are breaking away from the credit system which has kept them as
borrowers and debtors and, as a result, they have money for investments
elsewhere. The great problems connected with cotton culture are the
labor supply and proper conservation of the soil. These solved, the
friends of the South confidently believe that thirty times as much
cotton could be produced as is produced at present. When one learns that
only 145,200,000 acres out of 612,000,000 are now under cultivation, the
claim does not seem extravagant.

[Illustration]
Loading cotton on the levee, New Orleans.

Southern farmers have learned that other products besides cotton pay
well. Less than twenty years ago practically no hay was raised for sale
in the Gulf States. The red clover and timothy which the planter thought
could only be raised in the North are now cultivated in the South. Iowa,
the greatest hay-growing State in the Union, has for the past ten years
averaged 1.58 tons per acre at an average value of $5.45 per ton.
Mississippi during the same time has averaged 1.62 tons to the acre
valued at over $10 a ton. Alfalfa has been found to be excellent feed
for stock and the yield, which averages from four to eight tons per
acre, sells for from $10 to $18 a ton. Corn is being cultivated now and
it is not uncommon to find yields of 100 bushels to the acre and under
the most favorable circumstances even twice that much has been raised on
a single acre. The prevailing high prices make the corn crop
particularly valuable.

Stock-raising, which has never been indulged in to any extent, now gives
excellent returns. The mules which are used so extensively in the South
are being raised at home instead of being brought from the North. Beef
animals and hogs are increasing in numbers and are being bred more
carefully. The great variety of food crops which ripen in rotation make
the cost of hog-raising very little--possibly two cents a pound will
cover the cost of raising, butchering, and packing. Sheep flourish in
the pine regions where they are remarkably free from diseases. They
range all the year, needing little attention.

[Illustration]
The Price-Campbell cotton-picking machine,
which does the work of fifty persons.

This shift in agricultural pursuits has been due in a measure to the
appearance of the boll-weevil which wrought havoc with the cotton crop
for some years. It is possible that the change has been decidedly
beneficial when one notes th