The Mena weekly star., 1921-07-07
Wonderful Opportunities
 In Arkansas Agriculture
Mir Cottre in Valedicory Tells Possibility of Making Farming Profitable and Bringing Prosperity to
 the Entire State
From the Arkansas Gazette.

the AIA6lA6o 68&~seo"
 Tn what he terms his valedictory, H. M. Cottrell, who Friday retired as agriculturist of the Arkansas Profit able Farming Bureau of the Little Rock Board of Commerce, tells of the wonderful possibilities of developing agriculture into a profitable industry in Arkansas, thus bringing prosperity to every line of business in the state.
 MT. Cottrell says that it is his con- clusion. based on 12 years of careful study of conditions in Arkansas, that it is practicable for the average 80,- acre hill farm with sandy clay soil to make year after year $3,000 cash sales annually, besides producing the home grown food and feed needed by the people and the animals on the farm. He says that this will require skillful planning and skilful farming, also CO., operation between the farmers and be- tween them and the merchants and bankers. He suggests that there is a wonderful opportunity for the enter prising business man in the rural dis tricts.
 "I have been in Arkansas 12 con- secutive crop seasons" says MT. Cot trell in his valedictory. T have visited thousands of Arkansas farms and have discussed with a much greater number of farmers, the re- suits they have secured, their failures, as we'll as their successes. In this 12 years work 1 have been able to con slider carefully and for a series of years conditions and what can be done turnout the cotton-growing districts of the state. My conclusion, based on these long and extensive observations, is that it is practicable for the aver age S0-acre hill farm, with sandy clay soil, to make year after year $3,000 cash sales annually, besides producing the homegrown food and feed nee tci by the people and animals on the farm
 "The average hill farmer does not now get one-fourth this cash income and it will take from three to five years of intelligent planning and skill full farming to bring an ordinary thin land hill farm to a condition where it can be operated to make $3000 cash returns a year and feed the people and the stock. Any group of hill IdIHltIS Wuu VIII Atdilf NO-OpCIdbt with each other can build a commun- ity of such farms. Any sincere, in- telligent country banker or merchant who has the faculty of cooperating with his customers can, together with his best customers, create a great group of such productive farms.
 Farm Feeding Itself.
 "The first consideration is that the farm must feed the people and ami mals on it. Government investiga- tions conducted on several hundred small farms in the cotton belt show that, with the present average low yields, 251a acres in crops and seven acres in pasture will supply the food and feed needed for family of five adult persons (two children consume as much food as one adult and two mules.
 "This includes full supply of gar den vegetables, potatoes, fruit, meal, syrup, the dairy products from two cows and the eggs and chickens from 40 hens, and the meat from five hogs. In addition, a surplus of garden, dairy and poultry products sufficient to nay for the groceries that cannot be pro- duced on the farm. Good farming will produce this liberal supply on much less land or a larger surplus to sell.
 Getting the $3,000.
 "This leaves AT acres of land for producing products to sell that will