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By Transfer 
 
 NOV 3 1923 
 
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 FOREWORD. 
 
 O. H. L. WERNICKE, 
 
 Inventor, Organizer of Industries and 
 Booster of Social Progress. 
 
 HIS home is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 
 but he is also Vice-President of the 
 Pensacola Tar & Turpentine Co., Gulf 
 Point, Florida, and spends much of his time in 
 the South. 
 
 He has had ten years of practical experience 
 in agricultural pursuits, forestry, and care of 
 domestic animals under the direction of his 
 father, who graduated from a leading agri- 
 cultural school in Europe; and for many years 
 was engaged in the production and sale of 
 agricultural machinery, which required intimate 
 personal relations with farmers, throughout the 
 Union and in some foreign lands. 
 
 Mr. Wernicke has had twenty years experience 
 as a manufacturer of wood, metal and paper 
 products, and for fifteen years has been inter- 
 ested in the distillation of wood for pine pro- 
 ducts and charcoal. 
 
 Incidental to these major activities, he has 
 devised numerous systems and business methods 
 now generally accepted as standard the world 
 over. He was the originator of sectional book- 
 cases and a pioneer in the exploitation of sec- 
 tional furniture construction throughout the 
 industrial world. 
 
 Many other achievements, discoveries and 
 inventions are credited to his activity, including 
 improvements in gasoline engines, air com- 
 pressors, pneumatic wheels, lubricating devices, 
 lumber driers, fire resisting insulating materials 
 for safes, and the like. 
 
 Mr. Wernicke is a timber owner and a prac- 
 tical logger; he has had wide experience in or- 
 ganizing industrial and other enterprises, and 
 his many business relations have also embraced 
 banking, advertising, merchandising, and in- 
 
dustrial and mechanical engineering. He is 
 a member of the American Society of Mechanical 
 Engineers. The Federal Government frequently 
 consults him on matters pertaining to the 
 treatment of lumber for given purposes and 
 in standardizing the Government's office equip- 
 ment. 
 
 In a political way Mr. Wernicke was at one 
 time appointed head of the Michigan prisons. 
 During his six years in office he initiated the 
 legislative and practical reforms which resulted 
 in the turning of huge annual deficits into 
 profits, and the taking of a large percentage 
 of prison inmates from behind the bars and 
 placing them as honor men on state account 
 farms or in numerous other industries, such as 
 brick and tile making, canning food, the re- 
 clamation of waste lands, animal husbandry, etc. 
 
 He laughingly admits that he is visionary and 
 an optimist, but rejoices over the fact that 
 some of his dreams have come true. His 
 activities have been responsible for many 
 successful enterprises, some of which bear his 
 name, and give employment to many thousands 
 where no jobs were to be had before. The 
 established or safe and conventional grooves 
 of industrial life have held no appeal for him. 
 His is the pioneering type of mind and a per- 
 sonality which delights in the doing of things 
 "that can't be done". 
 
 Mr. Wernicke knows the South. He under- 
 stands its problems and appreciates the diffi- 
 culties which retard its greatest development. 
 His intimates among its lumbermen and its 
 other industries are numbered by hundreds. 
 His personal knowledge of Southern conditions 
 has been acquired on the spot and goes well 
 back into the preceding century. 
 
 Mr. Wernicke is now 56 years old. He tips 
 "six foot one" and the chap who keeps up with 
 "Dad's" 250 pounds of bone and muscle on a 
 tramp through the woods will enjoy his supper. 
 
 He in no uncertain terms defines what he be- 
 lieves to be the Southern Pine Lumbermen's 
 obligation to the South. Some will agree and 
 others disagree with his views that the lumber- 
 men are in duty bound with their own capital 
 
 2 
 
to pursue agriculture in any of its branches, 
 primarily the raising of food and cloth-producing 
 animals. Others of his views will undoubtedly 
 differ from some preconceptions. 
 
 In the nature of things no public utterance 
 could be excepted from the inexorable law of 
 divergent individual opinions. Be that as it 
 may, his message has a punch; he has himself 
 "done things" and we welcome this oppor- 
 tunity to present his ideas to the reader, as it 
 is our purpose to collaborate and make of record 
 the views of thinking men who are studying 
 our problem. 
 
 Department of Cut-Over Land Utilization, 
 
 SOUTHERN PINE ASSOCIATION. 
 
Let's Journey Through Cut-Over 
 Land. 
 
 I do not mean your little patch of ten, fifty 
 or a hundred thousand acres. You have been 
 over parts of that before and when you had 
 your map along you could generally tell in what 
 direction home was located and how many hours 
 it would take to get back. That is not the 
 kind of journey I have in mind. I have seen 
 a great many of these little individual patches 
 and am losing interest in them. When I was 
 younger our hundred acre farm looked big 
 to me, but ,when I came back home from the 
 corn fields of Kansas and the wheat farms of 
 Dakota where as many as fifty self-binders 
 could be counted at work in a single field, 
 that little old stumpy Wisconsin farm of ours 
 had shrunken so I could hardly see it, so it 
 seemed to me, but what had really happened 
 was that my vision had expanded or had changed 
 places. I no longer viewed the world as a 
 fringe to that farm but looked upon it in its 
 true proportions, as a mere speck on the universe. 
 
 And now, if you will get ready and take a 
 little run with me over two hundred million 
 acres of idle land, most of it cut-over, I feel 
 tolerably certain when we get back that your 
 own little "steen" thousand acre tract won't 
 look nearly so big to you as it did, and I'm 
 thinking it won't look so big, either, that you'd 
 be afraid to wrestle with it alone. 
 
 ON FOOT? 
 
 Let me see! Well, to go over this two hundred 
 million acre tract we ought really to cross 
 each section once anyway, so let us put them 
 all in a row first; it will be easier to find our way 
 about and will avoid duplication. We are 
 going on foot because we can see more of the 
 country that way, but it will be necessary to 
 have a snack to eat and something to drink on 
 the way. We were to cross each section once, 
 and there are 312,500 sections in two hundred 
 million acres; that means an equal number of 
 miles to be traveled; and we were going to walk, 
 
but I find that by making a 20-mile hike every- 
 day for 365 days, it will be forty-three years 
 before we get back home, and something might 
 happen in the mean time that we'd hate to 
 miss. 
 
 IN AN AUTO? 
 
 Let us go in a Ford. That will let us cover 
 a hundred sections a day instead of twenty, 
 and get us home after eight years and seven 
 months, if we don't have too much tire trouble. 
 
 We will take some spare tires along. They 
 say one set of tires, with luck, is good for 5,000 
 miles, so we will need 250 spares to do the trick, 
 but if they weigh ten pounds each we can't 
 well carry the load and there is the question 
 of grub for the journey — we'll say two pounds 
 a day per person — that makes 12,500 pounds 
 for the trip, besides the ton or more of spare 
 tires. 
 
 It doesn't seem to work our right that way, 
 and we must carry water, too, and there might 
 be trouble in finding gas and oil along the way, 
 so on further consideration let's make the trip 
 by aircraft. That's the lastest word for getting 
 over fast and then, too, it will afford us a better 
 view of things and the ferry tolls will be avoided, 
 which foot up when you go by auto. It cost 
 be $27.00 ferry toll in the short, trip from Pensa- 
 cola to New Orleans last year. That trip only 
 took two days and I shudder to think of keeping 
 up such a clip for nearly nine years. Nothing 
 doing! It would beggar Sam Jones and pay 
 for half a dozen air ships, so it's decided that we 
 are going land looking by aero. That's the 
 only way, anyhow, where time is money. 
 
 BY AEROPLANE? 
 
 Now, this air thing, they say, can do an average 
 of a hundred miles an hour, so we'll soon be 
 back if we do ten hours day — that's a thousand 
 miles — and if we take an early start on the 
 morning of February the thirteenth, barring 
 accidents we shall be back by Christmas eve — 
 that'll be going some! But they do say that 
 airplanes are really quite reliable now compared 
 to what they were before the war. 
 
 The idea of getting back for Christmas makes 
 a hit with me for we will need a little rest after 
 
flying 312 days, but we haven't finished. 
 While we were on this little journey, so our 
 friend Mr. A. G. T. Moore, Director of Cut-Over 
 Land Utilization, Southern Pine Association, 
 says, some one has been real busy logging and 
 thereby adding 81 miles a day to the long end 
 of the road. This makes 25,000 miles more to 
 go — the same as once around the earth — so we 
 go on another 25-day air trip after the holidays. 
 
 But this thing is getting on my nerves. Where 
 will it end. For, while taking that little twenty- 
 five thousand mile air ride, going nearly two 
 miles a minute, still another strip is added as 
 long as from New Orleans to 'Frisco. This 
 isn't much, and having been over 'Frisco thirteen 
 times on the other two trips we will let this 
 little end piece go now and watch the logging. 
 We can't walk eighty miles a day but we can 
 take the auto now. We have not yet seen all 
 the cut-over land, because it grows so fast, but 
 we have seen enough to realize that there is 
 quite a lot of it besides the little patch we live on. 
 
 The situation reminds us of old H. K. Twofist, 
 who made "his pile" in Colorado, and his son, 
 John. John had been to college and abroad, 
 and in the course of time concluded to go into 
 business and settle down. This pleased old 
 H. K., who asked: "Say, John, how much 
 money do you want for this thing." "Oh, a 
 million dollars will do. Dad." "What. A 
 M-M-M-Mil-lion DOLLARS ! ! Why. John, 
 that's a hell of a lot of money." "Oh, no. 
 Dad, it isn't so much, if you say it quick like 
 they do in Wall Street." We have so long 
 been accustomed to speak of cut-over lands in 
 terms of so many million acres, and to say it 
 "so quick", that our sense of proportions needs 
 readjustment. 
 
 WILDERNESS COMPOUNDED ANNUALLY. 
 
