The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-26
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

|
 ing their parents by the use of new words.
 This also applies not only to child's education, but also to grown-ups, for we all pick up information in most cu- rious ways. Any one can verify this by trying to think back a bit and see the manner in which he got his store of knowledge.
 e I got to thinking about this when the tick question reached the acute stage. Being reared in town, never knew much about cattle and therefore cow ticks played no part in my early years: in fact was grown man and preacher before ever got a tip on them.
 Now. this was long before tick erad- ication was inaugurated, and some years before 1899, when regulations were promulgated establishing fed eral quarantine line from Virginia to California, in an effort to control the moving southern cattle into the north ern states, for the Texas fever had wrought havoc on the ranges in the southwest.
 But it was after that that Richmond Pearson Hobson when congressman started the campaign in his district over the state, for there are counties now where tick eradication is just as unpopular as 1t was when the matter was made an issue in Alabama, and I have seen with my own eyes not so long ago dipping vats which had been dynamited
 | But back to how I got my first idea of ticks. It was during one of my first pastorates and any Baptist preacher will understand me when I say I had trouble with one of my deacons, known in Baptist circles as short horns,' but not in the sense that they are a species of reproach rather than of commenda- tion. It simply means a deacon who is hard to get along with.
 Being a young and inexperienced minister, I did not know how to handle the pestiferous breed, and we soon locked horns and was taking ii mighty seriously, and was getting ready for sure enough 'butting con- test" in which either I would be gored and have to leave, or I would have to butt him off the bridge and have the right of way. It was getting to the pawing-up period and we were both lowering our heads for the final clash
 One of the older deacons, and a warm personal friend, took me aside. and said: Brother Barnett. you are a stranger in our midst and have not yet sized up your board. As a lot they are pure breds, but the one who is annoy ing you is scrub, 1t is just his 'ticky nature,' and he can't help It." I had to ask for light on his characterization of the troublesome brother, and it was then got my first sight into how ticks worried cattle.
 A fellow never knows what Is going to interest him until the time comes for him to sit up and take notice. Ii any one would have prophesied that one day the tick question would ever mean anything to me I would have sci him down as a false one, for I never owned COW in my life until had
 that brain storm at Bob Bells dis persal sale, to which I have confessed 1 so often and so penitently Not drink l ing milk or eating butter. cows were on my black list.
 But believe me, in the last few year.
 have heard reams of talk for ant
 against dipping vats, for in my travels
 up and down the state one day I woult
 be in tick county and the next in
 no-tick one, and the next In a half f and-half one, and the latter kind ar, Q the ones in which the dispute rages tn, fiercest. I have warm personal friends
 who are whole-heartedly for dippin,
 and have others who think it's. al
 outrage.
 Some wit has said that prohibition Q and tick eradication were born to . gether in Alabama, and it was predict
 ed that Alabama would be trick ire long before it was dry, but prohibi s tion came in advance of tick riddance
 but it is true that they came In tn
 same way by state adoption rathe
 than by counties. 1t is equally fac that both have had hard sledding i, : their enforcement, and that there ar r spots between the Tennessee and tn
 Gulf of Mexico where the territory i
 not wholly dry. on account of stills. an
 where cattle have never been wet i
 dipping It's.
 7. The first dipping vat everesaw wa down af Orrville in the lot of Dunawa & Lambert. They had installed it be e fore the law required It. but the frs # time I ever witnessed the dipping c :, cattle was few years back when m
 friends. Sid Lee, Henry Badham an r Josh Odum bought lot of grazer e, and put them on their cut-over land : and when the time came for immersin " them invited me up to a barecue. ,
 e The matter was next brought forci
 ply to me when 1t came up in acri IT shape In Jefferson county, and man {, of our leading citizens were besiegin
 our board of revenue to act more vigoI n ously. I afterward made some triI n to Auburn and came in touch with D
 Carey and his assistant and here 1
 Birmingham with Dr. Becker and h lco-workers in the government servic
 Dr. Becker recently went to south Ale a bama, as Geneva, Houston and Ei