"The Ranch," a Great Black Belt, 1100- 

 Head Cattle Farm. 



^^'he Ranch" is just what its name signifies. 

 ^^ It is two thousand acres of Western hfe set down in 

 the heart of the Black Belt. It is rural Montana in rural Ala- 

 bama. It is a cotton plantation transformed into a rich stretch 

 of grazing land on which i,ioo head of cattle are fattening for 

 the market. It is today, although it was but yesterday wide 

 expanses of cotton fields cultivated by negro tenants, a Wes- 

 tern ranch with cow ponies, fence riders, cow punchers, lasso 

 throwers', with big, goat skin spurs and huge stringy saddles. 



On the back porch of the farm house on the hill, there no lon- 

 ger hang scooter plows, sweeps, steel yards and cotton baskets. 

 Instead of tliese emblems of the cotton plantation there hangs 

 suspended two long slender branding irons, the emblem of the 

 new order that has pitched its camp on this spot in Hale County.' 

 The brand upon the irons is the "Flying E," the brand of W. 

 M. Murphy, who left Hale County as a youth, and after accu- 

 mulating a great fortune in the cattle business returned to make 

 his home in Greensboro and incidentally to introduce cattle 

 raising on a large scale in Hale County. 



THE CATTLE RANCH. 



The place he selected is ten miles south of Greensboro. It 

 is only two miles from the old ante bellum village of Cedarville, 

 which still survives but which shows the dilapidation which time 

 and adverse circumstances have brought about. A half mile 

 to the west of "The Ranch" is the old plantation of that strong 

 and able Alabamian, Syndenham Moore, who was a member 

 of Congress when the war broke out and who fell while bravely 

 leading a regiment of Alabama soldiers. "The Ranch" was 

 three years ago the Hill Place, a plantation that was for perhaps 

 seventy-five years given over to the growth and cultivation of 

 cotton. It is in the very heart of the conservative cotton pro- 

 ducing center of Alabama. 