 Let us get this thing down to realities. We 
 can manage if we will forget for the time all 
 the cut-over land except that part of it which 
 current logging adds to the total. This little 
 annual addition is big enough to begin on and 
 
 6 
 
when we have that problem settled it will hep 
 a lot in dealing with the main issue. 
 
 So in order to plan out the uses for this annual 
 contribution, said to be about fifteen million 
 acres, we will cut it up into squares or strips 
 of a million each. This, then, gives us fifteen 
 such parcels, each forty miles square, or fifteen 
 strips one mile wide and sixteen hundred miles 
 long. It doesn't seem now as if it would be 
 difficult to manage these little parcels, does it. 
 
 To begin with, there is the soldier and sailor 
 colonization scheme. It is only an idea as 
 yet, but a good one if it works out in practice 
 the way it looks on paper. Let us assume that 
 it will, and that along with swamp and other 
 available lands it will dispose of one of the fifteen 
 squares or strips of cut-over land each year. 
 That leaves only fourteen more to be cared for 
 in some other way. 
 
 Now, let us also assume, because it is not a 
 known factor, that the ordinary course of immi- 
 gration and drift from other vocations will 
 dispose of another such parcel. That will 
 leave but thirteen. But as many of our land 
 owners are doing something themselves in the 
 way of using the land let us put that down for 
 another parcel, and we have only twelve left. 
 
 The railroads, too, are interested in settlers 
 and herds for these lands and may be depended 
 upon to do something, so let us meet this prospect 
 with another parcel, and that leaves eleven. 
 
 PRINCIPAL REMAINS INTACT. 
 
 The several states and local communities are 
 interested and the result of this force may 
 dispose of another parcel, leaving but ten, but 
 just what to do with the remainder before the 
 year is up so we can begin over with the next 
 contribution, which mean while accumulates, 
 presents a problem that bothers me. I suspect 
 that we need guns of longer range, larger caliber 
 and greater power before we may hope to over- 
 come the odds against us in this situation. 
 
 To clear all this land as we go is out of the 
 question, for even if we have the two hundred 
 and sixty odd million dollars annually required 
 to pay for the labor we couldn't obtain or 
 
care for the half-million laborers required to 
 do the work. It has taken fifty years to put 
 six million inhabitants on the soil and in the 
 towns of Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska where 
 the land is richer and did not require clearing. 
 The settlement of these states occurred at a 
 time when great waves of land hungry human 
 tides were moving westward over the face 
 of the earth. To expect anything like it to 
 happen with our cut-over land situation is a 
 delusion; meanwhile taxes are mounting higher 
 while public improvements lag. 
 
 Five million acres divided into 100-acre tracts, 
 gives us 50,000 home units. Assuming that a 
 desirable settler's family represents four persons, 
 and that half the influx thus set in motion will 
 drift to our towns and cities, the plans men- 
 tioned would add from three to four hundred 
 thousand souls to the population of the South. 
 This is beyond all precedent. No new country 
 ever experienced such a rate of immigration for 
 a protracted period; and where are all these 
 people to be had or what shall cause them to 
 leave other homes and come South? 
 
 THE LAND OWNER'S OBLIGATION. 
 
 The sheep and the swine, the cattle and goats 
 which can supply the only sure solution must 
 be had in sufficient numbers so that their increase 
 may populate the total available area within a 
 period of ten or fifteen years. This our land- 
 owners can do, must do, and will do because 
 there is no one else in sight who is willing or 
 able enough to do it for them. The landowners 
 alone have the incentive, also the resources 
 and the business capacity, to set in motion and 
 direct the forces which shall mark a turn in the 
 tide, if it is to be done in the present generation. 
 
 OPPORTUNITY AND ORGANIZATION, 
 
 "Give me men to match my mountains ; 
 Give me men to match my plains; 
 Give me men with empires in their purpose 
 And new eras in their brains." 
 
 The sentiment, and the spirit portrayed in 
 these lines borrowed from a Fourth of July 
 oration delivered by Sam Walter Foss, accu- 
 
 8 
 
rately echo the challenge to combat which the 
 cut-over land situation hurls at the Southern 
 lumbermen. It cries for men "with empires in 
 their purpose and new eras in their brains". 
 It has no place for those whose wish-bones 
 occupy the place where their back-bone ought 
 to be. It is the clarion call of the bugle for 
 men who dare to venture upon the waste places 
 of the earth with a spirit that defies all obstacles 
 and sponges the word "defeat" from its lexicon. 
 
 We hear the challenge and we have the men 
 for whom victory will be history's answer 
 when they have been aroused by a clearer view 
 and greater appreciation of the scope of the task, 
 and who, because of its magnitude, will find there- 
 in a zest for the game. There is about as much 
 chance of getting into heaven by your wife's 
 religion, as in settling this cut-over land situa- 
 tion by sending the boy to mill. The only way 
 to do anything is to act in the right way and it 
 will be my purpose here to assist in clarifying 
 the situation in such manner as to bring our 
 own latent forces into action. 
 
 Your Cut-Over Land Department is a fine 
 thing and marks a logical beginning on the 
 task before you. It has done and is doing a 
 big work which could not be so well done by 
 individuals, but it will not and can not do every- 
 thing, and without the support resulting from 
 individual achievement the department would 
 resemble a single track railway without terminal 
 facilities. It is your clearing house for informa- 
 tion and ideas; it can determine and promote 
 desirable legislation and foster a favorable public 
 sentiment. All this it may do, and more. 
 Organized activity along the lines which the 
 Department has pursued is one of the big helps 
 in the several forces which must work together 
 to build the "new era" of our desires. 
 
 The Cut-Over Land Department must be 
 given the means and authority to command the 
 services of able men on the major problems 
 affecting the profitable use of the idle land. 
 Their skill and potential value should in turn 
 be directed by a practical administrator. That 
 is about as far as the Department can go with 
 advantage at this stage of the situation, and 
 anything less than that will not, as I firmly 
 
believe, produce the desired results. While 
 the cost of such an organization may seem large 
 in its aggregated sums, it will be found that the 
 unit of expense per member or acre when com- 
 pared with the returns will have been small and 
 a very profitable investment as well. 
 
 In order to justify any form of organization 
 supported by your association, its efforts must 
 result in the actual and profitable use of the 
 lands at a rate and in such a way as will consti- 
 tute a successful demonstration of their worth. 
 Only by such measures may the public's in- 
 terest be enlisted sufficiently to insure the good 
 use of all this land within a reasonable period 
 of time, from the standpoint of the private and 
 public interests now concerned. Anything less 
 than that involves the risk of adding further 
 disappointments to the sum of past experiences. 
 
 The success of any great undertaking must 
 of necessity be founded on possible achievements 
 and not Upon illusory hopes, and our efforts 
 must be guided by such facts as history, expe- 
 rience and good sense confirm. Other hopes 
 and wishes must be put aside. 
 
 With the foregoing principles in mind, I shall 
 endeavor to clarify the present cut-over land 
 situation by subjecting to a logical analysis 
 some of the thoughts in the minds of the land- 
 owners which are receiving more or less pub- 
 icity, and to indicate measures in support of 
 a definite policy of action. 
 
 PRO BONO PUBLICO. 
 
 To them that hath is. (Old version). 
 They who hath must help they who hath not. 
 (New version). 
 
 The facts and fancies that have been contri- 
 buted to the subject in times past, have not as 
 yet produced that degree of initiative which 
 rests upon confidence, nor do they seem to 
 inspire decisive actions on the part of those whose 
 presence is a reality right here and now and 
 who possess both the means and the ability 
 to do the vital things that change dreams 
 into facts. During the pioneer days of America, 
 it was every man for himself and the Devil take 
 the hindmost. The public weal was lost to view 
 
 10 
 
in the struggle for individual existence. This 
 spirit, born of earlier necessity, still pervades 
 our businessmen, but times have changed and 
 under present day conditions self-sufficiency is 
 no longer permissible. We have come upon 
 times when private advantage cannot be so well 
 pursued or so easily attained with contempt 
 of public opinion and a disregard of communal 
 prosperity. 
 
 SKELETONS OF THE PAST. 
 
 The expanding area of Southern cut-over 
 pine land is a stubborn fact, not a theory, and 
 until the daily expansion from logging operations 
 is met or stopped no adequate beginning will 
 have been made to rescue these lands from a 
 state of idleness. The one big fact that sticks 
 out all over this problem is the comparative 
 failure, despite all past efforts during a quarter 
 of a century or more, to utilize the generality 
 of these lands for small farming purpose by at- 
 tracting and holding settlers. The causes 
 which underlie this situation are more generally 
 understood than admitted; its proven unde- 
 sirability for small farms, by no means condemns 
 the land as valueless for other equally important 
 uses, but it clearly shows that the further effort 
 of the owners must be expended in ways that 
 are more in keeping with its potential utility. 
 
 In this respect the teachings of history are 
 too plain and convincing to admit of denial 
 or doubt. Evidence of sporadic results here 
 or there is not wanting, of course, but no ade- 
 quate, useful purpose can be realized by hiding 
 or minimizing any negative feature with the 
 hope that it may fool someone else. Where 
 this has been tried, it has hurt all concerned. 
 
 Such lessons, however, are valuable if we heed 
 their teachings and change the angle of our de- 
 sires towards the attainable and away from the 
 "gold at the end of the rainbow". Enough is 
 now known regarding the desirable and profitable 
 uses to which cut-over land lends itself to warrant 
 a serious beginning of its proper use by its owners 
 and without waiting for something or other to 
 happen whereby the task may be shifted on to 
 other shoulders. The right start of this vast 
 work waits upon nothing more difficult than an 
 
 11 
 
"attitude of mind" which recognizes the neces- 
 sity of convincing others by showing results. 
 Whatever else a people may desire, they must 
 have food and clothing, and never before in 
 the history of all mankind has this fact been 
 more forcibly emphasized and acknowledged as 
 now; nor has the opportunity for profit by turning 
 an empire of idle land into productive channels 
 been so good; and it may never become more 
 urgent or inviting than at this time. 
 
