THE ALABAMA OPrORTUNITV. / 



bama as in some other states, to find the opportunities which 

 were once so attractively painted and which in truth one time 

 existed, but passed away and gone. Nor will he find, I am ab- 

 solutely convinced, that our opportunities have been exagger- 

 ated or overpainted. 



Our handicap, on the other hand has been underadvertis- 

 ing. The outer world has known too little of what we have to 

 oflfer. The public mind is beginning to grasp in a way and to 

 approximate in a degree the richness of our mineral stores. 

 The idea of our mineral wealth has gotten abroad because of 

 its marvelous development in the past quarter of a century. 

 In the same way our agriculturai interests are undergoing 

 change and progress. 



Upon ovir farms the negro is now' ringing in the greatest 

 change. The movement of the negro from the farms and plan- 

 tations, to the mines, to the lumber camps, to the railroad 

 works is little short of a race exodus', this exodus, this agri- 

 cidtural evolution, entails loss and embarassment upon the 

 larger land owners, the larger planters, it presents a serious 

 question to them. 



But for the interest of the State as a whole this wholesale 

 removal of the negroes from the farm does not spell misfor- 

 tune for (Alabama. In many sections of Alabama 

 the negro's free handed occupancy, as a thriftless and care- 

 less tenant, has all but eclisped the sun of that section's agri- 

 cultural prosperity. He was not a successful farmer. His 

 leaving has broken up some of the great plantations of the 

 State, lands that were held in bodies of three, four and five 

 thousand acres; they are rich acres, too, for the wealthy land 

 owners, the slave holders of ante-bellum days had an eye for 

 only the richest and most fertile acres. 



The land may now be had at a modest figure. It will be 

 ofifered to the new comer to Alabama at a low figure, at an 

 astonishing figure to him, particularly if he is familiar with 

 land prices in the eastern and middle states, not because it 

 lacks fertility or agreeable surroundings, but because it lacks 

 men to till the soil. 



That in fact is what Alabama needs above all else, men to 

 till the soil. 



Nor is the need confined to the great cotton raising sections 

 of Alabama. It is' felt in the newer portions of the State, 



