166 THE ALABAMA OI'l'ORTUNlTY. 



PROGRESS IN STOCK BREEDING. 



We will here remind him. that in two miles of the City of 

 Huntsville the world beating butter producing Jersey, Lilly 

 Flag, was calved and developed. The three finest cows, taking 

 first premium at Chicago Exposition came from Madison 

 County. There are imported jacks here, and some of the 

 standard bred stallions of the world claim their home in Mad- 

 ison, Lawrence and Jackson Counties. Many car loads of 

 cattle, sheep and hogs are shipped from the Valley. When 

 you find a country where four out of eight counties have a mag- 

 nificent system of free macadamized public roads, you need 

 not expect to catch it slip shod or down at the heel.' It is not a 

 good country for missionary work, it takes a pretty live man 

 to keep step with the music of our progress. Still we do not 

 disguise the fact that we have a surplus' of land, that it is ow- 

 ing to the fact that our negro labor is unreliable. In short we 

 have more land than white men can cultivate, and we want re- 

 liable home owners, men who will take care of the lands. If 

 the reader will divest himself of the idea that he knows more 

 about it than we do,, who have been on the groimd, will come 

 here and take in the situation intelligently, he will find why ex- 

 isting conditions prevail — and why lands are sold very cheap, 

 their productiveness considered. All these are questions which 

 address themselves to the intelligent Northern man who does 

 not look at the conditions with a telescope but comes here and 

 absorbs information. 



SHEEP RAISING. 



We would hardly presume that a man would use \^alley land 

 which would produce sixty bushels of corn to the acre for 

 pasturing sheep. It is true it would produce clover, timothy, 

 peas, bermuda, so luxuriantly that he might lose his herd in 

 its thickness, but our third rate lands afford the finest range 

 for sheep, lands that could be bought for five dollars. There 

 is a class of land which produces a tough hardy oak, "post 

 oak lands," this land can be found in spots in the Northern tier 

 of counties near the Tennessee line. Fine water abounds and 

 good grazing here withers and dies without use. Such spots 

 are noted for their healthfulness, in fact so great is it that a 