 PROMISES AND PIE CRUST. 
 
 Two years have elapsed since the New Orleans 
 meeting was held, at which all this was foreseen, 
 met with patriotic promises and numerous able 
 contributions, and encouraging responses were 
 then and there recorded. It was declared that 
 the "new era has dawned". The great war has 
 come, and is now almost a thing of the past. 
 The needs of the human race as there empha- 
 sized have since been multiplied in their in- 
 tensity, but the opportunity for contributing 
 generously to these needs by putting the land 
 to some use was soon forgotten. I relate this 
 instance not in a spirit of carping criticism but 
 with a desire to prove that the attitude of 
 mind which has so long obsessed the land owners 
 is not a consistent one and contains no assurance 
 of future success. This "mental state" may 
 be changed into action by a candid and logical 
 presentation of the vital factors involved in the 
 situation, and though my opinions as herein 
 expressed may not prove sufficiently convincing 
 to produce immediate results, it is to be hoped 
 that they will cause some readers to think and 
 act on lines which will not fail to "remove the 
 fly from the ointment". 
 
 Crust and Filler = Complete Pie. 
 Promises and Action = Achievement. 
 
 Such pride of personal opinion as I may have, 
 suffers not at all by adopting a better course 
 when it has been developed by an exchange of 
 views. It is not my purpose here to offer a 
 specific, but rather to arouse the latent forces 
 in others, who are more capable of dealing with 
 this situation than any single individual. Like- 
 wise, I trust that what I may say will not be 
 
 12 
 
misconstrued as lacking in harmony with the 
 policies of your organization, because polifcies 
 change with added understanding of conditions, 
 and are of necessity unstable. The purpose 
 which I have in mind is in its essence the same 
 as the purpose of those landowners who are 
 cooperating through their association, and that 
 is, the use of the land which lies idle and is a 
 liability of the owners as well as of the entire 
 country. 
 
 The plea that lumbermen are not farmers is 
 invalid and unworthy of utterance by business- 
 men. Time was when they were not lumbermen, 
 and when the timber is gone they will cease to 
 be lumbermen. If he will, a businessman may 
 be anything which his opportunity and his 
 self-interest requires. As an inevitable sequence 
 of the lumbering operations and as a vital eco- 
 nomic factor incidental thereto, the cut-over 
 land is a feature which intrudes itself into the 
 business of lumbering, and so long as its poten- 
 tial utility is ignored it presents a wasteful 
 liability. Most of our great enterprises owe 
 their success to the recovery of by-products 
 which required the aid and understanding of 
 arts quite foreign to the technique of the ori- 
 ginal venture. The lumbering business is not 
 exceptional in this respect; on the contrary, the 
 saving of various by-products from its mills 
 and its forests are proven necessities and accom- 
 plished facts, but the one great by-product 
 permanent in character and indestructible in 
 its nature is the cut-over land. It alone sup- 
 plies the answer to the oft repeated query: 
 "After the lumbermen, what?" 
 
 The land is here; it is a condition; so is the 
 lumberman or ex-lumberman who owns the 
 land. It requires tremendous resources and ex- 
 ceptional business ability to bring all these 
 vast areas under production. The indispensible 
 resources of capital, energy and business ability 
 requisite to the task are all at hand and require 
 only to be mobilized. Moreover, these essen- 
 tials are not presently to be obtained elsewhere 
 in adequate measure, thus leaving the owners 
 face to face with the naked fact that no solution 
 of the major problem will unfold to bring in 
 desirable outsiders in sufficient numbers until 
 the certainty of "pay dirt" and methods of 
 
 13 
 
getting it have been convincingly demonstrated. 
 This thing is our own baby and is entitled to 
 the best of growing up that we can give it. 
 
 REFORESTATION. 
 
 I am quite in accord with the views presented 
 in the address of Mr. H. T. Cory, Consulting 
 Engineer, United States Reclamation Service, 
 Department of the Interior, "Forestry vs. 
 Agriculture", (pages 6-7). The Federal or 
 State Governments must take title to the 
 lands and assume supervision over reforestation 
 work for the benefit of future generations. 
 Private enterprise does not meet the require- 
 ments of this situation and can do little more than 
 encourage Federal and State activities along 
 these lines. To an appreciable extent cut-over 
 lands reforest themselves and such areas should 
 be defined, protected and exempted from all 
 taxes until they may be incorporated in the 
 National or State Forest Reserve. 
 
 The lumbermen are so conversant with this 
 phase of our problem that extended remarks 
 here would be without purpose. I only wish to 
 suggest that all owners of cut-over lands may 
 add to their value and attractiveness for future 
 use, whether by themselves or other persons, 
 if ten acres on each quarter section be fenced an 
 reforested. The aggregate of such wood lots 
 would be large enough to exert a favorable in- 
 fluence on the climate, provide shade, fuel, 
 building material, etc. Such reforestation would 
 in other ways contribute greatly to the value 
 and desirability of the remaining lands for grazing 
 or other purposes. 
 
 CONSERVATION. 
 
 Land Clearing and Value of Stumps. 
 
 The very intimate relations which I have 
 maintained with the pinewood Distillation 
 Industry and other similar by-product recovery 
 methods during the past twenty years, and my 
 practical experience gained from the successful 
 conduct of such an enterprise, which claims the 
 distinction of being — with one single exception — 
 the oldest in point of continuous operation among 
 a few remaining survivors, enable me, so I 
 
 14 
 
believe, to speak with convincing authority on 
 such matters. 
 
 The recovery of turpentine and other valuable 
 products from "mill waste" has been a complete 
 failure, as many lumbermen know from costly 
 experience, because such material does not 
 yield enough product to pay for the cost of its 
 recovery. This fact has been established by 
 hundreds of experiments conducted at a cost 
 which represents a sum so huge in the aggregate 
 as to discourage further attempts in this di- 
 rection. 
 
 Some measure of success has been achieved 
 by utilizing the top wood, limbs and small 
 timber for pulp or box-board stock when taken 
 out coincident with logging operations, and in 
 such circumstances the mill waste has a value 
 as fuel, and a portion of the slabs make pulp. 
 An operation of this nature involves equipment, 
 the first cost of which is so great as to require 
 separate capital and special corporate organiza- 
 tion apart from the lumbering business. I 
 may say, however, that this industry is one of 
 great promise for the South. The raw material 
 is here in great abundance and there is an ever 
 increasing demand for paper and other products 
 composed largely of wood fibre, but the industry 
 does not now lend itself to a utilization of ma- 
 terial from old cut-over lands and so long as 
 logging operations continue the material thus 
 made available which is not suitable for lumber 
 may be brought to the pulp mill in adequate 
 supply at a very low cost. In consequence, unless 
 a process is used whereby the resinous products 
 contained in the fat wood from cut-over lands 
 may be separated and recovered as well as the 
 pulp, there is no possibility of deriving revenue 
 from such lands by making pulp wood, for the 
 cost of labor and transportation alone is pro- 
 hibitive. 
 
 Another process, known as "extraction", 
 whereby fat wood from cut-over land is hogged 
 and finely shredded and then soaked in a solvent 
 (such as gasoline) to dissolve the resinous con- 
 tents, has of late years attracted renewed 
 attention. The products obtained by the ex- 
 traction process consist of turpentine, pine oil, 
 and rosin. The power necessary to decimate 
 
 15 
 
the wood and carry on the leaching distilling, 
 and refining processes, together with other 
 capacious equipment, all require large capital 
 and centralized operations. The process is a 
 technical one beyond the comprehension of 
 those without experience in chemistry and 
 engineering. There is now but one concern 
 in successful operation. Another is passing 
 through its third receivership in five years, and 
 several new ventures are under contemplation. 
 Like the history of steaming turpentine from 
 mill waste, considerable sums of money have 
 been sunk in such plants. The major product 
 being rosin, the wide market for this material 
 presents a powerful argument in favor of the 
 process. 
 
 The more conventional conversion of fat wood 
 is called Destructive Distillation. It consists 
 of heating the wood in retorts and collecting the 
 crude products of decomposition through water- 
 cooled condensors. The residuum from the 
 retorts is charcoal, while the condensed liquor 
 contains a variety of chemicals, including tar, 
 turpentine and pine oil. For purposes of de- 
 structive distillation the wood must be "fat" 
 and should be smooth enough to pack closely 
 in the retorts. Ordinary cordwood is a de- 
 sirable form for the purpose. 
 
 The D. D. process (by which abbreviation 
 the destructive distillation system is commonly 
 known) provides an ideal method for converting 
 fat pine when and while there is no competition, 
 because the very limited demand for such pro- 
 ducts, and especially the pine tar, which repre- 
 sents seventy per cent of the crude oils so ob- 
 tained, has restricted the development of this 
 industry to a dozen small plants, of which four 
 only have earned a fair interest on the money 
 invested. Only four of these plants have a 
 record of operating for five consecutive years in 
 a condition of financial health. 
 
 Destructive distillation is very old, but its 
 limitations are not widely understood and this 
 fact has enabled the promoter with a "new pro- 
 cess" to charm real money out of the pockets 
 of the credulous sucker to an extent and with 
 a recurring persistence which is truly amazing. 
 The fair inventory value of all the fat pine D. D. 
 plants now in successful operation does not 
 
 16 
 
exceed one million dollars, and at average prices 
 the total products from all the going plants 
 does not exceed two and one half million dollars 
 annually, which includes exports. 
 
