10 EFFECTS OF TICK ERADICATION. 
of the First National Bank of Jackson. Term., was next interviewed. 
He said : 
I am heartily in favor of tick eradication and believe it is only a question of 
a few years until the whole South will be carrying on the work, and soon after 
tb.it time the whole country will be free. Then we can produce the cattle 
which are so badly needed at the present time. 
I have 30 head of Angus cattle, and can not supply the orders I get for breed- 
ing stock. I could sell 10 young bulls right now if I had them. All of my 
stock are sold as yearlings, for which I get $50 to $100 each. It has been 10 
years since there have been any ticks on my place, and I wouldn't have any 
get started there now for a thousand dollars. There has never been any money 
si>ent by this county to better advantage than that spent in helping to eradicate 
the cattle tick. 
The other men who were approached on this subject were of the 
same opinion as those quoted above concerning the value of the work. 
Everyone seemed to realize that the county was in a position to raise 
better cattle at a greater profit than ever before. Some of the men 
who had formerly been the bitterest enemies of the work, declaring 
that clearing a county of cattle ticks was an impossible task, were 
loudest in praise of the work after it was completed. 
From Madison County a trip was made to the Lespedeza farm, at 
Hickory Valley, Hardeman County, Tenn. Much of the land passed 
over was poor in fertility, due to the treatment it had received in the 
past, but very little of it was soil which could not be easily and 
rapidly improved in fertility by the use of legumes and live stock. 
All of it could be made to grow excellent pasture grasses, as was 
shown at the Lespedeza farm. This farm, which now consists of 
about 16,000 acres, of which 2,500 are in cultivation, was formerly 
an old worn-out cotton plantation, so poor that much of it had been 
abandoned and permitted to grow up in sedge grass, brush, and 
briers. Quite a little of it was covered with a natural growth of 
timber. 
The present manager wished to convert it into a stock farm, but 
there were two great drawbacks: (1) it was as ticky a place as could 
be found anywhere, and (2) it was so poor that little feed could be 
raised at first, and the pastures were very poor in quality. The cattle 
on the place were scrubby, stunted animals weighing from 500 to 700 
pounds and covered with ticks. 
A stock farm was to be made, however, so the first thing to be 
done was to fence the entire place and put double fences about 7 feet 
apart along the public road so that animals passing along the road 
would be unlikely to get inside the pastures. A dipping vat was 
installed, all of the cattle on the place were collected and put into a 
pasture near the vat. and the gates to all of the other fields were 
locked. The cattle were dipped every two weeks during the summer, 
and in a year the entire place was free of ticks. The ticks were 
