Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-12-18
By WILSON WHITMAN.

~ AzoRBACK HOGS sun them.
- selves before the two-room
shanty with the sagging clay
= chimney propped against one
ard. Tomatoes grow in sun
baked sand beyond the snake fence;
osvond the tomatoes. cotton: beyond
me cotton. piny woods.
Weather has played heck with the
tomato crop ana the cotton market IS
rotten. But there's a shiny new
nivver standing by the r. F. ID. box,
and a photograph in one of the two
rooms giinds out This Is My Lucky
This scene is anywhere In the oil
producing sections of Texas. Lousi-
ana or Arkansas. In fortunate dis
tr1cts OF these States the farmer no
longer depends for a living on the
products OF the surface soil. His most
profitable crop grows deep in the
earth, and the digging for it is done
by obliging city slickers. who pay him
fabulous amounts for the privilege of
making two oil wells gush where one
bale of cotton grew before.
FABULOUS sums?
Certainly. If your crop each year
has been worth, say, from $3.50 to
$1,000: If instead of having that much
actually to spend you owed ii all
beforehand to the banker who mort
Gagged your crop so you could pay
the storekeeper for the molasses and
corn meal and coffee you had to have:
il then, you leased your land for
$1,000 cash money and a share in a
possible we'll
The we'll might develop. but YOU
wouldn't much care, with all that
money right in hand for doing
nothing but sign a paper.
Some leases. of course. are made for
more than $1,000. It's no uncommon
thing for farmer TO get ten times
that much--and $4,000 is good. tidy
sum for anybody t. pick up right of
the ground.
Naturally, any lease farmer aims to
get all that's coming to him, even il
he doesn't have to work for it. That
was the case with Eb Perkins OF
Sandy Ridge. who held out for SIS an
acre. His land wasn't worth that
leases around Sandy Ridge were sell
ing for $40 and S15-but the oil COM
pany representative couldn't convince
Eb until he made the vacuum bottle
test. There was spring on Eds land
and the oil man filled quart vacuum
bottle with the spring water. Then
he examined the sample carefully and
told Eb he was sorry, but the signs
SIS an acre for the lease.
When ii was proved beyond ques-
ton that way, Eb wasn't unreasonable
--lle took the SIS lease.
Usually the only argument is over
the lease money: royalties in a possi-
HE gusher are too remote contin-
gency to bother about. Still, many of
the negroes along the Texas-Louisi-
ana line refuse TO sign for one
II Anxrao md q y
one-say, one-sixteenth. One-thirty-
second is still more attractive.
And there was the case of the
'Cajun in Louisiana who refused to
listen to Establishments that explained
the royalty plan.
Now, il we get an S0.000-barrel
well you'll get 10000 barrels: il we
get 10000 barrels you'll get 5000, and
soon" said the oil man.
The 'Cajun knew better. "You t'ink
me beeg fool" he protested. But me.
] been in city. an don l know-there
is not that many barrels. not even in
Baton Rouge
Anyway, the profits from the well
are in the distant future. They're
matter for company stockholders to
work over. Right now there's the
lease crop.
ONE lease farmer--Lige Hooker.
down Deadwood way-signed a
lease for an amount that insured
few years of the kind of living he
was used to and sat down to whistle
the time away. Somebody asked him
il he wasn't going, to plant crop.
Hell, no." he drawled. aiming to-
bacco juice at a stump. Me make
crop with all that money In the bank!
Why. / wouldn't say giddap to mule
If he was settin' In my lap"
Lige bought leisure. What else DO
they buy with it--these fortunate ones
Upon whom the oil OF gladness has
been poured?
Well, there's the case OF zeke
Thomas. When the Burkburnett
boom started Zeke laid hands on the
first real money of a hand-to-mouth
existence. 1t was lot Of money. He
said IN his wife.