 The annual production of retort or D. D. 
 pine tar varies from thirty-five to sixty thousand 
 barrels per year. To this must be added the 
 yearly production of the old-fashioned pine 
 tar, varying from fifteen to forty-five thousand 
 barrels; this tar is made in the woods by burning 
 fat pine wood under dirt-covered kilns and is 
 generally described as "country tar" in the 
 markets. Owing to the manner of its production 
 this country tar inevitably contains water and 
 dirt ranging from 15 to 35% of its volume, and 
 its constants are necessarily lacking in uniformity, 
 which results in wide discrimination as to prices. 
 
 The total demand for pine tar of both kinds 
 fluctuates from a minimum of fifty thousand to 
 a maximum of one hundred thousand barrels 
 a year, making an average of seventy-five 
 thousand. Therefore, whenever the production 
 exceeds the average requirements the prices 
 slump to unprofitable figures and at other times 
 they slump because some one needs the money, 
 or has tar in leaky packages, or for no apparent 
 reason whatever. New and greater uses for 
 pine tar have not responded with encouraging 
 results to the constant eff"orts of the producers, 
 and until this condition can be surmounted 
 a further expansion of productive facilities must 
 result disastrously to investors in this industry. 
 
 The average yield of tar by D. D, processes 
 amounts to about 50 gallons (or one barrel) 
 from the cord of wood. It is, clear, therefore, 
 that 75,000 cords of tar wood supplies the annual 
 requirements. Taking Mr. Moore's figures of 
 "51,600 acres per day" at which the cut-over 
 area is increasing, the total annual pine tar 
 supply is obtainable from the wood off land 
 denuded by logging operations every forty- 
 eight hours, provided that all cut-over land 
 produced three-quarters of a cord of fat wood 
 per acre, which, unfortunately, is not the case. 
 Thrifty growing timber does not yield tar or 
 turpentine in paying quantities. The stumps 
 and other logging waste from cut-over pine 
 lands require from five to twenty years after 
 
 17 
 
logging to mature fat wood suitable for any 
 recovery process. The wood does not fatten 
 until the sap has rotted off, and then it does 
 not do so uniformly. Savannah or flat lands 
 are more favorable for good fat wood than the 
 rolling or higher lands, and the stumps generally 
 contain more resinous material than the top 
 wood but they likewise present difficulties in 
 their removal and conversion which are so great 
 that most of the tar now made is obtained from 
 knots and top wood. 
 
 Another problem that presents very serious 
 aspects to all forms of fat wood utilization is 
 transport, both by road and rail. A cord of 
 average fat wood weighs from four to six thous- 
 and pounds and the cost of hauling presented 
 by the prevailing average of conditions is 
 anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar and twenty- 
 five cents per cord for each mile, whether it 
 be done by animals, trucks or other equip- 
 ment, and as the distances from fat wood lands 
 to railway loading points are constantly in- 
 creasing, and likewise the rail hauls from loading 
 stations to the plants, these features have within 
 the past few years presented alarming problems 
 for solution to those engaged in the pinewood 
 distilling industries, by whatever method it 
 is carried out. 
 
 I have presented the facts in sufficient detail 
 to convince most landowners that the sale or 
 conversion of fat wood from cut-over lands is 
 not an alluring prospect, and this is further 
 emphasized by the fact that only a small por- 
 tion, say one-fifth, of the total area of such lands 
 contain desirable fat wood in sufficient quantity 
 to warrant its recovery; it is also true that only 
 a relatively small percentage of the waste wood 
 and stumps on the better land is suitable for 
 profitable conversion. The incontestable facts 
 which I have here presented utterly demolish 
 the theory so often and glibly expounded by 
 persons possessed of no practical knowledge on 
 the subject "that the tar wood will pay for 
 clearing the land". Barring a few exceptionally 
 favorable tracts and limited areas to be so cleared, 
 the total value of all the fat wood in the field, 
 minus labor and transport, annually required 
 by the several distillation methods now in use 
 
 18 
 
would not average ten cents an acre, or one-half 
 of one per cent of the cost of clearing the land. 
 
 As to the advisability of clearing the generality 
 of cut-over lands, I have as yet been unable to 
 find sufficient evidence to encourage a belief 
 either in its possibilities or desirabilities; the 
 exceptions are so rare and rest upon local con- 
 ditions of soil and other advantages to such an 
 extent that they afford no criterion, but rather 
 serve to confirm my convictions, if such proofs 
 were needed. 
 
 I have had no little experience in clearing 
 land, including the removal of stumps by 
 blasting, burning, pulling and otherwise, and 
 the best methods for any given set of conditions 
 involve a big expense for equipment, labor and 
 transportation. So varied are the conditions 
 met with in different localities, or even in the 
 same locality, and so meager or colored with 
 absurdities is the available data respecting such 
 operations that they do not present a helpful 
 basis for estimating the cost of clearing cut-over 
 lands. Some say it is $10.00 per acre; others, 
 $25.00, but for the purpose of our mathematics 
 let us assume that the cost of clearing is $17.50 
 per acre — though I believe double the amount is 
 nearer the mark. The sporadic examples of 
 cleared lands which here and there attract our 
 attention enliven the wish to see more of it 
 placed in that condition, and this is a result 
 greatly to be desired. Unfortunately, however, 
 it is unattainable for several good and sufficient 
 reasons, which appear with greater distinctness 
 when we turn from the examples cited and view 
 the acreage of cut-over land in its totality. 
 
 THE PROBLEM. 
 
 Vast, Colossal, Infinite. 
 
 I do not know how extensive this area really 
 is and doubt if any one else really knows, but 
 we are agreed that it is vast and is expanding 
 at a tremendous rate from day to day by 
 cutting the timber, by the ravages of fire, the 
 waste of turpentining and through windfalls. 
 Hence, if we place such expansion at fifteen mil- 
 lion acres a year, after deducting such as may 
 have been taken for tillage and grazing purposes, 
 it brings the situation near enough to our vision 
 
 19 
 
to show that few of the present generation will 
 live to see even a fair proportion of it so utilized. 
 Mr. Moore says that the cut-over area has grown 
 considerably during the past ten years. This 
 is undoubtedly true and no one assuming to 
 express an authoritative opinion has placed 
 the accumulative acreage under seventy-five 
 million. Many place it at higher figures, and 
 Secretary of the Interior, Lane, in support of 
 his proposed project for placing the returning 
 soldiers on the land, makes the statement that 
 there are at least 200,000,000 acres of cut-over 
 timber lands, all of which can be reclaimed and 
 made available for production. If such an 
 area containing two and one-half million 80-acre 
 farms were put under a state of profitable 
 utilization, it would support an increase in our 
 rural population of ten million souls, an equal 
 number of cattle, half as many draft animals, 
 twice as many hogs, etc. Incidentally, our 
 towns and cities in these circumstances would 
 grow in proportion, making a total increased 
 population of twenty million souls, with an 
 aggregate of taxable wealth beyond compu- 
 tation. And, best of all, this is not a mirage 
 but an attainable reality, worthy of the men 
 with "empires in their purpose and new eras 
 in their brains". 
 
 THE LUMBERMEN. 
 
 Equal to the Task— If Willing. 
 
 The assumption that our lumbermen friends 
 do not possess these attributes is denied by 
 their deeds. Nothing is lacking to set in motion 
 the processes needed to build this empire and 
 inaugurate this era of my prognostications 
 but a shift of mental attitude. I feel it in my 
 bones that we shall do this thing. The task is 
 one which depends on a correct beginning, and 
 by discarding some cherished hopes which for 
 the time being are vain. 
 
 We do not require a familiarity with higher 
 mathematics to understand that it would cost 
 $262,500,000.00 to clear the fifteen million 
 acres represented by the annual expansion 
 of cut-over land areas. Where is this money 
 to come from? If it could be had, could it 
 not be otherwise employed to better advantage? 
 
 20 
 
A mere clearing of the land is but one item. 
 The buildings, fences, tools, drainage, and other 
 indispensible things would treble the figure 
 before we arrive at such details as stock, ferti- 
 lizer and the like. The cost of clearing adds 
 nothing to the potential value of land unless 
 it is suitable for cultivation with assured re- 
 turns consistent with those prevailing in other 
 gainful pursuits. If we had the money to clear 
 the land and provide the other improvements, 
 from where and by what methods would we 
 procure the labor to do the work? At current 
 wages to clear the fifteen million acres which 
 are annually added to the cut-over domain 
 would require the work of five hundred thousand 
 laborers. Have I not said enough to show that 
 this problem demands an altogether different 
 postulation, some plan or procedure within our 
 means and which we may set in motion without 
 waiting for a millennium based upon vain 
 hopes and born of desires that cannot be ful- 
 filled? What has been tried and found wanting, 
 together with other methods which upon their 
 face bear the stamp of impracticability, must 
 all go into the discard to clear the deck for the 
 attitude of mind which shall stamp the hall- 
 mark of a virile and sane beginning on the 
 face of the existing situation. 
 
 IMMIGRATION AND COLONIZATION. 
 
 It has long been a sort of Southern fetish 
 to talk of and hope for immigration to turn 
 its tide our way. It is a plausible word and 
 presents alluring prospects, but it has not been 
 realized for perfectly valid and well known 
 reasons, and for the same good reasons it is 
 time that we turn our thoughts to other means 
 for relief. The settlement of the Middle and 
 Western States, to which frequent allusions 
 are made, affords no basis for our hopes. The 
 westward tide not only passed us by but drew 
 into the stream large numbers from the Southern 
 States who are gone never to return until con- 
 ditions here have been greatly changed for the 
 better. The country no longer receives a large 
 influx of desirable foreign agirculturists with a 
 land hunger centuries old to be satiated for 
 the taking. These richer lands of the Middle 
 West are taken and the tide has changed the 
 direction of its flow towards other lands and 
 
 21 
 
foreign countries which, for the time being, at 
 least, present more inviting conditions. The 
 Southern cut-over lands for general farming 
 purposes are not so good and therefore fail to 
 satisfy the migratory man-animal in his search 
 for a new home, and the social aspects of the 
 South make no compelling appeals to the man 
 who has lived happily and prospered elsewhere. 
 
