The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1950-01-19
Adoption Of Holmes County Fire Protection
Subject Of Speech Bye. B. Livingston
At lADA Meeting AT Court House MONDAY
Representative Crowd
OF IS Attended Meet

4 am one who has thoroughly
awakened to the fact that if we
expect to stay in Mississippi. and
expect our children to stay here,
we've got to change our ways"
SAID E. B. Livingston, Jackson. Of
the State Forestry commission,
guest speaker at the Lexington
Agricultural Development as
ISOLATION meeting Monday night
at the Lexington court house.
The adoption of fire protection
for Holmes county was discussed
at the meeting and the LADA is
! spearheading the drive to pre-
cure such protection in the coun-
ty. Much interest has been
aroused in favor of the plan as
was evidenced by turnout at
the meeting of eighty-five per-
sons representing every form Of
city and rural business and agri-
cultural activity.
A committee of IL men was
chosen to make study of the fire
control organizations in neighbor-
ing counties and to make a re-
port Of their findings. Committee
members are r. M. Branch, Good
man; Hoover Maxwell, PickenS:
w. j. Waits, Goodman, j. E. CHS
ohm, Lexington; H. c. Waterer,
Tchula; A. J. Stevens, West; c.
l.. Downer, Lexington; E. W
Hooker, Lexington; Rex Buchan-
an, Durant; Henry Watson, Lex
ington; R. w. Almond, Goodman;
John R. Killebrew, Goodman;
Frank Eakin, Thornton; and B.
w. HUMPHREYS, Ebenezer.
T. M. Williams, LADA presi-
dent, presided at the meeting and
introduced Mr.. Livingston.
Mississippi ranks 48th as far
as individual income is concern
ed" said Mr.. Livingston, yet Mis-
sissippi ranks seventh in fertility
OF the soil. No state has bet
ter climate, and no state has bet
ter agricultural opportunities, God
has seen fit to let us live in a
place that could be called the
Garden of Eden, yet we rank last
in per capita income"
THE trouble is with the people
and not the state" he stated. THE
people have. cut virgin timber and
followed this with fires till it Is
hard to see how we have any
trees left. If any trees at all es-
capped, it was purely accidental.
yet from these accidental trees
Mississippi produced. DUNG the
last 8l2 years, l7,172,967 600
board feet Of lumber.
There are 20 million uncultav-
able acres Of land in Mississippi
and three fourths of these acres
could be producing timber, but
are now idle" stated Mr.. Living
ston. In pointing out the folly Of
leaving these acres idle he said.
If someone told us how we could
! make our oil wells produce more
and longer, we'd all rise UP and
say, let's do it,
We in Mississippi have two
jobs to do, first is to protect the
trees we have from fire, and sec
ondly, to plant more trees on our
idle acres" said MIR. Livingston.
He further stated that these trees
would hold and improve the soil
Carroll county could provide
sand enough to cover the entire
Delta with eight inches of sand
through erosion" he said. It's
everybody's problem and every
body's job to provide our children
with an economic opportunity in
Mississippi"
Mrs. Livingston explained the
set-up for county fire protection
and said that county, state and
government funds would 90 to
make UP the budget for the un-
dertaking. Land owners will be
taxed &c per acre for unbelievable
land, and county funds, together
with state and government funds
will provide a budget of from 7c
to l2c per acre of uncultavable
land in the county according IN