Canebrake an Ideal Field For Farming 

 Operat ions. 



HsoiL SO productive, and a climate that so harmonizes with 

 it makes' the canebrake an ideal field for the working out 

 of agricultural problems. 



If there is anything grown in the temperate zone of America 

 that will not grow in the fertile fields of the Canebrake, the 

 enthusiastic friends of that section say that it has never been 

 found. Cotton, of course, is, as it has been for half a century, 

 the center of the industrial system of this section, even as the 

 sun is the center of the solar system. So many excursions into 

 other fields are being undertaken, so many experiments in the 

 culture and growth of other crops are being made, so many ar- 

 guments as to the possibility of other crops' are being aimed at 

 the thinking farmers, so many demonstrations of the financial 

 possibilities of other crops are vmder way, that the planter and 

 the farmer are being led away from their old methods, slowly 

 it is true, but nevertheless they are being led away. 



In the eternal fitness of things it was only proper that the fer- 

 tile acres of the Canebrake should become the theatre of these 

 experiments and demonstrations. In spite of the conservatism 

 of this s'ection, in spite of the ancient allegiance to cotton, which 

 in truth has kept the country prosperous through good times 

 and bad times, one is impressed with the new ideas, with the 

 demonstrations of changes that are being made. The Cane- 

 brake, the Black Belt, is the natural home of the cotton plant 

 even as the river bottoms of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi 

 are also its natural element. All who came to the Canebrake, 

 knew cotton culture, or learned to know it. Even the French 

 refugees who came into the Canebrake in the State's pioneer 

 days, to grow "the vine and the olive," abandoned their French 

 crops, that is those of them who remained, and went into the 

 growing of cotton. Land is so naturally rich, and land that 

 requires so little of fertilizer has always made money for its 

 owners, even when the sun of cotton was obscured by the dark 

 clouds of adverse financial conditions. 



