January 25, 1918 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



37 



{Continued ftam page 27) 



of dollars' worth of foodstuffs and other coimnoditics from outside 

 sources. He believed the association would help in checking this 

 import movement into the Southern States despite the labor situation 

 and other handicaps. 



He declared that if the men remaining at home work 2S minutes 

 longer per day than heretofore, they would more than offset all the 

 loss of labor resulting from voluntary enlistment of thousands and 

 the drafting of hundreds of thousands of men into the United States 

 army. Ho also advocated introduction of machinery that would 

 enable one negro left behind to do tlic work of two who had gone to 

 the front. 



Governor Brough also strongly favored drainage, saying that it 

 had increased the value of cultivated lands 66, and of uncultivated 

 lands, 69 per cent, and that it had also increased the rental value of 

 cultivated lands 59 per cent. He urged elimination of cattle tick and 

 said tliat Arkansas was following the lead of Alabama and Tennessee 

 in tliis and that it had imported 15,000 head of thoroughbred cattle 

 within the past nine months. He also .strongly advocated the estab- 

 lishment of experiment stations to deal with crop rotation, seed selec- 

 tion and other practical matters, and expressed the conviction that the 

 flood-control bill had settled the flood problems of the alluvial lands 

 of the Mississippi valley. He believed strongly in federal appro- 

 priations for levees, declaring that ' ' if the government is justified in 

 spending millions of dollars for reclaiming arid lands of the West 

 and Southwest, it is more than justified in spending millions to prevent 

 overflow of the alluvial lauds, the richest in the world." 



Governor Brough discussed the ' ' Dawn of a New Constructive 

 Era" in its larger aspects as ajiplied to the war. He said official 

 Washington believed the present world war would last a minimum of 

 three years, and possibly five to ten years. He said Germany, in 

 some respects, was stronger than three and one-half years ago, notably 

 in the foodstuff area she controls and in the resources she is getting 

 from occupied territory in the way of| minerals and other essentials, 

 but he predicted that the allies and America would win a glorious 

 victory. He declared that Germany was the only nation in the world 

 that had organized for war and that had taten stock of its man 

 power, but that the questionnaires now being filled out throughout 

 the United States were .not for the purpose of securing men for the 

 army, but for the jiurpose of taking a census of the man power of 

 this country so that men might be assigned to the work to which they 

 were best suited, thus eliminating "round men from square holes" 

 and ' ' square men from round holes. ' ' He believed that the inventive 

 genius of the American nation and of the allies far surpassed that of 

 the central empires and told the association that a bomb had been 

 invented by a Pennsylvanian that would destroy everything in an 

 area of half a mile and that Edison had a new device for combating 

 submarines. He arraigned German "Kultur" — K for kill, U for 

 TJ-boats, L for lies, T for treachery, U for unfaithfulness and R for 

 ruthlcssness — and told of the prayer the Germans were wont to pray 

 looking to their world supremacy through the destruction or subju- 

 gation of their enemies. 



"We will win through the very genius of the American govern- 

 ment," he declared, "but the war will not be won by any single 

 battle or any series of battles, but only when the war has been brought 

 home to the German people and they have been given some inkling of 

 what force and frightfulness and ruthlcssness and inhumanity and 

 cruelty mean as appdied to themselves." 



He urged that American business men support the government by 

 buying Liberty bonds and war thrift stamps and in contributing to 

 the Red Cross and other patriotic funds, and thus help to overthrow 

 the militarist party in Germany and to bring about the dawn of a 

 new constructive era of "Peace on earth, good will to men." He 

 also emphasized the fact that there were only 25, and, in some 

 instances, only 15 per cent of the alluvial lands of the Mississippi 

 vaUey in cultivation, and that by cultlyating all of these lands and 

 developing them as they should be, the food problem now confronting 

 the allies could be solved, another long step in the direction of hasten- 

 ing the dawn of this new constructive era in its larger and broader 

 and weightier aspects. 



