The Columbus dispatch. (Columbus, Miss.) 19??-1922, 1920-03-14

denouncing the South for lessening its cotton
age when by doing this the South is enabled to in
crease its food production. They false teachers
false guides, and are moved by malevoence ard
hatred to the Southern cotton grower or else BY
stupidity, by selfish interests, caring not for the
welfare of the South the world at large provided
they themselves can be benefited through their pul
chase of the raw material or by their speculative
operations in the cotton market.
The situation as to grain is alarming. TIE wheat
acreage for the coming year shows decrease Ii
Indiana of 100000 acres; in Illinois over 100000
acres in Missouri, 100000 acres in Kansas, q
900 acres; in Nebraska, $4,000 acres; in Texas,
100000 acres and in California, $4,000 acres. The
decrease in rye is indicated in the decline in acreage
in North Dakota alone Of 100000 acres, or falling
off Of SO per cent
m its estimate, or what the Department of Agli-
culture calls its hypothetical value for all crops in
the country in 1919, Texas leads with total Of
81 OOO while the next State is Iowa. with
1851 100000, and then Indiana, with S813000000
The amazing agricultural output of Texas is largely
based on its tremendous grain crops last year. A
recent letter from member of the Federal Reserve
Board to the Manufacturers Record took the ground
that the price of cotton was too high and gave some
illustration Of the great increase of the wealth of
that State, based, as he thought cotton. In that
letter he said the resources Of Texas national banks
now exceeded the total resources of all New Eng
land national banks five years ago In reply to that
letter the editor of the Manufacturers Record wrote
as follows:s
IN referring to the tremendous deposits of the
banks Of Texas you nust bear in mind that Texas is
rtjust about the size of the German Empire that it
has an enormous cattle industry, and that cattle
have commanded very high price; that it has an
N enormous lumber industry, and that lumber has
been selling during the last year or two at almost
unheard-of prices But more than all of this Texas
is rapidly becoming one of the worlds most inn
poftaA oil cehtess possibly destined to be the
greatest oil-producng region in the world | be-
lievc it is true hiatt some hundreds of millions of
dollars of actual money have been put into Texas
oil interests by outside capitalists during the last
two years. The production of oil in that State has
been enormous scale. The magnitude of the
speculative operation and the drilling operations
which have sent tens of millions on top of millions
into all the qualifications of the oil trade in Texas
has been the wonder of this age | think nothing
like the boom in oil lands in Texas has ever been
seen elsewhere. There is little Baptist Church
in hte State which some months ago was receiving.
and probably stm is, more Ithan 100000 year for
the royalty for the oil pumped out of one well in
the little churchyard, and this has typifed the
activity and the wealth created over very large
portion of the State. Moreover, Texas is State
of enormous diversified agriculture Its corn crop
last year was over 100000 900 bushels which was
worth the farms according to the report of the
United States Department of Agriculture S23g 600.
200 Its oat crop was 94,5OOOO0 bushels valued at
$6O,4S00O0 It's wheat crop was 81 $4,000 bushels
valued at $62, 100000 It's hay crop was worth $22.
100000 It's peanut crop brought S13000000 It's
potato crop brought 1923 900 OOO It's grain sorghums
crop 100000 bushels, worth S65, 267 900 It's
rice crop valued at $19,594,OOO The aggregate
value of these crops was over $505 100000 To this
should be added the enormous value of its livestock
production, its heavy output of fruits and vegetables
and, as you of course know, Texas is an enormous
shipper, running into the thousands of carloads
annually of early vegetables and trucking to the
West and the North, On the other hand. the entire
value of the thirteen leading crops of New Eng
land, the total given in detail by the Department Of
Agriculture, amounted to 100000 OOO while the
total value of all Texas crops of the same thirteen
crops in Texas was 1882, 100000 No wonder there
has been an enormous increase in the resources of
Texas banks.
mo greater blessing could come to the South than
the development of cotton growing in other parts of
the world to the extent of forcing the South into
larger diversified farming. The South would have
been infinitely richer than it is if it had never raised
bale of cotton. 1t could have beat the West in
diversified farming, but it concentrated its .atten-
ton on cotton, due to the power of slavery prior
to hte war and to the enforced enslavement of the
poorer cotton growers of the South since the Civil
War. Prior to 1869 the South was far more largely
devoted to diversified agriculture than it has ever
been since, but it is gradually getting back to the
ante-beum conditions of raising its own foodstuffs
and feedstuffs 1t do this to far greater profit
than it can increase its cotton production
"Diversifcation Of farming in the South and the
raising Of more livestock for Northern and Western