food supply of the South is to be raised at home; better homes and farm
buildings are being erected, and better machinery is being used. The
invention of a mechanical cotton picker, which has been accomplished,
should reduce materially the cost of handling the crop.
Bales of cotton ready for shipment.
Cotton-press yard, New Orleans.
Closely connected with this is the problem of roads. Where railroads are
scarce good wagon roads are all the more necessary. In the South
(excluding Kentucky, Arkansas, and Oklahoma) there are 500,000 miles of