The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-12-19
MEN. WOMEN
 AND THINGS

| spoke under tent, as a chatauqua was being held.
 | Then the Hon. Breckinbridge Mus grove put his big Packard at our dis posal and we made a number of speeches out in the rural district. IL Twas on my return home that I wrote story about "Breck" Musgrove, the
 typical Hill Billy" which. he says. gave his friends such a chance to josh" him.
 1 I found that he was greatly inter ested in better methods of farming and l was distributing seeds among the l school children as well as providing them for the farmers on easy terms
 when they were hard to get at any I price. But at the time I noted that
 Walker county was short both on beef kand dairy cattle.
 I remarked that much of the cut-over lands could be sowed down with goats l to good advantage, and possibly this Is l why. framed up on "Breck" at the IDemopolis rooster sale, and according to his belief inveigled him into paying
 a thousand dollars for a billy goat. be- cause it's owner had named it Oscar Underwood. It caused a lot of merri- ment at the time.
 I recall these incidents because, on yesterday a delegation of Walker county farmers were here as guests of the Chamber of Commerce and its com mittee on agriculture. which fell heir to the food preparedness and market l ing bureau, which was born of war needs and functioned So well for sew | eral years under the presidency of John H. Frye and the secretaryship of
 T. P. Hay Jr.
 The work of keeping the committee
 going fell largely to the secretary, but when T. P. gave himself to war work
 the burden was shifted on>to the shoul- ders of A. S. Leath, who, after the sign ing of the armistice, resigned, and once more Hay put on the harness | which today he wears so gracefully
 
 believe me it takes some "pull' as well
 as push to make lot of busy men
 give thMr time to going out to the nearby cities and towns to carry on the propaganda of diversification, mar keting and the erection of elevators
 and dairies.
 Secretary Hay has had many able
 helpers to go touring with him, but think his star performer without ques- tion is Hill Ferguson. You may have seen Hill in motion at the allied army dinners, or community sings or Rotary meetings, or in the heyday of his glory
 as leader of the alumni at univer- sity commencement; but if you have
 never seen him astride soap box demonstrating the charts of the agri- cultural committee in a neighbor city (for example Sylacauga) you have not
 seen him at his best.
 But back to the visitors from Walker 1 county. Their presence here meant that they had at last seen the light and
 were getting ready to give the cattle
 industry try-out. Now, it has been demonstrated beyond any question that Alabama is an ideal cattle raising state. It has the water, the grasses, the cli- mate. In fact nature has done her part with prodigality and it is only
 left to the initiative and enterprise of
 man to cash in on her bounty, and more
 and more the far-sighted are beginning | to reap rich dividends on their in-
 vestments in live stock.
 Any one knows that whoever raises
 cattle improves his farm. Grain or cotton or hay depletes the land, but with cattle a leading feature. the farm becomes factory, where crops home | grown and farm raised are converted into beef or milk. Both are finished products that are worth much or more | than the commercial value of the crops consumed. In addition their fertiliz-
 ing elements are largely returned to the
 soil from which they were originally
 crops.ought to be marketed on the hoof
 as beef or pork or mutton or as milk | or butter.
 Now the visit yesterday was prima- rily for the purpose of Investigating the datrying end of the problem. Any experienced dairyman has undergone a training which cannot be acquired just off-hand, but comes from study and a lSng apprenticeship This is a day of I experts and the dairy expert is coming
 into his own. I never fully realized
 this until my friend, Dr. T. w. Palmer Fof Montevallo, told me of trip that
 to get line on dairy cows, the proper
 way to build an up-to-date barn, and
 the best manner of handling both the
 cows and the products of the milk.
 What he travelled across many states
 to find out in order to use his knowl-
 edge at the great state school for young women under his charge, the
 men from Walker county came into Jefferson county to learn at the invi- tation of some of our wide-awake busi- ness men, who have realized that if
 Birmingham's milk supply is what it should be in quality and quantity, if was necessary to create an interest in dairying in the adjacent counties. More and more we are getting onto the fact that mo man lives to himself alone"
 Too much publicity cannot be given to Alabama as state which offers to dairymen wonderful chance for
 profitable investment I remember a few years back travelling with a west ern creamery expert brought here un- der the wing of the bankers to make