Governor Brough received a tremendous ovation when he had 

 finished. , 



Prof. J. W. Fox, Scott, Miss., one of the most able agricultural 

 experts in the South, told members of the association that they had 

 the richest lands in the world — lands that would, with proper treat- 

 ment, remain unimpaired as to fertility and productiveness for a 

 hundred years — and that, if they lived on their properties, farmed 

 fliem with intelligence, used up-to-date methods, intensive cultivation 

 and seed selection, they had nothing further to fear from boll weevil. 



"I do not believe that any of us realize the riclmess of delta 

 lands," he said. "These alluvial lands in the Mississippi valley 

 represent the greatest farming area in the world because they have 

 more ])lant food — lime, phosphate and potash — than any other section 

 in the United States. Their texture makes them susceptible to good 

 farming and they respond readily to cultivation. But the thing that 

 makes them greater than anything else is the fact that, by rotating 

 cTops — planting corn and peas each year on one-third of any given 

 tract — you can farm it one hundred years and still have it as rich 

 as when you began. And this i)rocess itself is profitable because the 

 rotation crops can be sold at good prices, a condition not true of lands 

 in the Middle West which are worth $150 an acre. 



"I have had seven years' experience with boll weevil. I made 

 no predictions before I had experience with them, and I do not now 

 want to minimize tlie boll weevil menace. It is pretty severe. I have 

 seen land reduced from $150 per acre to $30 to .$40 per acre, which 

 shows the fearful havoe of which they are capable. But this havoc 

 was all unnecessary, was caused by panic and was inexcusable. Where 

 bankers have stood by the farmers they have weathered the storm. 

 All lands in Washington and Bolivar counties, Mississippi, were for 

 sale a few years ago at any price offered. Fortunately, however, 

 there was a little 'bucking up,' and the people of those counties are 

 now prosperous, with their lands selling higher than ever before. 

 Boll weevil have stimulated planters to extra efforts, to extra energy, 

 to extra intelligence in the preparation of the soil, in seed selection 

 and in many other directions, and they are now raising as much as 

 they ever did on their lands. 



' ' I believe that, after boU weevil have been present a few years, 

 the damage they do becomes less, a fact which is attributable in 

 part to the multiplication of their enemies, chiefly red ants. 



"My advice is to get your fields large, because if you do there 

 wUl be practically no weevil. They hibernate in timber on the edge 

 of the fielils. If we clear out the big timber we will get rid of 

 weevil. It vnh take a large investment to do this, but where can you 

 spend your money and get better returns? 



"In this connection I wish to say that I have no sympathy with 

 the owner who holds cut-over lands. He ought to put some of his 

 money in the development of these lands or he ought to sell them 

 to someone who will. It is a 'burning shame' that so few of these 

 lands are in cultivation. 



"My message to you is that no farmer who works his land, lives 

 on it, gives it his personal attention and pushes cultivation, has 

 anything to fear from boll weevil. A poison has been discovered by 

 the government that will destroy boll weevil and we have already 

 bought large quantities of this for our plantations in Washington 

 and Bolivar counties, as well as the machines for its application. 

 I do not believe, owing to the severity of the winter, that weevil will 

 do much damage this year, and we do not expect to lose a single bale 

 of cotton from weevil the coming season. But if they do return, 

 I believe the poison both effective and practical." 



Bolton Smith, of Memphis, said the labor question, levees, malaria 

 and proper housing of employes in summer were some of the problems 

 to be solved in effecting development of cut-over lands. 



He believed that the labor problem would be greatly simplified by 

 more careful consideration of the interests of employes, with particular 

 reference to their welfare and education. 



He thought the levees would be taken care of properly and that 

 they would afford ample protection if the plans of the United States 

 engineers were followed. 



He advocated destroying all malaria bearing mosquitoes, especially 

 in houses, in handling the malaria problem, as well as drainage. 



