SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



banker's first wife, a gentleman with nice contacts up 

 North, and in the end he'd sell out to some Western 

 mining interests with offices in New York. But by the 

 time the banker and his dead wife's cousin and the 

 Northern contacts were all taken care of, he would net 

 about one hundred shares of the mining company stock 

 and $13,750 in cash with which he would purchase his 

 uncle's old plantation, Belmont Hall. After two poor 

 cotton years he'd have to sacrifice his mining stock to 

 save the mortgage." 



I laughed aloud at this neat Southern extravaganza, 

 but McDonald did not even smile. His alert face was 

 grave, almost melancholy. "It is not really funny," he 

 said. 



"But, thank God," he added devoutly, "we're learning 

 from the Yankees. We are doing more digging for our- 

 selves. We are going to do more of our own selling in 

 the future." 



This is an old hope, oft deferred. Southern resources 

 have long been famous. Soil and climate, timber and 

 minerals, coal, natural gas and petroleum, and water- 

 power sites have been prospected, surveyed, cata- 

 logued, and thoroughly publicized numberless times. 

 The South's need of industries was recognized before 

 the Civil War, and I have heard Southerners boast 

 that their State Commissions and Chambers of Com- 

 merce have spent more time and money on industrial- 

 ization campaigns than all the rest of the country. 



4 