 No, that lane is too narrow; this cut-over 
 land is our own problem. Let us face the truth 
 and solve it at home. It can be done. We 
 possess the means to do it and the fact that there 
 are thorns on the bush makes the game all the 
 more exciting for those who will engage in it 
 with the right spirit, and to such the practical 
 results will not only confirm the wisdom of 
 their course but will bring them the richer 
 reward of deserved achievement, which time 
 does not corrode nor thieves appropriate. 
 
 Great movements of peoples from one place 
 to another are caused by unrest and a desire 
 for better living conditions. This situation 
 prevails to a greater extent among the wage 
 earners in the large industrial centers than 
 among those who are engaged in rural pur- 
 suits. The former class, even if it could be 
 persuaded to settle on these lands, would prove 
 unfit for the task, which could only result in 
 making a bad situation worse. Until the South 
 can match the superior advantages and greater 
 social attractions which make for success and 
 contentment elsewhere, it will do well to keep 
 the labor it now has. Our immediate concern, 
 therefore, is to keep what we have and raise 
 more by improving the conditions under which 
 people may more easily earn a good living and 
 achieve higher physical and mental standards. 
 Labor movements are induced by offers of better 
 living condiitons and we can do a great deal to 
 develop from theory into reality the things which 
 make for desirable social environment, intel- 
 lectual advancement and material well being 
 in the South because we are blessed with the 
 means and the abilities for using them to these 
 ends. The dawn of this new era waits upon 
 nothing more essential than a consistent atti- 
 tude of mind. 
 
 22 
 
FEDERAL STIMULUS OF SETTLEMENT 
 SLOW. 
 
 I have read with much pleasure and profit 
 the printed addresses delivered last November 
 before the Southern Land Congress by Messrs. 
 H. T. Cory and Elwood Mead, Consulting Engi- 
 neers of the United States Reclamation Service, 
 Department of the Interior. These men have, 
 in a most able manner, illuminated the existing 
 situation with reference to reclamation of waste 
 lands in general and the quickened realization 
 on the part of our Government officials for the 
 urgent necessity of Federal and State aid to pro- 
 vide rural homes for the returning soldiers and 
 sailors, and also for others of our citizenship, 
 to the end that the world may be suppHed 
 with more food and other necessities for com- 
 fortable living. Under our political system the 
 practical reclamation of waste lands and their 
 disposal to colonists or other settlers must of 
 necessity be slow. It cannot escape the pressure 
 of conflicting self-interest by communities 
 and persons in its projects and policies. Direct 
 Federal control will likely be first extended to 
 the more favorable soils and where opportu- 
 nities are more inviting than the generality 
 of cut-over lands afford. 
 
 Mr. Cory in his careful treatment of the 
 colonization idea (pages 10-11) affords a clear 
 perspective of its possibilities-and they are 
 only suggestions, not realities, nor even settled 
 purposes so far as Uncle Sam is concerned. 
 His expressed hope, if realized, that even one 
 million acres may be selected — a mere freckle 
 on the face of the total available area — does 
 not go to the root of the situation which con- 
 fronts the owners of cut-over land, nor would 
 it satisfy the communities which are so gen- 
 erally affected thereby. The hope is a vague 
 one and without precedent, and by the utmost 
 stretching of my credulity I cannot picture to 
 myself floods of returning sailors and soldiers 
 eager to assume the self-denial and practical 
 fortitude involved in the processes of wrenching 
 prosperity from the generality of cut-over lands, 
 and paying therefor with improvements "eighty 
 to one hundred dollars an acre", or even half 
 that sum, because better lands in more desirable 
 surroundings can yet be had in abundance at 
 
 23 
 
lower prices. The soldiers and sailors will 
 soon have been demobilized and returned to 
 their former homes and vocations, and long 
 before such colonization projects can possibly 
 get under way with Federal, State or other 
 public co-operation. 
 
 Granting that all obstacles will be surmounted 
 and that such colonies will actually be estab- 
 lished, many years must elapse before the suc- 
 cess of such an enterprise on cut-over lands can 
 be demonstrated. Meanwhile, according to 
 Mr. Moore (page 2 of his printed address), 
 the total area of cut-over lands is being added 
 to at the rate of fifteen million acres yearly. 
 Is it not clear that a more immediate and defi- 
 nite measure must be applied to oflFset even these 
 daily increments? But, let us not fail to take 
 advantage of these immigration and coloni- 
 zation forces for they are good and desirable, 
 though not sufficient unto our needs. 
 
 STATE AID AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. 
 
 Federal and State governments have gone 
 far towards the establishment of the principle 
 that it is not only a proper function of govern- 
 ments to lend their aid to rural pursuits and the 
 development of natural resources, but that it 
 is a very wise and necessary policy which will, 
 in future, receive increasing consideration by 
 our lawmakers because it is peculiarly responsive 
 to popular opinion and human necessities. 
 
 The rapid expansion of such programs may 
 be anticipated with certainty and that the 
 benefits will justify such a course is beyond 
 doubt, but in the very nature of things the exact 
 form and direction of such aids and their prac- 
 tical administrative application will also in- 
 creasingly bring to the fore such inevitable 
 struggles for preferment between localities and 
 personal interests as are common to every 
 opportunity where advantages at the "public 
 crib" are concerned. Every state and every 
 congressional district will be on hand with its 
 chosen representatives and its organized lobbies 
 as special pleaders for "pie" and more pie, 
 and it is a logical assumption that the funds 
 for all such projects will be distributed pretty 
 generally in the proportion of political repre- 
 
 24 
 
sentation and for the ratable benefit of localities 
 by which such funds are contributed through 
 forms of taxation. This, it seems to me, must 
 be the eventual outcome, at least in so far as 
 Federal assistance may go, and similar logic 
 seems not entirely inapplicable to State aid. 
 
 In the circumstances, the position of private 
 owners of cut-over land among lumbermen who 
 are classed as prosperous or well-to-do may 
 present difficulties in so far as it affords peculiar 
 opportunities for attack by self-seeking moulders 
 of public opinion who care more for votes than 
 for equity. It cannot be refuted that the gen- 
 erality of such lands were at one time a part of 
 the public domain from whence they were segre- 
 gated to private ownership by speculators and 
 others for private gain with little regard for 
 cummunity welfare. All this at the time was 
 a logical and inevitable procedure encouraged 
 by the immediate and prospective needs for 
 lumber in other places, but with little con- 
 sideration for the local consequences which 
 followed and are now pressing for remedial 
 action. It can hardly be said that private 
 ownership destroys all public claim upon or 
 interest in the utilization of this property 
 and I am sure that a majority of the owners 
 harbor no such narrow sentiments in relation 
 thereto; on the contrary, they possess a superior 
 sense of public obligation which each desires 
 to liquidate in full measure at the earliest 
 moment after the right manner of doing so 
 has been determined. 
 
 A STITCH IN TIME SAVES NINE. 
 
 There is always great advantage in taking 
 and holding the initiative and it will prove to 
 have been the part of great wisdom to avoid 
 unfavorable situations by anticipating them 
 with methods of our own choosing and which 
 can easily be devised to enlist the favorable 
 support of public opinion by making visible 
 and actual progress in the processes of re- 
 storing cut-over lands to useful production. 
 The demand for public improvements and support 
 of our administrative systems demand the taxa- 
 tion of property and business and since the 
 valuable timber from our cut-over lands has 
 gone beyond the reach of the local tax collector, 
 
 25 
 
the land which remains must, and should, bear 
 its fair share of the tax burden. There is no 
 equitable reason — from a community stand- 
 point — why it should not do so and when pro- 
 perly used it can well afiford to pay such taxes. 
 The use of the land is up to the owner and not 
 the assessor. If one can afford to pay taxes 
 on idle property, it may be his legal privilege, 
 but it is wastefully wrong nevertheless, and 
 in some measure excuses public interference 
 by discrimination in methods of taxation or 
 otherwise. There is a growing school of poli- 
 tical thought which holds that idle lands should 
 be so heavily taxed that they must be used 
 or ultimately revert by default to the state. 
 
 This is not the place to expand doctrines, but 
 it can do no harm to remind ourselves occasionally 
 that forces of unrest all over the world are be- 
 coming daily more active, more discriminating 
 in matters affecting th social welfare, and more 
 insistent upon "the square deal" as viewed from 
 the angle of those who struggle on from year 
 to year for the mere necessities of life, such as 
 food and apparel. Numerically these elements 
 represent the big majority and through forms 
 of local, district, state, Federal and inter- 
 national organization are voicing their demands 
 with logic and persistence which it is unwise 
 to leave out of our program or policies in dealing 
 with the cut-over land situation and its potential 
 value, and therefore concerns the man in the 
 street, who needs only to be made aware of 
 his right or advantage therein to bring great 
 pressure upon the powers that be to take action 
 whereby he may be benefited regardless of 
 its violence and the so-called legal or vested 
 rights of the title holders. 
 
 We need but follow the doctrines so widely 
 imposed upon our social and business structures 
 in recent years and the still more radical utter- 
 ances coming from powerful sources through 
 the literature of our time to appreciate the 
 timeliness of a warning that we must do some 
 things different, whether we want to do so or 
 not. In a recent symposium of international 
 expressions involving the rights of all who labor, 
 "the problem of feeding and clothing the world" 
 whenever or wherever the old order of things 
 breaks down as it has in Russia was made the 
 
 26 
 
keynote underlying all other objects and is 
 proclaimed to be the foremost "right of man" 
 to which all other considerations must yield 
 obedience. It is, therefore, the part of wisdom 
 in our situation to be mindful of the dangers 
 in our pathway and leave to chance nothing 
 which foresight may help us to minimize or 
 avoid. 
 
