The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1918-03-08
MIN, WOMEN
AND THINGS

Monday morning I made the trip to
Selma over the Southern, and found
much to interest me, although 1 had
often made it.
thought l would keep tab on the num-
Der of men blowing in the fields as
the train rushed by. / had little scor-
ing to do until We got as far as Ashhy'
but altogether I was able to put down
just % between Birmingham and Selma,
and this included one town man who was
breaking up his garden within the city
limits of Selma.
l do not know when they did it, bat
the fields on both sides of the right OF
way. as far as 1 could see seemed to ee
ready for sowing. | saw some oats just
beginning to- make a green carpet for
Mother Earth, but only one field which
had attained any growth, and that was
a beautiful patch on the road from Selma
to Orrville, which had been planted away
back when the ground was so dry that it
was hard to break it up.
! passed one station and was told that
when cotton was the only cash crop
as much as $4,000 worth of it had been
shipped in a season, but that this year
the corn, together with a much smaller
amount of cotton and the food crops Of
all kinds, had been valued at s16o9oO
Few people have any idea how corn, pea
nuts and velvet beans and garden truck
run into money.
l can easily say that the farm of the
Tennessee Coal Iron and Railroad COM
| passed between Birmingham and Selma.
/ think it quite worth while for a great
industrial corporation to utilize part
of It's lands in a manner. to show what
can be done by introducing business
methods into farming. I do not know
who has charge of the agricultural end
Of the game of this enterprisng com
pany, but whoever he is | congratulate
him upon the fine showing he is making.
Nature has charming way of beauti- |
flying many dreary places. 1 was never
through typical mining camp. The tip
pie was smeared with coal dust, the SOM
implanted, the cabins stuck on
the hillsides while tin cans Uttered the !
gulches. 1t seemed God -forsaken, but |
some one had planted peach tree, or
after eating peach had carelessly /
dropped a seed into fertile soil, and it had
grown and it's branches were alive with |
blossoms, until it looked as If the |
Heavenly Father had pinned it as bou- |
Just to show that beauty had not entirely |
perished from the face of the earth. |
After leaving the coal field we ran into |
sections where gardens were white with |
pear blossoms or radiant with the pink |
flowers of the peach trees, while the |
green of the gardens delighted the eye. |
At Maylene we got bit of city planting |
Tor the grounds of the old Aldrich home |
We're filled with evergreens and the |
rhe woods were just beginning to put |
out a little as if bit afraid to believe !
hat winter had really said good-by for (
good to make place for spring.
/ spoke of a peach tree redeeming |
barren camp, but failed to say that the |
'nly bit of color that I saw in another |
mining settlement was red and white i
,alf tied out to a tree in the rear of |
shanty. / had read in Bret Harte of how |
/ baby had transformed a mining camp |
md caused miners in the Golden West /
care of the motherless waif, and I Won !
1ered if the calf had had any human
zing influence in camp, for to me it |
the symbol of home and told of |
some woman from the farm who was |
,rying to bring into the Crime of ccal |
mining memory of the pasture and the |
spring she had left behind.
/ do not know just how I am going to |
work up any sentiment on another an
NAL which next attracted my attention, |
for it was a mule colt / haven't the |
weep over dead donkey, but somehow |
was glad to know that at least oue |
Alabama farmer was rearing one mule |
20 take the place of one of the untold |
thousands which had left America to |
help the allies win the war, against Ger
nan autocracy. I do not think 1 am
stretching my fancy to think of the mule |
rs an aid to democracy, since he is the
symbol of the great party which boasts
If being democratic.
Now. I'll have no trouble whatever in
agerie, for / saw hound in the woods, |
low with his nose close to the
and then j saw him lift his head |
and give a yelp and dash away and l |
was soon lost in happy memories of my
ooyhood days, or rather nights, in which |
hunted 'possum, or my early manhood,
when l chased the nimble fox.
But of all the homelike scenes there IS !
none to compare with a barn yard of |
chickens. / do not know why, but a |
rooster a cackling hen, awake |
in the heart of any man reared |
on a farm that all the noises of the city i
are unable to drown for way down in |
he subconsciousness of every man who |
eft the country to win his fortune in i
tha o;t, &c url,o bo l.