56 COTTON 



of 1899 which sum if equally divided, would give 

 a surplus of $240 to each of the 1,418,000 farms 

 growing cotton, of $21 each to every one of the 

 16,000,000 inhabitants of the Cotton States. 



ASTOUNDING SOUTHERN PROSPERITY 



Small wonder that Southern railways report 

 heavier increases in earnings than lines in any other 

 section of the country. 



Small wonder that the assessed valuation of 

 Southern property is now increasing three times as 

 rapidly as in the decade 1890-1900. 



Small wonder that savings and bank deposits in 

 the Southern States from 1900 to 1905 increased 

 more than 100 per cent, while the increase for the 

 rest of the United States was only 50 per cent. 



Small wonder that it is no extraordinary affair 

 a Sampson County, North Carolina, farmer re- 

 ported to us when he said last week that a farm he 

 bought four years ago for $57.50 per acre would 

 sell now for $100; another farm bought then for 

 $3,000 was recently sold for $8,000; land values in 

 his county have increased 33 1-3 per cent, within a 

 year, a total increase of a million dollars for this 

 one cotton county. ( We know of two South Caro- 

 lina cotton farms, one of which in three years has 

 increased in selling price from $3,000 to $8,000 and 

 another from $7,000 to $20,000.) 



Small wonder that Dr. Walter H. Page declares 

 in the World's Work that we "are in sight of the 

 time when the cotton grower in the old Slave States 

 will become the most prosperous tiller of the earth." 



It is, in fact, a new South that we have. The 

 factory, the bank, the church, the school, the news- 

 paper all are benefited by the increase in prices 