 It requires no great powers of imagination 
 to appreciate the dangers with which the situa- 
 tion is pregnant, nor the persuasive elements 
 of moral justice underlying this tendency in 
 the development of socialistic ideals. In the 
 light of such considerations, which I hesitate 
 to expound with greater elaboration, may it 
 not prove unfortunate to exploit pubUc attention 
 with reference to cut-over lands unless the owners 
 concurrently demonstrate their capacity and 
 desire to satisfy the demands of the public 
 welfare therein by putting them to definite 
 and immediate use? 
 
 THE SMALL FARM. 
 
 As an economic entity the "small farm" 
 occupies a similar status to that of other smallish 
 enterprises. It cannot compete because its 
 costs are too high. The small farm is at a 
 disadvantage in matters of buying, selling, 
 production and transportation, when carried 
 on as a competitive business. It is true, how- 
 ever, that by the application of hard work and 
 strict economy the small farm affords a degree 
 of independence and the means of livelihood 
 which has ever appealed to certain people. 
 Its drawbacks, nevertheless, are so many that 
 such communities are constantly losing popu- 
 lation to our cities and industrial centers in 
 the pursuit of better living conditions. We 
 must not omit these teachings of history from 
 our program and purposes. Obviously this 
 human tide will not be reversed and ebb country- 
 wards from our cities until better living condi- 
 tions, as the term is interpreted by the masses, 
 are found there. The longer hours of labor 
 and all the other draw-backs which must be 
 endured by those who remain permanently 
 on small farms present undesirable conditions 
 to our present day city folks. 
 
 27 
 
I know of no industry which now presents a 
 better field for investment of capital and the 
 exercise of executive ability than farming as 
 a business and it is an open question whether 
 the "small farm", as we call it, may not cease 
 to be an attractive vocation when confronted 
 by such improved methods. Food production 
 and its distribution are the two greatest enter- 
 prises in the world; and its production is by 
 far the greater of the two. Should it not, there- 
 fore, be given first place in our calculations. 
 
 ORGANIZED AGRICULTURE— 
 NOT TENANTRY. 
 
 One by one, with changing circumstances, 
 the small shops and small crafts have had to 
 give way to the greater forces of specialization 
 and great organizations, and there is no logic 
 in presuming that agriculture will continue 
 untouched by or unresponsive to the economic 
 laws which have caused such changes in other 
 lines. The great industrial organizations with 
 all their faults and earlier crudities have neither 
 enslaved, impoverished nor debased the masses. 
 On the contrary, and within one generation 
 these organizations have so greatly improved 
 the living conditions of the masses that the plain 
 working man of today enjoys education, com- 
 forts, pleasures and a degree of independence 
 which fifty years ago were beyond the reach 
 of the well-to-do. The power of centralized 
 capital and energy must prevail where older 
 but unsound ideals cease to be expedient. 
 Great agricultural organizations are equally 
 desirable and may become as necessary as in 
 other industries before we shall provide the 
 superior rural living conditions which could 
 attract labor from city to country. 
 
 It will not be a form of landlordism and 
 tenantry; that relic of feudalism is dead beyond 
 revival. As we live and learn, we see clearly 
 that labor is achieving its own independence 
 and dictating its own terms, and aside from the 
 inevitable breaking of eggs for this omelet a 
 backward look to our situation — as it was ten, 
 twenty or thirty years ago — cannot fail to con- 
 vince the least thoughtful among us that in spite 
 of the friction incidental to the astonishing 
 
 28 
 
changes through which we have come, the world 
 is better off because the masses are better off. 
 
 Organized industry when efficiently conducted 
 not only provides opportunity for remunerative 
 employment under desirable living conditions, 
 but it also provides safe and well managed 
 investments for the person of small means. The 
 preferred securities which supply capital for our 
 great enterprises are largely absorbed by the sav- 
 ings of the working men and women, either directly 
 through their savings banks. This is altogether 
 a desirable situation and points to greater social 
 stability, when a majority of the wage earners 
 shall have acquired a substantial interest in 
 something and a corresponding control over 
 the sources of their employment; how superior 
 to the false ideal of the small farms and crafts 
 where drudgery must prevail to sustain a mere 
 existence which some of us still call "the good 
 old days". 
 
 I am interested in a Michigan agricultural 
 industry known as "Simpson Acres". It is 
 a very profitable enterprise consisting of several 
 highly improved farms utilized for stock, swine, 
 poultry, and draft animals, and supplemented 
 by a general store, blacksmith shop, cannery, 
 dairy and meat market, and will soon have its 
 own little bank for the convenience of its work- 
 men and patrons. This enterprise is con- 
 ducted by an experienced manager. Labor 
 is paid going wages for conventional hours and 
 the living conditions are attractive, hence there 
 is no labor shortage. We are providing cot- 
 tages on small tracts which may be owned or 
 rented by those employed about the business, 
 and are thus not only meeting the main objections 
 to rural living but are providing superior allure- 
 ments for people from the towns. Families 
 who could not maintain themselves for lack of 
 capital and experience in small business ventures 
 or on small farms may here under organized 
 capital and skillful direction enjoy all the de- 
 sirable features of outdoor life with the least 
 discomfort or risk. No capital is needed to set 
 up a home like that, and in time many of the 
 employees may become part owners of the enter- 
 prise, because it affords an opportunity for safe 
 investment at maximum returns. 
 
 29 
 
During the past fiscal year, Simpson Acres 
 earned enough from its store alone to pay 6% 
 upon the whole investment. Forty acres in 
 grapes cleared another 3%. And th.ese are 
 merely incidents. Simpson Acres buys at 
 wholesale and sells at retail to a great extent. 
 It does things in a big way not open to the small 
 farmer. It is a producer and merchant com- 
 bined, and does business in the best way for 
 all concerned. I sometimes call it "Happy 
 Acres", because it cures the grouch. It is a 
 real "home maintenance unit". 
 
 ADAPTABILITY OF CUT-OVER PINE 
 LANDS. 
 
 Encouraging signs, striking at the root of 
 the situation, were particularly illuminated 
 at the New Orleans meeting in 1917 by Mr. 
 F. B. Enochs, Fernwood, Miss., and Mr. J, 
 Lewis Thompson, Houston, Texas, as reported in 
 the "Dawn of a New Constructive Era". From 
 the sum of knowledge contributed by some thirty- 
 eminent speakers there, nothing so graphically 
 displayed the results of self-reliant action as 
 the testimony of these two men who emphasized 
 the importance of a proper "mental attitude" 
 as a practical factor in our problems. 
 
 While it must be conceded that certain limited 
 areas of cut-over land have been cleared and 
 brought under cultivation with profit to the 
 owner, the preponderance of testimony which 
 such attempts have produced clearly proves 
 that success is the exception and not the rule, 
 and upon analysis of the failures we perceive 
 that the scarcity of farm labor, high cost of 
 indispensable fertilizer, remote markets, and 
 similar basic conditions were the responsible 
 factors, and until these unfavorable conditions 
 have been greatly changed for the better other 
 methods involving lesser hazards must be adopted 
 and carried out. 
 
 Almost every section contains at least a few 
 acres that may be advantageously cleared for 
 raising garden truck and justify the keeping of 
 poultry, pigs and a milch cow or two, and thereby 
 contribute much towards the comforts of family 
 life, but these little home units are only justified 
 where and when other remunerative employment 
 
 30 
 
may be had. The importance of such "home 
 units" is not generally appreciated and they do 
 not receive the consideration from the big land 
 owners which they merit. The character of 
 the houses and other conveniences are as a rule 
 extremely uninviting, and ill suited to encourage 
 permanent occupation or that degree of con- 
 tentment which encourages the birth rate among 
 their occupants. 
 
 Except in the cities and industrial towns through- 
 out the great cut-over land areas in the South 
 the birth rate and immigration may not keep 
 pace with the losses in population, unless those 
 who are here in the capacity of proprietors 
 take come action to exploit their lands in a 
 more logical manner and thus create the oppor- 
 tunities which justify the processes of increasing 
 the population. This task will prove less arduous 
 than may at first appear to be the case because 
 it parallels the self-interest of all other enter- 
 prises in the territory and therefore will meet 
 with willing and hearty co-operation. 
 
 NEGROES AN ASSET TO THE SOUTH. 
 
 We already have a colored population which 
 under progressive encouragements would respond 
 to our needs and prove itself desirable because 
 of the greater birth rate among people of color 
 and their fitness to perform manual labor under 
 the prevailing climatic and social conditions 
 in the South. I feel very confident that the 
 raising of more and better negroes in the South 
 is as much to be desired as the raising of good 
 animals. 
 
 THE ANIMAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 In support of the logic presented in the pre- 
 ceding pages and what I shall have to say under 
 this caption, the reader is referred to the state- 
 ments made by Mr. Moore under the title 
 "Colonization Inadequate to Place the Vast, 
 Idle Acreage into Prompt Use", page 3 of his 
 printed address before the Southern Land 
 Congress, November, 1918. There, without 
 ambiguity, we are told, in substance, that the 
 usual farm colonization efforts are inadequate 
 and will not solve the South's and our problem; 
 the lumbermen for whom he was speaking 
 
 31 
 
had met in 1917 at New Orleans, and whose 
 directors had previously assembled in Chicago, 
 had reached the conclusion "that despite all 
 individual and collective efforts made in the 
 past their problem was accentuated"; and we 
 are told that after three days devoted to a con- 
 sideration of the question "of the best immediate 
 future use to which cut-over lands should be 
 put" the conference evolved an opinion that 
 the "South" should "continue by the process 
 of evolution following in the footsteps of more 
 developed sections of the country which went 
 through a period of livestock raising on the 
 open range before intensive farming ensued". 
 
 PASSING THE BUCK. 
 
