The Canon City record with which is consolidated the Canon City cannon., 1918-06-27

mess blocks. good residences and
many factories. It's total bank depos-
its are $3.7O0.000. 1t has the state
agricultural college. rode about
town with one of the newspaper men
of the city who has four automobiles
in the family. so I fancy the newspa-
per business must be good in Jones'
boro. He isn't afraid of losing all of
his printers in the war. as he has
one-legged man, man with but one
eye and a deaf mute on the force.
ParagouId.
A short ride north thru the woods
country brought us to Paragould for
lunch, which was nicely served in
good hotel.
| Paragould is beautifully situated on
the hill tops. 1t has a good business
and a nice residence section. Rich
! bottom lands are not far away. We
saw no Negroes here. / was told
there were no Negroes in the town
and only very few in the county.
Blytheviiie.
Blytheville is east of Paragould and
| in the extreme Northeast corner of
the state. We crossed a little corner
of Missouri to get here. We also saw
some of the Sunken Lands. In 1912
a big tract of country in Arkansas and
Tennessee dropped down a few feet
after an earthquake. These lands
have been covered with water all
these years, but some sections are
now being drained, and are making
rich farm lands.
Blythevilie is in Mississippi county.
as is also Osceola. We weretaken
for long drive by Blytheville citi-
zens in good cars and had a good
chance of seeing a lot of rich farm
L.. MI f1rw .tu
county was all timber. The timber
is rapidly being cut of and the ground
is being developed into farms. A
big drainage district is making this
possible.
The county is very near level. The
highest part of the county is only
five feet above the lowest part. We
were driven up on this eminence and
given an opportunity Of looking down
on the country all about-some of it
five feet below.
Attitudes and elevations down here
when expressed in figures surely do
make you laugh.
After some long. interesting. dusty
drives over this end of the county
We were driven in automobiles twenty
miles south to Osceola- We had the
best car in the procession, a Packard,
but had two puctures on the way
down. Accidents will happen In the
best of cars. We had ridden many
miles in Fords in other sections and
never had any trouble of any kind.
Osceoia.
This is a good old Southern town
near the Mississippi river. II has a
fine appearance and a fine people. We
at any other point A fine fish din
ner was served in the court house
square. A thousand OF the home peo-
pie turned out to greet the editors,
and surely did it in the true. warm
hearted. Southern style. The high |
school band played and a company OF
forty plantation Negroes sang real |
old plantation Negro songs. The Ne
gro melodies were great, the best,
think. I ever heard. The people were |
sociable and made themselves very
agreeablet Everywhere we go we |
hear Southern orators speak, and the |
men OF the South all seem to know |
how to speak. They have an easy
flow of oratory not known in the |
North. At Osceola We had some good |
speeches. A man doesn't talk long |
before you know whether he was born |
in the South or North.
Between Blytbeville and Osceola |
We saw the river levee which keeps |
the floods of the Mississippi from |
spreading out over the country. You
might think that the levee. which is
big. high bank of dirt. ought to be
near the river bank. but it isn't. It |
is anywhere from two to ten miles |
back in the country. This Is to give |
room for the river to spread out so |
that the great volume of water may |
be controlled. A levee near the river
banks would be of very little use. as
the heavy floods would soon back up |
and overflow. The leyee and the drain
age systems have reclaimed a great
deal of rich land that few years |
ago was more or less valueless.
There are many big. rich plantations
in Mississippi county. Several people I
and companies operate from 10000 to
$4,000 acres. Developed lands rent I
as high as 500 an acre.
We left Osceola reluctantly at |
about 10 p. NJ. and had breakfast at !
Newark. That fs, many did. but
did not. l slept on comfortably long |
past the breakfast hour.
Batesviiie.
We got into Batesville about noon |
for lunch. Batesville Is beautifully |
situated among the hills. have rare
ly seen a more beautiful situation for
a city. The drives are hilly and al
ways charming. wood-covered noun |
tains in sight. Batesville is on the |
White river, a clear mountain stream. |
Three government dams and locks |
make it a navigable stream. There
we're built years ago before railroads |
reached this section. The river is not |
much used these days for freight, but
the locks are still operated by the
government. The river affords fine
fishing for Batesville people and 9TH