The Semi-weekly leader., 1921-11-16
A Modern Natohez Trail.

interest of the Natchez Cotton Car
nival:-
Owing to there being no bridge
crossing on the Homochitto river on
the main road passing through Bude,
our party made a detour of about
twenty miles and passed through Au-
burn, Lincoln county, about twenty
miles from Brookhaven, where we
made a short stop and talked with
some of the citizens whom we met
there, posted hand bills and proceed
ed on our way to Brookhaven, where
we arrived between 1880 and 100
o'clock p. m.
Incidentally, the roads were ex-
cellent with the exception of about
three stretches of five or six miles
each which had never been graveled.
AS we approached Brookhaven our
attention was attracted by several
ornamental concrete bridges and cul-
verts, which added much to the ap-
pearance as well as to the durability
of the roads.
'At Brookhaven we were accorded
a most hearty and cordial greeting.
Notwithstanding the fact that no ad-
vance notice had been given of our
intended visit, nevertheless their
Board of Trade through the courtesy
of Mr.. J. w. McGrath and the active
and energetic young secretary, Mr..
John T. Becker, hastily summoned a
meeting of the business men and la
dies of the community, who met us
in the city hall.
1--WE were very highly gratified by
the cordiality and warmth of the re-
ception with which we met and the
very ready response of our invitation
for their cooperation in, helping to
make our Cotton Carnival a success.
Without any delay the meeting ap-
pointed committees on finance and
decoration to arrange for funds to
cover the expense of entering de-
corated float or floats in the pageant
for Friday, the 18th inst.
"Mr. ]. M. Wood of the Merchants
Grocery Company was appointed as
chairman of the finance committee
with Mr.. McGrath and Mr.. MeMullen
as members. Mrs. Mary Lilly was
appointed chairman and Mrs. A. B.
Sherman vice chairman of the ladies'
committee to decorate floats.
1--WE stopped at Bude, thriving
saw mill town in Franklin county on
the Mississippi Central, on our way
back, but here, unfortunately, on ac-
count of the lateness of our arrival
and downpour of rain which began
just about that time, we had the op-
portunity of seeing only one of the
merchants of this little city, Mr.. T.
J. Wilkinson of the firm of T. J. Will
kinson & Sons, general store, and by
the way we must say in passing, that
their store will do credit to a much
larger city, not only in the assorted
and varied stock Of goods carried,
but in its tasty and attractive ar
rangement.
Il feel sure that all of our party
were impressed with the appearance
of thrift and solid but quiet prosper
ity and comfort of the farming COM
through which we passed.
"On every side there was evidence
or cotton Cat number of homes we
saw numbers of bales of cotton under
the barns or on the front porches
of homes), corn, sugar cane, cattle,
hogs and poultry were also in evil
dence. In numbers of places we
would see directly ahead of us dense
columns of black smoke rising thru
the beautifully tinted autumn woods
and at a turn in the road we would
come upon busy scene of standing
cane being stripped and cut down
and prepared for the mill, wagons
the cane from the fields
to the mills and the process of sep
arating the juice from the bagasse
and the finishing or final processing
OF cooking the cane JUICE in. open
pan kettles. ALI of this was very in
teresting.
AS we approached Brookhaven
evidence of further diversification in
the form of milk cows and shelves
or brackets arranged at almost every
rural mail delivery mail box for the
reception of milk cans from the va
rious farms, which cans in due time
were to be collected by trucks sent
out from the two creameries located
in Brookhaven for this purpose.
We must not forget to mention
Lespedeza Hay which we saw in pro-
cess of being baled by power ma
chinery.
In the town of Brookhaven itself
we were very much impressed with
the numbers of people in the streets
and in the stores, the scenes depicted
being active and busy ones, and we
gathered the impression that these
people were in the great majority
citizens of Lincoln county, coming in
to their thriving and attractive coun-
ty seat to sell their produce, for all
OF which there was a ready market
and to buy in turn such goods as
they needed for home consumption
and comforts.
I'm the banks and stores, as well
as in the wholesale establishments.
and on the streets, there was evil
dence of this activity.
This naturally led our party to a
discussion of some of our own local
problems and I think that we all
agreed that nothing could be done
for the benefit of our city and its
merchants more important than the
building up of our own county and
its unlimited latent resources. To do
this it seems to us that some plans
should. be devised through which
the large tracts of land may be cut
up into smaller farms and offered to
thrifty class of farmers on an at
tractive basis. With the county's
population thus increased, we believe
that the troubles of our retail mer-