SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE. 245 



SOUTHEEN AGEICULTUEE : ITS CONDITION AND NEEDS. 



By Professor D. D. WALLACE, Ph.D., 



WOFFORD COLLEGE, SPARTANBURG, S. C. 



THE south is one of the two great agricultural sections of the 

 United States ; the other is the great prairie region of the north- 

 west, a little smaller than the south in area and a little larger in 

 population. By the south is meant what is really the southeastern 

 quarter of the country, skirted on the north by Pennsylvania, the 

 Ohio Eiver, Missouri and Kansas, and sweeping in a broad belt, with 

 a length of about twice its breadth, from Delaware to Texas. The 

 northern borderlands of this region differ so in population and prod- 

 ucts from the other states of the group that we shall count them only 

 in making general statements, but never in citing illustrative examples. 



The Relative Importance of the South. 



The relative importance of the south in American agriculture is 

 greater than seems to be recognized by the rest of the country, while 

 it is doubtless less than her own people commonly assume. By com- 

 paring the two great agricultural sections of the United States, we 

 discover that the farm property of the south comprises 43 per cent, 

 of the total farm acreage of the country, but only 21 per cent, of all 

 farm values; while she furnishes only 28-j^ per cent, of the total 

 products. The value of farm products in the south, therefore, is low 

 as compared with the acreage, and the value of farms is still lower. In 

 the northwest, on the other hand, exactly the reverse is the case; that 

 section comprises only 38 per cent, of the total farm acreage of the 

 country, but 56 per cent, of all farm values and 50 per cent, of all farm 

 products. This disadvantageous comparison of the value and products 

 of southern farms is very largely accounted for by the fact that a 

 much greater proportion of lands in that section is still uncultivated 

 than is the case in the northwest. Yet when this has received its due 

 allowance, the southern farmer and the southern statesmen have many 

 lessons to learn from the northwest as to progressive agriculture, both 

 from the standpoint of the individual and from that of the common- 

 wealth. 



Georgia and Iowa may serve as typical examples of the greater 

 productivity of the northwest. The two states are about equal in area 

 and population ; yet Iowa feeds her live stock annually all but as much 



