The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1923-07-05
What Can be Done
with the South
Mississippi Lands
BY f. B. Ferris.


mississippi. We had known Mr..
Moss many years before as a stud
ent at the A. & M College where
he proved to be one of the bright
lest men who ever attended that in
stitution and was the winner of the
George scholarship in his class
Later Mr. Moss went to the Philip
pine Islands as an assistant under
his uncle, w. c. Welborn, who was
at that time Commissioner of Agri-
culture for these Islands. Still later.
after devoting several years to Ex-
tension work in Alabama and Mis-
sissippi, Mr.. Moss became connected
with the Progressive Farmer, our
leading southern agricultural paper.
with his home in Birmingham. Dur
ling this last period Mr.. Moss told
US that he intended in very shors
time to give US his lucrative posi-
ltion with this paper and return to
his native county and the old worn
out farm on which he had been born
and develop it into an ideal planta-
tion. His ideas seemed practical.
but we had seen SO many men fall
short of their expectations along
these lines that we had considerable
doubt of his ability to do this thing.
If we had seen the farm he intended
to develop before hand our doubts
would have been considerably in
Icreased, for he certainly mas not sell
ected land much above the average
of the hills of South Mississippi.
All of his lands seem to be consider
ably ro.lrg, but he has protected
them " u with terraces and runs
his rows i such wa AS to make
each row take care Of its own water
We saw several hundred acres c.
cotton on the Moss farm as pretty
as any we have ever seen In the
Delta, and way beyond anything
they haye-,in the Delta this year,
With the intelligent use of CONNER
cial fertilizers, largely Acid Phos-
phate and Nitrate Of Soda. With
the proper handling Of his labor,
Mr.. Moss has developed d property
that is rivaling the best Delta plan
Itations as a money maker, ard Is
making for himself and family
home superior to the average home
of our wealthest city men, with an
income in excess of anything ne
might have expected as strictly
salried man.
A few years ago we visited the
Coastal Plain section OF South caro-
lima. Florence, Darlington and Mari
Iboro counties, and saw lands there
almost exactly like our lands e1
South Mississippi, where the 1ar-
mers on large plantations were aver
aging bale Of cotton per acre.
without fertilizers these lands were
nractically worthless as one coulo
easily see by good and bad crops
adjoining each other. But Win Che
anplication of fertilizers in liberal
Quantities many of these lands had
10 selling value of more than $2oo
per acre and we actually saw ~
acre tract that had sold in 1919 TOR
more than 5000 per acre ana hao
been bought by negro farmer
who had paid for it with cotton ne
had grown on an adjoining place.
We wondered at the time why we
could not do equally as well growing
cotton in South Mississippi, ana d
visit TO Mr.. Moss's farm convlnces
mo that we can. AS a matter Oh
f.o+ we have. on our Experiment
lStation been growing as gooo COTTON
for several years as We saw in South
Icarolina. but work of this kind oy
an Experiment Station does not
make the impression 1t wouid ~
If carried on by an individual
We believe we have this year num-
Ibers of acres OF as gooo eo''o
growing within the corporate limits
of Poplarville as one could find IN
I+ha limited States, yet our Town
people take little interest IN H.
never come to see it, and visitors
~ poplarville would never know tnat
~ had a cotton country. Ii the
same work were done in Caliiorilia
r. would be heralded from the house
TOPS and every man who came to
town would be told about 1t ana
asked to 90 and see it. The result
Is this. California lands are selling
At hundreds and sometimes thous-
auds Of dollars per acre, our iands
90 begging at twenty-five