The Bulletin. 23 



nia and other States of the West are not so fertile now as when I first 

 knew them. North Carolina is more fertile. Fertility is under the 

 control of man. Climate and rainfall are not. 



Therefore we must regard North Carolina as one of the foremost 

 agricultural possibilities on earth. The story of the last fifteen years 

 bears this out. In the last census period the State more than doubled 

 its farm products. In the last five years it has almost doubled again. 

 Or, in five years the State made the phenomenal record of advancing as 

 far as in the more than 300 years from the day of Raleigh's first colony 

 up to 1900. This is without parallel probably. This surprising record 

 if kept up another ten years, will put North Carolina among the first 

 three or four States of the Union. 



Mill development is fully as rapid. Fourteen years ago the State 

 factories produced about 86 million dollars worth of goods. Now they 

 make three times that value. Factories are springing up to build the 

 widest variety of products. The factories are diversified to scores of 

 different lines. They will diversify more because they have the power. 

 In a dozen years the development of waterpower in North Carolina has 

 been one of the marvels of the industrial world. What is ahead nobody 

 can guess, but almost any guess seems safe enough. The State is grid- 

 ironed with power wires now and in that respect has no peer on the 



globe. 



A Self-Contained State. 



Ours is the one State that is self-contained and self-providing. It 

 has the farms on which to feed the people, the factories in which to 

 employ them, the power to run the mills, the yearly crop of raw material 

 for the factory, the river and sea to carry the freight to market, the 

 railroads in all directions, besides the surplus of product eagerly sought 

 by other States. 



Eising in the highest mountains east of the Rockies, North Carolina 

 rivers have more fall to the sea, a- greater distance to the sea, a greater 

 annual rainfall to carry down, and a greater area to drain water from 

 than any other State of the east. No other State has all these advan- 

 tages like ours has. How much power that means is pure guess. It is 

 a limit we cannot overtake for years. We have no idea of the limit of 

 our ability to produce cotton for the ever growing needs of the world, 

 or of fruit and vegetables for the rapidly growing North, or of anything. 

 We have no idea where we are going, but we are headed somewhere, and 

 are running away on half a dozen roads at one time. 



It is no use for me to point out to you the opportunities of North 

 Carolina. Five thousand people could find opportunity in Jones County 

 to go to raising cotton. As many more could go to the mountains to 

 raise cattle. As many more could go to Guilford to raise com, to Moore 

 to raise scuppemongs for the grape juice plant starting there, to Hen- 

 derson to raise apples, to Robeson to raise cantaloupes, to Cumberland 

 to raise tobacco, peanuts for oil, sweet potatoes to make starch for the 



