The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 59 



Benton County farmer, three and a half miles from Sulphur 

 Springs, which weighed 29^ ounces. (Applause.) New York 

 can point to the beautiful tint of her cherry blossoms ; Arkansas 

 can boast of the state of the famous Alberta peaches that nestle 

 in the snow-white virginity of her soil ; and the only solid carload 

 of peaches ever shipped abroad was shipped by an Arkansas agri- 

 culturist from the greatest peach orchard in the world, located 

 in Pike and Howard Counties, Arkansas. New York has only Wonderful 

 a small mineral belt ; Arkansas claims 18 counties of her state ff°^.jlf . 

 that hold valuable deposits of anthracite coal; and it may be in- )«,■„„ 

 teresting to know, in this day of our nation's crisis, when we are 

 dependent upon the United States Navy to maintain the freedom 

 of. the high seas, that the smokeless coal now used by the United 

 States Navy is mined in Sebastian County Arkansas. Arkansas 

 ranks first in production of ash, cottonwood and red gum ; third 

 in products of hickory and oak; and fifth in the production of 

 pine in the United States. 



We have at present about three million acres of cut-over 

 timber in our state, and within ten years this amount will un- 

 doubtedly increase to approximately ten million acres, represent- 

 ing approximately, then, one-eighth of the total cut-over land 

 surface of the Southern states, on the basis of 76 million acres. 



Now, my friends, we join with our sister Southern states in 

 believing that the time has come for a great industrial renaissance 

 for economic development in our state ; and because of this fact 

 our Legislature has recently appropriated about two million dol- 

 lars to meet the terms of the Smith-Lever Bill, for carrying the 

 doctrine of agricultural extension into our state. We appropriated 

 $2,240,000 at the last session of the Legislature to meet the 

 terms of the Good Roads Bill, which will network our state with c/„/» „„([ 

 roads and construct about three thousand miles of improved j\!ation Co- 

 roads within the next five years. We are tlie third state in the operate in 

 Union to be completely freed of the great evil of the cattle tick, Economic 

 having made Arkansas a state-wide free cattle tick state, ranking Development 

 with Mississippi and Tennessee. We have appropi-iated $50,000 

 to enforce the provisions of this Act. We have begun to realize, 

 my friends, that the foundation of all educational progress, the 

 foundation of all moral progress, is economic development. I ani 

 rather heterodox when I make this statement, my friends ; but I 

 don't believe a people can be thoroughly intelligent, I don't be- 

 lieve they can be thoroughly moral, I don't believe they can live 



