t for what has been accomplished. This class of white
southerns are not, as a rule, politicians and it is seldom, if ever,
they are elected to office. When we speak of the average southern white
man then, we have particular reference to the great horde of office
seekers and politicians that infest the entire south-land. It is this
class that will tell you that Negro domination is the greatest menace to
the South.

Now, Negro domination may be a menace to the South, but it is certainly
not the greatest. Neither is the extermination of our forests to be
greatly feared. There are organizations and societies on foot in all
parts of the South for the conservation of our forests.

Southern citizenship is suffering much from child labor, but even this,
although being a great danger to our future development and prosperity,
cannot rightly be classed as our greatest menace. The one thing today,
in which we stand in greatest danger, is the loss of the fertility of
the soil. If we should lose this, as we are gradually doing, then all is
lost. If we should save it, then all other things will be added. Our
great need is the conservation and preservation of the soil.

The increased crops which we have in the South occasionally, are not due
to improved methods of farming, but to increased acreage. Thousands of
acres of new land are added each year and our increase in farm
production is due to the strength of these fresh lands. There is not
much more woodland to be taken in as new farm lands, for this source has
been well nigh exhausted. We must then, within a few years, expect a
gradual reduction in the farm production of the South. Already the old
farm lands that have been in cultivation for the past fifty or
fifty-five years are practically worn out. I have seen in my day where
forty acres of land twenty or twenty-five years ago would produce from
twenty to twenty-five bales of cotton each year, and from 800 to 1000
bushels of corn. Now, these forty acres will not produce more than eight
or nine bales of cotton and hardly enough corn to feed two horses. In
fact, one small family cannot obtain a decent support from the land
which twenty years ago supported three families in abundance. This farm
is not on the hill-side, neither has it been worn away by erosion. It is
situated in the lowlands, in the black prairie, and is considered the
best farm on a large plantation. This condition obtains in all parts of
the South today. This cons