The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-16

for Dixie from the erstwhile stranger within our gates.
 In 1914 the southern cotton crop amounted to 16o0o,00O bales, but 1t brought only s523,000,00. That was bad year for Dixie, for we had depended too much upon cotton. Last year the crop reached only 100000 bales. but it brought the colossal sum of $1073,000, ,00O. There is some difference, my friends, between 6-cent cotton. which we remen1- Der in that summer when the bottom fell out, and the 25-cent cotton of the past year. It meant the difference be- tween having to sell the mule to save his feed, and being puzzled to choose be- tween six or eght-cylinder car or F. The department of agriculture estimates that this years cotton crop will amount to $1,S15,0 GOO without counting the seed. That by-product, which used to be hauled out and thrown away. brought in just $278, 100000 last year. We all used some of it. The farmers fed 1t to their live stock to fatten them for the mar ket, or to increase the yield of milk and butter. We put it on our salad, with an olive oil label on some of it, but with the greater part travelling hon. estly under it's own name. We have found it an excellent substitute for ami mai fat in cooking. And large share goes back into the land in the form of fertilizer, enriching the soil to raise more crops.
 But, as I have said, we no longer per- init ourselves to be at the mercy Of King Cotton. When the farmer of other days raised nothing but cotton, he had to sell it at the buyers price, for in no other way could he pay for the flour and meal and meat that came from .he west The farmer of today raises his food at home, and if the price of cotton
 Ia !, 1,<1I the price goes up. And it always does.
 There have been many fortunes made in the south this year and in the year before, and they were not intuition prof. it's. They came off the farm. The south ern farmer was never so well off as he
 is today Why, tenant farmer in a county close to Atlanta reported a week or two ago that he had cleared 5000 this season, after feeding himself and his family all the year-and he was one of the small renting class. conduct ing a one-mule farm, hiring one farm hand in the busy season, and on tract of land so small that he paid only Sl40 rent for a year. You can imagine what some of the big plantation owners have been doing
 Many of you, perhaps look upon the south as purely an agricultural region, but you are far mistaken in this Of the 57 useful minerals mined in the United States, the south mines all but two platinum and borax. Virginia has a greater coal area than Great Britain and Germany combined. Kentucky has enough coal to provide fuel for the world for generations to come. The south's coal production in 1916 was 27.6 per cent of the coal mined in the whole country, 1n- cluding Alaska. Alabama mines pig iron more cheapy than any state in the union, and the south possesses one-hdlf of the total iron resources of the na- tion.
 The quantity of live stock production
 has been decreasing in some sections or
 the country formerly famous for that
 industry. The number of stock hogs in
 the United States, the department oI
 agriculture reports, decreased s 2-l0 per
 cent in the year ending September l.
 Iowa, the leading hog raising state, showed a decrease of 10 per cent, as did
 Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. But Vir-
 ginia and Mississippi showed an Increase.
 There are in the south $3s0, ,057, 900 worth
 of dairy cows, besides $431, ,S57, eco worth of
 other cattle; 900 worth of horses;
 $240,S44 600 worth of swine; 6706l GOO worth
 of sheep and 900 worth of mules,
 making the grand total of live stock III
 the south at the present time amount to
 g, ,095, ,S60, 900. There was time, my friends,
 when we of the south raised cotton.
 shipped it to Massachusetts, brought it
 back in the shape of cloth, and paid the
 bills But that was changed years ago.
 The cotton mills came to the cotton fields, and more of them are being built every year. I counted no less than 2o new cotton mills under construction one day last week from the window of a Southern railway train between Atlanta and Greensboro N. c.
 The south has awakened to her manu- featuring possibilities, but they are by no means exhausted. One Atlanta steel company which was hard pressed for funds a few years ago, will earn $l5c share on it's common stock this year. Our cities are being circled about witt, manufacturing plants. We are making the things we need and a surplus to ship away.
 There is another source of profit to the south today, a factor caused by her climate. All over the southern states are tented camps and wooden canton ments of the new national army, thou sands upon thousands of soldiers in the making. They have been sent to the south from many states. upon the advice of Gen. Leonard A. Wood and other army officers who realized the advantage of a healthful climate where a soldier could be drilled IF months in the year The building of these camps has turned millions of dollars in to new channels, has given tens of thousands of Workmen em- ployment at high wages. The salaries oi officers and men are being poured into the south at the rate of millions month Some of this influx of wealth will be temporary, but great part will be per manent, for 1t is the announced policy of the war department to maintain these ! cantonments long after peace is de clared, as training quarters for the sol diers who will keep that peace-the new army of the system of universal train ing
 War may be what sherman said it was and it once ruined us, but to any coun. | try now like ours uninvaded by an en. emy, and with millions of dollars turned loose by the government, it is proving 1 a blessing.
 1 Money-real monev-was never st plentiful in the south as it is today l The banks are running over with it The farmers are no longer taking thei | hats off at the bank door and begging l for a loan on their next years cottor crop. In one small county of south Geor gia the banks had total deposits fe7 days ago of more than s1.50O,0oo.
 l TO quote q few definite figures, thu
 bank deposits in Atlanta alone amounted