The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1921-12-02

entired epression the Times CORE
spondent arrived in the district, which
accounts for his story, but since he
was here cotton has gone back to
twenty cents a pound. The liquid as
sets of the planters have doubled. The
blues have been dispelled. Not only
are they now able to meet their as
sessments, but they have money left.
The result is that you hear no one
talking about confiscation Or bank
ruptcy and all objections to road build
ing have practically disappeared, and,
/ tell you, stranger, the rain reason
for that is due to the big crops we
have this year and the tremendous in
crease in value of farm products since
the time the New York Times gather
ed its information"
found that this statement applied
throughout the state. and, although
the citizens vehemently denied that
they had even dreamed of allowing tax
payments to default. Or that they ever
believed the road laws were confscat-
DRY, or that they had ever objected to
the good roads plan, | received enough
second-thought information, especially
from the small planters, to convince
me that there had been many fright
ened taxpayers of the "hillbilly" type
eight months ago, although | really
believe that they were more scared
than hurt at that time.
! have never been in a state that
has the tremendous agricultural re-
sources that Arkansas has. There
has never been land boom in the
state, and the finest, richest lands lie
within the reach of any farmers poe
textbook. They are never cursed with
labor troubles. l have lived in the
finest valley districts of the state of
Washington and have worked Oh
farms there, have worked on ranch
es in beaver bottom lands of Idaho, /
have visited the rich farming dis
tricts of Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, and
| am frank to state that not only is
Arkansas blessed with much richer
soil than the lands of any of these
states, but it has millions of acres of
the richest alluvial silt valley lands
in the world. The Federal Bureau of
Soils has publicly declared the same
thing. From the Missouri line on the
north to the Louisiana border on the
south Ia distance of two hundred and
forty miles,, and from the Mississippi
River on the east to the Pine Bluff
: foothills on the west Ia distance of
from forty to eighty miles), lie about
eight million acres of fertile alluvial
soil lands from six to twenty feet
deep, blessed with an abundance of
rainfall and a climate peculiarly adap-
ted to the growing of tremendous
crops of corn, cotton, alfalfa, Japan
csc clover, both sweet and Irish pota-
toes, COW peas, sorghum, and all kinds
of vegetables. There are several mil
lions of acres of land, however, in
other river valleys of the state. There
are also millions of acres of wonderful
uplands, which produce the finest
quality of fruit grown in the country,
Arkansas apples taking the "blue rib
bon" in practically all expositions Of
the past twenty years. The state has
the largest individually owned peach
orchard in the world. 1t must be I'M
derstood that her agricultural resourc-
es are in their initial stages of devel.
opment, due to lack Of good roads in
the past.
/ travelled the entire Arkansas.
Louisiana highway from Little Rock
to the Louisiana line. was amazed
at the great plantations and the won
derful crops. Yet I would continual
~ run luIO kISdG oLISLGHeS VI uIlue-
veloped land, although there was lit
tie difference in the fertility of the
soils embraced in the entire valley.
l asked tn first big planter the rea-
son for the large areas of untitled
lands. "Lack of roads,, he answered.
of we had had roads in this territory
fifteen years ago like this one we have
just completed, you would not find an
Hndeveloped acre between here and the
Louisiana line. The uncleared lands
you see along this highway are val
ued at about ten dollars an acre when
the road was surveyed. You couldn't |
touch an acre here now for less than
thirty dollars. The cleared lands be-
fore the highway was constructed |
were valued at from sixty to seventy
five dollars an acre. Today the very
lowest you could buy developed lands
would be one hundred dollars an acre,
and in most cases planters are refus-
ing one hundred and fifty dollars and
even two hundred. That is the diff
L. L. =. |