciable extent, and, second, growers take the chances of making a crop without much fertilizer.
 But despite the governments well or ganized system of crop reporting, cot ton will fall considerably below 14,- OOO. .OOO bales. There will be sharp de- terioration this month, and after the boil weevil has feasted the south will be doing well to have 12,000,OOO bale crop.
 Boil weevil or no boil weevil, fer tilizer or no fertilizer, crop diversl- fication will be necessary in order that the cotton belt farmer may be lnde- pendent. The agricultural destiny of every cotton state is bound up in diversification, and Alabama, with it's splendid start in animal husbandry, should in time be the richest of them all.
 rUST about the time the man in the sJ street learned how to pronounce Villas name as it is heard along the border, "Pancho" made the fatal mis- take of attacking Columbus, N. M. Shortly afterward he was reported
 desperately wound- Villas Fate Is ed and has since Still a Mystery "died" at periodic
 intervals. Yet, the bandit leader, alive or dead, is still fighting in the press dispatches. At one time he is offering his sword to General Carranza to repel the hated "gringo," at another he is taking the leading part in secret interment and on still another day he is rapidly re- cuperating in a mountain fastness of northern Mexico, from whence he is expected to issue forth with band of followers at his back and prove con- clusively to friend and foe that he is the same old Villa.
 It is quite probable that Villa is dead, but his name has already become legendary throughout Mexico and along the border. Excited peons see him in their dreams and the rumor of his coming is borne to them on the passing breeze. It will be long time before all of them are convinced that the bandit is dead. Even the accounts of supposed eyewitnesses, who say they stood beside his grave, are doubted, in Mexico as well as in this country.
 However, we may be reasonably sure of several things. "Pancho" is not travelling about the country in a luxurious private train. with beau tiful attendants to wait on him at ta- ble, nor is he lolling in the state chair at Mexico City and ordering costly bathtubs from his good friends in the United States. Neither does his body repose in the stately mausoleum he built for himself at Chihuahua.
 Alive or dead, Villas present en- vironment is probably what he was used to when he began to 'rustle" cat tie in the days before Mexican states men" trembled at his nod.