 My sympathies go out to friend Moore over 
 the struggle it must have cost him to announce 
 the opinion thus evolved by the directors. 
 His usual flow of good English is wanting. 
 "Immediate future use" is somewhat of a paradox 
 and that our "lumbermen are not agriculturists" 
 is an invalid alibi. The determination to seek 
 advice from officials of Federal and State gov- 
 ernments is to be commended only in so far 
 as all helpful information on any subject is 
 desirable, but it was not made clear what con- 
 structive knowledge or assistance the State 
 and Federal officials might render in the situa- 
 tion, unless to facilitate the "passing of the 
 buck" and thereby relieve the present owners 
 of the land its burdensome taxes and other 
 problems which a use of such lands entails. 
 
 Throughout the printed addresses is mani- 
 fested a purpose or desire to shift the burdens 
 and responsibilities for the useful treatment 
 of the land from its owners to other shoulders. 
 If it could be done, it would be the easy way 
 out, and I would have no occasion to intrude 
 my divergent views. It is admitted that 
 past efforts to get out from under have re- 
 sulted in disappointment, and unless the advice 
 obtained from Government officials shall over- 
 turn the causes which underlie the present 
 adverse status of the situation the result will 
 remain much as it is. while Father Time pro- 
 ceeds to garner us one by one into that myste- 
 rious land where each must choose his chamber 
 in the silent halls of death. 
 
 32 
 
What I am contending for is, that until other 
 methods become available, and as a logical aid 
 to their earlier realization, the grazing of cut- 
 over range must be inaugurated and developed 
 by the present owners of the land. It is so 
 self-evident as to require no argument here, 
 that all other forces which may help in working 
 out an adequate solution of the problem should 
 be courted, but until tangible results are shown 
 enthusiasm will cool off. It requires sub- 
 stantial progress to keep up the spirit of the 
 game. Advice is cheap, but when it falls down 
 in practice it may prove expensive. 
 
 This cold feet attitude of the landowners 
 must change before all these combined forces 
 will insure a victory of proud and profitable 
 proportions; it is impossible to conjure a rainbow 
 of hope from anything less tangible in this 
 situation. A determination "to follow in the 
 footsteps of more developed sections of the 
 country which first went through a period 
 of livestock raising on the open range before 
 intensive farming ensued", is most wise in 
 principle and in our case seems lacking only a 
 determination to practice the principle. When 
 the underlying advantages "of more developed 
 sections of the country" are analyzed, we 
 are made painfully aware of the fact that such 
 sections presented opportunities and attrac- 
 tions which are not present in our cut-over land. 
 Such developments have passed us by and will 
 not voluntarily intrude themselves on our domain. 
 Is it not self-evidence that a policy of "watchful 
 waiting" cannot solve our problems unless we 
 do some real hustling while we wait? 
 
 ANIMAL RAISING VERSUS LUMBERING. 
 
 The raising of domestic animals is a bigger 
 and less hazardous business than lumbering. 
 It is more attractive and genteel in every way, 
 and has a permanency in the affairs of men upon 
 which the careers of generations may be fore- 
 ordained with safety, pleasure and profit. 
 It is a big business for big men, to be conducted 
 in a big way, and it is not equally feasible 
 for lesser men of smaller means. 
 
 The essential requisites are an abundance 
 of permanent range and water, supplemented 
 
 33 
 
/\^/d 
 
 by a favorable climate. These ideal conditions 
 are more generously combined in the territory 
 of our vSouthern cut-over lands than elsewhere 
 on this continent, and a ready cash market 
 for the products in any quantity is equally well 
 assured. Is anything more needed to justify 
 my reiterated pleading for a change of mental 
 attitude? I believe not, and if mistaken in 
 this surmise must I not also revise my opinion 
 regarding the business sagacity of those who 
 own this virgin empire of great opportunities. 
 
 Instead of lying awake nights to think of 
 means whereby this El Dorado of promise 
 may be given over to others, it deserves to be 
 regarded in the light of a fortunate possession, 
 because in a few years it can be turned into 
 sources of profit that cannot fail to support 
 its owners and their descendants in luxury 
 indefinitely. Where else and by what other 
 means may we find another prospect so inviting. 
 The promise of these great ranches possess 
 allurements for me that are irresistible and it 
 will always remain a source of regret that I 
 was not blessed with the "burden" of owning 
 fifty thousand acres of cut-over land. 
 
 If it were true that the land could not be 
 profitably c mployed by its owners either in- 
 dividually or collectively with all the advantages 
 of money, business training, and other resources 
 at their command, this in itself would present 
 a deterrent spectacle of risk and hazard to the 
 soldiers, sailors and other persons who are less 
 a^^Ved by training, aptitude and capital. 
 It i^a fact that the land is incapable of a fair 
 return when put to consistent uses, but it does 
 preclude intensive agriculture from consideration, 
 without first using them for grazing purposes. 
 
 ADVICE VERSUS INDIVIDUAL ACTION. 
 
 The knowledge of this condition, it seems 
 to me, will operate with equal persuasion in 
 retarding future development in severality 
 as it has in bygone days, and it must be apparent 
 that no advice which can be obtained from public 
 officials can, in any way, change this situation 
 except by fostering misleading expectations, 
 or exploiting their interest as an endorsement 
 of worth and productivity which the land 
 
 34 
 
cannot redeem. No real progress could result 
 from such methods; on the contrary, when the 
 returns are in, the situation will have been pre- 
 judiced and made more difficult to deal with 
 than it now is, and a hurtful public sentiment 
 might be aroused thereby. I would deem myself 
 unworthy of the friendship I claim of lumber- 
 men did I hestitate to express myself most 
 frankly upon these, to me, seemingly vital 
 considerations. It is so much easier to echo 
 the sounds most pleasing to the ear, even 
 though it proves to be a mistaken kindness in 
 the end. Therefore, at the risk of forfeiting 
 applause from the left, my convictions remain 
 firm that events will vindicate my course. 
 
 Covering the land with flocks and herds will 
 of itself attract widespread attention among 
 thoughtful and desirable people It is good 
 advertising and will greatly hasten the day of 
 opportunity to dispose of lands in large and small 
 tracts, because it establishes their desirability 
 as nothing else can do so well. When that 
 happens the owner will be much less anxious 
 to part with his land, for the advantages will 
 be more in his favor. While a thing is a "drug" 
 on the market, the seller is always at a dis- 
 advantage and the thing is worth only what 
 it will bring when a buyer has been found. 
 Grazing in any form as to the animal chosen, 
 tends to build up land by improving the kinds 
 and quantity of grasses produced from year 
 to year. It also makes easier the ultimate 
 clearing of stumps from the land, and by re- 
 ducing the prevalence of destructive fires 
 encourages reforestation. Land subjected to 
 grazing for several seasons will generally pro- 
 vide sustenance for two animals, where but one 
 could thrive in the beginning. It is this process 
 of reciprocal stimulation which provides the 
 necessary humus at an ever increasing ratio. 
 It is by this process of more animals, more grass; 
 more grass, more animals, that even very poor 
 soil becomes enriched and suitable for intensive 
 tillage. 
 
 The conduct of livestock industries will 
 inevitably bring in people who will settle on the 
 same land without being made wholly dependent 
 upon its returns for a livelihood This is a 
 logical and altogether a desirable procedure, 
 
 35 
 
and insures the availability of needed labor. 
 Forage crops for wintering stock are a necessity 
 and will further encourage settlement of smaller 
 tracts, and thus these independent forces 
 supplement one another to build up commu- 
 nities on a stable and lasting basis. 
 
 WHAT ANIMAL? 
 
 Horses, mules, donkeys, cattle, swine, goats, 
 sheep, and poultry; all are commendable and 
 may be profitably raised in the South with 
 proper care and management. All should be 
 bred to the extent of local demands or in re- 
 sponse to this or that particular requirement, 
 and in some localities dairy or beef cattle can 
 be raised to good purpose for the outside markets. 
 The same will be found true of some draft 
 animals in excess of local needs. Swine and 
 poultry are exceedingly desirable about every 
 rural home, but have their limits in our present 
 condition of rural backwardness, inexperience 
 and disinclination of provide such stock with 
 the care it should receive, and therefore diver- 
 sified animal husbandry would result in dis- 
 appointment as a means for using the range 
 afforded by cut-over lands. 
 
 The dairy herd for profit requires a practical 
 knowledge of and a liking for the business. 
 It is a tedious process to build up a good dairy 
 herd and its proper care calls for stables, silos 
 and quite an array of other costly utensils 
 and equipment. There must also be provided 
 suitable supplies of grain, ensilage and other 
 crops to supplement the range grasses which 
 by themselves are not adequate to the needs 
 of dairy or beef cattle. Generally speaking, the 
 cattle business develops slowly. The annual 
 turnover is relatively small. It calls for a 
 disproportionate investment in permanent im- 
 provements for which capital is lacking and which 
 would represent a fixed charge eventually to 
 be absorbed by the returns. The "tick" also 
 demands consideration and imposes burdensome 
 handicaps where cattle are concerned The 
 "tick" will long continue to demand a degree 
 of vigilance and warfare even where cattle 
 prevail in small numbers, and would be exceed- 
 ingly difficult to deal with where millions of 
 range cattle are involved. 
 
 36 
 
I have thus presented quite an array of things 
 in a more or less unfavorable aspect, which is 
 quite foreign to my inclinations and preferences, 
 because my normal impulses are optimistic. 
 I experience delight in boosting things, and 
 the necessity for depreciating any enterprise 
 requires a real effort on my part, but this cut- 
 over land problem is of such magnitude, embraces 
 the future welfare of so many people, and pre- 
 sents so many perplexing angles that I feel 
 it a duty to express my convictions without 
 reserve. Anything less than candor would 
 only result in harm to those whose interests 
 I have at heart! 
 
 THE ANSWER: SHEEP. 
 
