The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-11-24
MEN, w MEN J A ND T HIN G 5


 "Black Belt" from the color of the soil and not from the color of many of the inhabitants of the belt.
 When I wrote my story from Living ston I was alone in friend Tarrts bank without a map, guide, or old citizen to interrogate, and so dealt i'll generall- ties about the size of Sumter county; but now I have the figures. It con tains 970 square miles, and it seems to me from the way l covered territory during my recent visit traversed every one of them.
 It is nearly 55 miles from north to south with an average width of about IS miles. 1 made the Derby estate the point from which l radiated, and, be- 1 lieye me, l did some travelling up and down the Sumter county highways. Whsts more, I sat on the side of the road and watched Frank direct the hands and teams in road building. :, furthermore saw how the clay was got tten out of the mammoth pit. But the i thing of which I am proudest, assisted in repairing telephone wire which was down.
 1 l was all the time getting confused about the Mississippi line. It was hard for me to realize that in Sumter I was on the border of the sister state to the west and. yet Mrs. Derby talked about running over to Meridian to do little shopping as though she was not leaving dear old Alabama. The principality of Pickens Is to the north, Choctaw bounds it on the south, and the Tombigbee river shuts it in on the west.
 The farm lands lie well and are well half dozen Fordsons on the square at Livingston. but only one had been used The farmers in many instances use up to-date machinery. The two predomi- hating soils are the black prairie lands or Time lands" These lands are especially valuable for alfalfa, corn, toats, general forage crops, all the l clovers and grasses, and there are por- tions on which cotton can be grown successfully.
 
 l l have been going to Sumter for years, but on my recent visit I got to see more of it than on any of my pre- vious jaunts. The thing in which was most interested was the cattle indus try. which in a short while has attract ed attention not only throughout the state, and the south, but throughout the nation. Lime being abundant in the soil, it makes it the ideal place for stock raising, and this is why s6 many loutsiders are moving in to enter the ibusiness.
 |, had seen it in print that the butch CTS of New Orleans could go through the cold storage rooms and point out unerringly the carcasses which came fro mthe lime land pastures. Before got some experience in watching ex- perts at the Birmingham Packing com lpany. like Papa Jack Phillips, I looked on such statements as being what might be called in law "fictions;" but I know that such thing is possi- ble as animals grazed on lime land pas lures have more quality than from sand Hands.
 ! But if I had not been convinced, 8 talk with Col. Wade Lamar of Aiken, $. C., farmer and cattle raiser of high repute in South Carolina, whom I met I a few days ago in Livingston, would have removed all doubt. I was return ing with him from the ranch of Little and Nixon, where I had just seem him cut out 50 of as fine grass steers as I ever saw, when he said: For years I bought feeders in Tennessee, but sew era1 years back became interested in Sumter county cattle, and in shipping them to Baltimore I was told by the butchers and packers that they were the finest they had ever dressed" Evidently he was sincere, for last year he shipped solid train load of steers from Sumter county. made up of IT cars, and is back again this year buying, but not as heavily as hereto fore, on account of the fact that the depression in cattle caught many of the stockrasers who had purchased in the fall to- fatten for the spring sales. I think, however, that he is wise in lay ing in such stock as he selected, for believe that those who select with care and use judgment in feeding will be able to make profit.
  It was quite sight for me to see the herdsmen round up the cattle in pen and then watch the antics of the steers as they were cut out. Every now and then one Woulu SO Wiiu anu tiSiC Wouiu be dash for the fence. Soon the num- Der bought were on their way into Liv- Iingston. and followed them to the de- pastures can do when they averaged pot to see them weighed in, as there was a difference of opinion among the lcrowd as to how much they would av- craze It shows what Sumter county more than 1000 pounds. They were strictly grass fed steers.
 
 The beauty about the raising of cat ltle in the great limestone section. or lsouthwest Alabama comes from the fact that the seasons are such that at most two months feeding will tide over the tcattle in good shape. When this is put alongside of the time cattle have to be fed in ethe northwest and in the north lit is easy to see why Sumter county is making the progress 1t is in the cat tie industry, and why more and more cotton planting is being abandoned. In , a drive of over 25 miles saw less than a dozen bales of cotton piled up in the farm yards.
 : also went out with Fred Jones, T. NJ. Tarrt and Woodson Ennis to see some of the show places around Living ston. It's a good sign when banker carries around COW stick. Banker Tarrt, seeing herd of cattle coming down a cross road. had us stop to look them over as he had an interest in ' them. They were grass fed and showed iup mighty we'll. As we drove through ithe section surrounding Livingston cat ! tie were seen grazing Oh every hill and