“The agricultural interest is undergoing a great and rapid change for the better. We have abandoned the one-crop idea.
“Since January 1st, 1894, there has not been sold at this point more than one car of Western corn and meat. It has not been many years since forty cars of those two items were sold in about the same time.
“Lands here can be bought at a bargain. Our largest land owners see the great importance of increasing our white population, and are in thorough accord and sympathy with any movement looking to an improvement in that direction, and stand with open hearts and friendly hands to welcome a sturdy thrifty class with a little money and plenty of will and energy.
“One attraction, of the many worthy of an immigrant’s consideration in this county, is the fact that the farmer has a home market for his surplus farm products. Within a few months from now there will be a demand, within a circle of fifteen miles around LaGrange from the cotton mills already in operation and nearing completion, for 10,000 more bales of cotton than the county raises; that means 30,000 bales; we raise annually about 20,000. Many thousand bales will be sent direct from the fields, as it is gathered, to the factory, where the spot cash will be in waiting for the cotton and the seed, the value of the seed amounting to, or adding to the cotton, at least one cent a pound. The mill operatives furnish a market for thousands of dollars’ worth of the farmers’ surplus food products.
“Clover and grasses grow to perfection here, the Bermuda grass especially, which furnishes nine months pasturage and yields bountifully of a hay second only in nutritive value to the purest timothy.
“Here are some facts and figures from actual experience in farming in this vicinity: $96 worth of Bermuda hay from one and a quarter acres; $60 worth of rust proof oats from one acre; $64 worth of corn from one acre; 2180 pounds lint cotton (a fine variety) from one acre, sold for $174.40 and the seed brought $120.
“We have a farmer in this county who twelve years ago was not worth over $1000 and who now owns unencumbered property worth over $30,000; made it all farming; has never engaged in any other business.
“The thanks of every Southern man and woman are due you for the service you are doing them. And every respectable immigrant who is influenced by you to seek a home anywhere in this State, I know will not live here long before his obligations to you will be expressed.
“This country and any other will be truly great when the man who pushes the plow is landlord of the sod he turns.”