The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



163 



right to fence up his own lands and free that from ticks; and if 

 that was done in some parishes in this state I want to say that 

 there would be mighty few grazing lands left. Tick eradication 

 is going to be the basis of the modern cattle industry on these 

 cut-over pine lands, whether it is done, or is in process, or is yet 

 to be undertaken. It must be finished before any extensive cat- 

 tle business can be brought about ; because we must introduce 

 better blood for those herds, or entirely new herds, as one of 

 our speakers explained yesterday ; and I maintain that there are 

 plenty of men in this cut-over belt who are able to establish 

 those pure bred herds ; we know that, but unfortunately, like 

 the calculation on the cost of fencing an acre, the average man 

 is not able to do that, and you must keep within practical bounds 

 and not go beyond your financial ability in trying to do some- 

 thing you are not financially able to do, and of which you would 

 not make a success. The average herd must be improved by 

 breeding, in order to bring the cattle up to a better standard. 

 We must not subject them to the nuisance of these ticks, which 

 will ruin many of them and result in losses we can ill afford tO' 

 sustain. 



The fencing of these lands, in my opinion, is one of the es- 

 sentials for their best development. The next problem and the 

 biggest one of them all, is the removal of the stumps from that 

 portion of the soil to be cultivated for the production of the 

 winter feeds ; at least, it certainly is desirable that this process 

 be pushed forward until all the farm shall ultimately be freed 

 from stumps. These stumps are such a serious obstruction to 

 modern farming, such a detriment to every process we under- 

 take, that their total elimination from cultivated areas must be 

 a prime consideration. 



Now, I do not think we are all agreed on how this stump 

 removal shall proceed. There have been a great many processes 

 tried; a great deal of data has been accumulated, and especially 

 by the people operating these demonstration or experiment farms 

 on properties of the different companies; but that information 

 has not been consolidated and reduced to a system so that we 

 can draw a definite conclusion ; and, as someone has hinted, I 

 doubt if we will ever get much of that information. We do know, 

 however, that the yellow pine stump is one of the hardest propo- 

 sitions that any stump puller has ever tackled. There is noth- 

 ing in the line of stumps near so difficult. We do know that at 



Fencing and 

 Stump Re- 

 moval 



Best Land- 

 Clearing 

 Methods Still 

 Uncertain 



