82 THE ALABAMA OPPORTbXlTY. 



is hanging by beargrass withes' from the roof of his smoke- 

 house like an array of stalactites in some dark cave, his own 

 syrup is barreUed and headed in his kitchen or in his smoke 

 house, his hogs and cattle roam the hill sides and hammocks 

 of his big pasture and in the spring his two and three acre 

 garden is rich alike in fruit and in vegetables. 



The class of farmers who have to buy nothing for which they 

 pay money is of course small, but the class who have bursting 

 corn cribs, plethoric smoke houses, sleek and snug mules and 

 horses, well fed and valuable cattle, is by no means small in 

 Dale County about Ozark. They are numerous' enough to give 

 Ozark and this section a pride and a distinction. Upon every 

 road that leads from Ozark these contented and prosperous 

 farms are found. And on every farm is found a man who 

 doesn't pernnt his fences and farm buildings to become ragged 

 or run down at the heel, who pays his debts' and his taxes, 

 supports his church, takes his County papers with some big 

 Southern weekly and sends his children to school. 



THE INDEPENDENT EARMER. 



He doesn't find it necessary to have a painful interview with 

 his merchant in the merchant's office when he goes to buy his 

 goods, nor does he have to stand the merchant's telling him 

 that his family is demanding too many clothes and too much 

 food. Nearly all that he has to have he can pay for from the 

 remains of last year's crop and when he finds it expedient to 

 buy goods on a credit he doesn't have to mortgage the family 

 sewing machine and his little daughter's pet calf to get the 

 money. And at the end of the year, selling his cotton means 

 more to him than driving it to a warehouse, throwing it off 

 and taking the receipt around to liis merchant. 



That a condition so fraught with good for the County, so 

 fraught with value to the State should be so rare in Alabama 

 with all its' fertility of soil, with all its richness of agricultural 

 resources, is a thing of sorrow to thoughtful Alabamians. 

 That it is pronounced and emphatic in and about Ozark as to 

 call for extended notice and comment is a thing of creditable 

 pride to Ozark. 



But its existence means more than the inspiring sentiment 

 of pride to Ozark. It has an undeniable commercial and finan 



