The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-07
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

A hl1O.
 No it isn't new soft drink of break fast food.
 but It Is place where COW food is stored up against the day when "old sookey' can't get a living on the range.
 A few years ago I was down in Dal- las county. l spent a day and night at orrville My good friend Dunaway, a hustling, up-to- the minute farmer, was as busy as a bee, or better still, as busy as only he could be, building great cement silos
 I took 4O-mile swing with him in his auto visiting plantation after plantation. The roads were thick with wagons laden with all kind of forage stuff on the way to the silos. The corn crop was failure and the stalks were cut and turned into feed.
 We got back to his home at noon, and down to the silos I went to see them being filled. It was a busy, in teresting scene. The odor from the rsi1o was like unto that which used to pour out of the front doors of some of the cheaper saloons here in Birmingham. The smell penetrated even through the thick cement walls
 When I was there only one si1o was completed and another was being built. Jfr,a +a1J have more than a half dozen of the monsters. Cattle was their way of fighting the insect pest.
 But the boil weevil wasn't the only pest he was fighting. He had put in dipping vat for his cattle to get rid of the ticks. I asked him if it was compulsory. No, only common sense. It seems to me that when successful cattle men like Dunaway & Lambert voluntarily dipped their stock it would be the part of wisdom for others to follow in their wake.
 Dunaway was one of the fore sighted men who was trying to find 8 way to keep his tenants from leaving on the advent of the boil weevil. If all Of the big planters had acted in the same intelligent manner they wouldn't have lost their renters or croppers, but would have turned to cattle or diver sification of crops.
 It's strange how enthusiastic two great experts are about Alabamas s alfalfa lands Drs. Holden and Sutler are loud in their praise of the oppor- tunities presented to intelligent farm CTS to grow paying crops of this great cattle food.
 pr. Cutler says he is surprised be- yond measure at the way Alabamians are overlooking a chance to raise hogs, cows and horses. No wonder that the lowest cost for raising cattle in the United States is held by Ala bama.
 His idea is that the best way to fight the boil weevil Is with cattle. If the negroes continue to leave, the great plantations will have to be broken up, or used in raising stock
 I was on the train some while back and had a long talk with the Hon. J. o. Thompson, one of the biggest cot ton planters in Alabama. He had just made big swing around through sew eral counties and was telling me of how certain farmers were absolutely tenantless.
 For awhile the papers were full of the exodus of negroes to the north and road agents. It's true that many sold, or were closed out, and left. I remem- Der one particularly sad scene at Clay ton. Grouped about the depot were scores of young and old, men and wom- en, boys and girls. There was weeping and wailing as those who were 1eav- ing parted from those remaining. I couldn't stand it and got back on the car. A similar scene was enacted at scores of stations in south Alabama.
 You know few years back a lot of our people held to the idea that you couldn't make the negro go north to live, and that if they went they wouldn't stay away long.
 Just at present there is a great diversity of opinion regarding the gain or loss tc the south in the way colored labor is seeking employment in the north and the west. but I'm for Keeping them here, because I believe it's for theirs and our good.
 For this reason I'm doing what I can to get my own people to take a greater interest in the colored people. Let's give them every chance to be- come self supporting citizens. It's good business, but better still 1t is right.
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