UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



687 



pie in this section, President Branson, of the 

 State Normal School, says: "1 spent a few days 

 in the mountains recently; the people I found 

 there might just as well have been born without 

 fingers, so useless are their hands. It is pitiful. 



$100 a year is the . . ,],.,. ,.,- ( . a pjt a for 



the convicts' labor. Sj,,ce H 1( -n t lie lc.ses of 

 this .labor have suhlc,i-cii ,,i , n piioriiioii.-t profit,, 

 some of them getting ;is i s:^:>0 per capita*' 



Minerals. The value ,,< UI i n( . ( i - lt \. 



They can neither cook nor sew. Apparently they Georgia from 1895 to 1001. i. ,,1 $r,4(;,- 



can do nothing except hoe small patches of corn, 000. in the Gold Bulletin of !, will, State 



Geologist Yeates says: "1 <. that, 



the Georgia mines may be expect* i ; , M ,<lurc 

 bonanzas, and the fortunes to 



hang together a few rags for clothes, and beat 

 their dirty linen with paddles. Their homes are 

 wretched hovels; their surroundings are forbid- 

 ding, and their minds are sunken into a kind of 

 pauperism out of which it seems impossible to 

 rouse them. Of course there are better people in 

 these mountains, as elsewhere in the State; but 

 the superstructure of our civilization rests on 

 miasms of ignorance, superstition, dirt, and in- 

 sensibility to things above mere animal exist- 

 ence." 



In his annual report for 1901, State School 

 Commissioner Glenn says : " We have 005,000 

 children of school age. Eight-ninths of these chil- 

 dren are in the rural districts. They go to school 

 less than one hundred days in the year. The 

 teachers of these children receive as their pay 

 an average of less than $130 for their services 

 in each one of the rural schools. The day la- 

 borer in the streets of Atlanta receives more pay 

 for his toil than we pay to the average district- 

 school teacher, and yet the teachers are expected 

 to be experts. There is a growing demand for 

 teachers, especially in the rural schools, who can 

 teach manual training, elementary agriculture, 

 and other studies that are known to be necessary 

 for a well-rounded development of the child." 



Prisons. Oct. 1, 1901, there were on hand 

 2,245 State convicts, distributed among the con- 

 vict camps and at the prison farm at Milledge- 

 ville. Of this number, 258 were white and 1,987 

 colored. Of boys and girls under fifteen years of 

 age there were 22. The number of women in the 

 Penitentiary is 85, of whom are whites and 79 

 blacks. Of those in the Penitentiary, 1,028 can 

 read and write; 202 can read only; and the re- 

 mainder, 1,015, are wholly illiterate. From a 

 financial standpoint the operation of the new 

 lease system has been a decided success. The es- 

 tablishment of the prison farm at Milledgeville 

 was brought about for humane purposes; in order 

 that the old and infirm and diseased, together 

 with women and children, might be taken away 

 from the convict camps and away from associa- 

 tions with hardened criminals. At the prison farm 

 are 201 convicts, of whom 157 are men, 85 are 

 women, and 19 are boys under fifteen years of 

 age. The burden of farm work falls upon the 

 women and boys, who are, as a rule, strong and 

 healthy, and who not only make their own sup- 

 port but assist to a large extent in making a 

 support for the men. The prison farm is one of 

 the largest agricultural establishments in the 

 State, and the income derived from it not only 

 makes it self-supporting but turns into the treas- 

 ury a large sum every year. 



The system of pardoning is such that the Gov- 

 ernor, in whom the real pardoning power is vested, 

 seldom or never exercises that authority, leaving 

 the applications of convicts entirely with the 

 Prison Commission. In 1901 the Commission 

 passed upon 210 applications for pardon. In a 

 vast majority of them it declined to recommend. 



Under the new lease system, which has taken 

 the convicts out of the control of contractors, 

 where they were subjected to many brutalities, 

 and placed them in the State's control, Georgia 

 realizes a larger sum from convicts than ever. 

 In conformity with the new act, the labor of 

 the convicts has been leased for five years, and 



i < I a \' 



will be exceedingly rare, but there i . rea-.oii 

 to believe that when properly develop.-! an-! 

 equipped for operation, the gold-mines or ..-. 

 will rank among the best dividend-producer-, n; 

 the world." 



The department of geology has just issued a 

 statement of the mineral output of the State for 

 1900, as follows: Iron, 230,748 tons, $235,343; 

 ocher, 3,212 tons, $39,505; manganese, 3,089 tons, 

 $25,377; bauxite, 7,507 tons; asbestos, 050 tons,. 

 $10,500; coal, 233,000 tons, $233,344; clays, $834,- 

 908 (manufactured); cement, $13,500; slate, $7,- 

 500; granite, $411,344. 



During the past year the production of coal 

 and iron moved forward faster than any other 

 minerals. 



Agriculture. The year witnessed rapid strides- 

 in the southern counties in nearly every branch of 

 agriculture. In the past, the pine country has 

 been satisfied with the production of naval stores 

 and lumber ; but its people have begun to see that 

 the pine forests can not last forever, and they are 

 turning to the cultivation of the land. In this 

 section the soil is richer than anywhere else in 

 the State, and sugar-cane and tobacco are being 

 raised with every evidence of success. The Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture reports the products of 

 the State for 1901 as follow: Corn, 34,119,530 

 bushels, $19,448,132; wheat, 5,011,133 bushels, $4,- 

 700,507; oats, 7,010,040 bushels, $3,434,920; rye, 

 109,529 bushels, $112,815; Irish potatoes, 391,81ft 

 bushels, $301,098; hay, 190,237 tons, $2,425,522; 

 cotton, 1,345,099 bales, $48,024,822; by-products- 

 of cotton, $14,000,000; rice, 7,500,000 pounds,. 

 $375,000. 



Tobacco never has been a staple crop in Geor- 

 gia, and only in the last year has any attempt 

 been made to raise it for market. The latest re- 

 port on tobacco shows an area of 800 acres de- 

 voted to it, on which was produced 203,752 pounds, 

 last season. 



The truck-farming business has taken rapid 

 strides, and the truck farms in the five largest 

 counties are valued as follow: Chatham, $225,- 

 000; Richmond, $85,000; Bibb, $35,000; Muscogee, 

 $30,000; and Fulton, $150,000. 



The peach industry has grown greatly in the 

 past year, and it is estimated that since 1900- 

 about 2,000,000 young trees have been planted,, 

 which, with those put out in 1899 and 1898, will 

 give Georgia by 1904 more than 8,500,000 bear- 

 ing peach-trees. In 1901 the number of car-loads 

 of peaches from all Georgia shipping-points was 

 2,500, of which 1,400 came from one small sec- 

 tion of the State. The next largest fruit-crop is 

 apples. A pecan grove of over 1,000 trees is now 

 bearing in Dougherty County. Smaller groves 

 have been planted in Spalding and Hancock 

 Counties. The innovation is meeting with great 

 success. 



R. J. Redding, director of the Georgia Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station, in his report for the 

 past year, says: " I know of no soils that respond 

 so promptly and gracefully to fertilizers as the 

 soils of Georgia. During each of the last three 

 years yields of 25 to 40 bushels of wheat to the 

 acre have not been unusual. The same soils would 