 Happily, in this woolly little friend of the 
 human family the world over, we find every 
 attribute for a complete solution of the problem. 
 There is no other domestic "critter" so well 
 suited to the purpose in mind, unless it be a 
 good goat All others are outclassed by a wide 
 margin and there are substantial reasons for 
 giving sheep the preference over goats on the 
 generality of cut-over land. 
 
 Mutton, wool, tallow, pelts and bone are con- 
 spicuous among the human necessities which 
 the whole world wants, and the time has passed 
 never to return when an over-supply of these 
 commodities will be experienced. Wool, in 
 all history, has met no successful rival in pro- 
 viding the most ideal clothing and other com- 
 forts deemed well-nigh indispensible. Wool 
 grease (degras) is an item of conspicuous im- 
 portance in many of our industries, for which 
 substitutes are rare and costly. I need not dwell 
 upon the food value of mutton in this age of 
 meat scarcity, which, with coming years, will 
 be further accentuated — except to remind the 
 reader of its pronounced superiority in values 
 over all other kinds of meat, save pork. Even 
 in this comparison good mutton sustains its 
 well deserved equality. Mutton tallow also 
 possesses superior qualities for many uses as 
 food and in the arts. The value of sheepskin 
 in the manufacture of wearing apparel, book- 
 binding, upholstering and for a great variety 
 of other useful purposes, is growing in favor 
 day by day. Bone and other offal have their 
 
 37 
 
uses in important particulars, so that almost 
 nothing from a sheep is waste produced; even 
 the hoofs are worked up into buttons and glue. 
 In some parts of the world, sheep's milk is used 
 for human food, and is said to be exceedingly- 
 palatable. I must say, however, that I do not 
 fancy the taste of it. 
 
 The sheep, barring Mr. Ram, is a companion- 
 able, docile and tractable animal; a good rustler 
 and comparatively immune from decimating 
 infections or other devastating diseases. In 
 these respects, under sensible care, sheep present 
 fewer drawbacks by far than either swine or 
 cattle. They are more prolific than most other 
 domestic animals, excepting swine or poultry, 
 and come to early maturity. Their progeny 
 when conserved may in a few years populate 
 all our cut-over land if given a fair start. Sheep 
 bring in a money return thrice annually, from 
 wool, lambs and mutton. They are continual 
 producers in one form or another, and the increase 
 reaches a tangible market value within four 
 months of its birth. 
 
 A flock of healthy sheep is almost like money 
 in the bank. They represent liquid assets to 
 a greater degree than most other animals be- 
 cause the buildings and other improvements 
 needed are simple and inexpensive. In the 
 Southern States sheep require no housing at 
 any season, but should be provided with shade 
 during hot weather. Bearing ewes should be 
 provided with supplementary rations during 
 the winter months to insure strong lambs. 
 Sheep require less feeding than cattle and are 
 capable of more completely sustaining themselves 
 in good to fair condition on cut-over range 
 grasses than any other animal, excepting goats. 
 
 Other desirable results that follow the grazing 
 of sheep on such land, due to their habit of 
 close nipping and their ruminating nature, are 
 the minimizing of fires, which annually destroy 
 the meager humus and inflict other costly 
 damages which cannot otherwise be so easily 
 overcome, and the rapid change from bunch 
 and wire grass to more prolific and nutritious 
 varieties which invariably takes place on native 
 soils when closely grazed by sheep, performs 
 the most important function of all in the process 
 
 38 
 
of soil building, which is so admittedly indis- 
 pensable before cut-over pine land may be 
 classed as desirable or suitable for the more 
 intensive agricultural pursuits. This fact alone 
 places the sheep in the front rank as a pioneer 
 to provide the beginning of a new era for the 
 South; the rib-work to which may be fastened 
 a healthy, growing, virile, social structure of 
 enduring qualities and in numbers suffiicent to 
 give every acre of available land a value which, 
 in the present situation, would seem fabulous 
 or unthinkable. 
 
 WOOL PRODUCTION IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 Because animals are given heavier fleeces 
 for their protection in the colder regions of 
 the north does not mean that wool growing 
 in the south must be less profitable. Such is 
 not the case; on the contrary, the South pre- 
 sents some very distinct advantages for sheep 
 raising over its northern neighbor. 
 
 The heavier fleeces of the colder north are 
 matters of gradual evolution, requiring more 
 than one season for their full development. 
 That is to say, when sheep which were bred 
 in warmer climates are transferred to colder 
 environments, their fleeces will not forthwith 
 take on increased weight, but several seasons, 
 and sometimes the effect of climate on breeding, 
 are required to work the changes in these 
 respects; and the reverse is true of northern 
 bred animals when transferred to warmer 
 climes. Northern bred sheep in some par- 
 ticulars are more vigorous and survive a change 
 to warmer climes better than southern sheep 
 would stand a sudden change to the colder 
 and longer winters of the north. 
 
 In the northern states, such as Minnesota, 
 for instance, the average grazing season on the 
 range is about five and a half months and it 
 costs from $3.00 to $5.00 a head there for feed 
 to carry sheep through the fall, winter and spring; 
 expensive equipment is required for protection 
 against the elements; their food must be stored 
 in barns, silos or granaries; and the feeding 
 itself requires no small amount of labor. 
 
 In these respects the south presents very 
 distinct advantages; the grazing season is 
 
several months longer and the feeding season 
 correspondingly shorter; less capital is required 
 for buildings and feed; the lambing season is 
 six weeks earlier; and fewer losses occur from 
 adverse weather conditions. Southern lambs 
 when properly cared for are ready for the earlier 
 markets, when prices usually range several 
 cents a pound higher; this alone makes up for 
 any incidental differences in weight of the fleeces. 
 
 Even during the months when the feeding 
 of flocks in the south is necessary, they require 
 lighter rations than must be given in colder 
 climates where the animal must have more 
 food as fuel to resist the cold. It should be 
 remembered, too, that the food required for 
 heat does not produce either wool or mutton. 
 
 It is good practice to cross southern bred ewes 
 with northern bred rams, and the gradual 
 influx of northern ewes is equally desirable. 
 In this way southern fleeces may be obtained 
 which show up in weight pretty close to those 
 raised in colder climes. At the most the dif- 
 ference in weight is seldom as much as two pounds 
 per fleece, and even at this rate, with the price 
 of wool at fifty cents in primary markets, the 
 southern grower saves double that sum from 
 his lower cost of wintering; while the higher 
 prices for lambs in the early markets give 
 him another advantage, so that when all the 
 ins and outs are set side by side it will be found 
 that wool and mutton may be raised on cut-over 
 land to compete very successfully with that 
 from any other section of our country. 
 
 THE SHEEP KILLING DOG REDIVIVUS. 
 
 I almost forgot to make mention of the sheep- 
 killing dog, not that it greatly matters, for he 
 is more or less of a scarecrow, and a much 
 maligned creature. The sheep-killing dog has 
 been made to bear the sins committed by his 
 two-legged brethren who inhabit th; waste 
 places thereabouts and whose means of sub- 
 sistence are made easier by the proximity of 
 mutton. For the running of sheep in large 
 flocks, good dogs, such as collies and airedales, 
 raised with the sheep and trained to afford them 
 security, are necessary adjuncts of the business, 
 
 40 
 
along with experienced herders. Such supervi- 
 sion is a necessity for other reasons and will 
 amply suffice to stamp out the dog menace, 
 with or without legislative enactments. 
 
 DETERMINATION OF ACREAGE AND 
 BREEDS. 
 
 Experience alone can determine how many 
 sheep any given area will support. The land 
 varies in grazing value to such an extent that 
 no general rule can be given, but it can be 
 safely assumed that the areas grazed over will 
 be thereby improved from year to year and pro- 
 vide sustenance for increasing numbers. I would 
 say in a general way that the less desirable 
 lands may from the start support one sheep to 
 three acres, and ultimately a sheep to every 
 acre. Other land will do better, and some 
 perhaps not so well. In the nature of the case, 
 overcrowding is not an immediate danger, 
 and there must be room for the normal growth 
 of the flocks, which, under intelligent manage- 
 ment, is rapid. An average of a lamb a year 
 per ewe is well within the limit of modest ex- 
 pectations. A lesser average would be evidence 
 of incapacity or other preventable causes. 
 An average gain of a lamb and a half per ewe 
 is excellent and insures very profitable returns, 
 but it is possible to achieve even higher averages 
 by selective breeding from twin mothers and 
 fathers, and skillful management. 
 
 What breed or kind of sheep to select, suggests 
 material enough to fill volumes, but for the pur- 
 pose of this article "what you can get" is a 
 sufficient answer. Range sheep must be very 
 carefully selected with regard to age and health, 
 by experienced buyers, and from the best wool 
 and mutton producing stocks to be found. 
 It is well to start right in these respects and 
 with particular assurance of securing none but 
 healthy animals. All other desirable qualities 
 may be rapidly developed by selective breeding 
 and generally by introducing judiciously selected 
 
 The South, in a way, is a lazy man's country 
 and this native trait fits into the sheep grazing 
 business with peculiar nicety, while it holds 
 
 41 
 
the menace of disaster over such enterprise 
 as farming and land clearing operations. This 
 is also one of those conditions the remedy for 
 which, if one exists will be slow in effecting a 
 cure. Hence, it must be taken into account 
 in our search for the best solution of the cut- 
 over problem. 
 
 ATTRACTIVE RETURNS ON INVESTMENT. 
 
 On the basis of one lamb per ewe, with the 
 sexes equally divided, one thousand ewes would 
 produce the first year one thousand fleeces 
 and five hundred lambs for the market, and 
 raise the flock to fifteen hundred, and during 
 the fourth year, at the same rate (no improve- 
 ments anticipated) we have for market three 
 thousand three hundred and seventy-five fleeces, 
 sixteen hundred and eighty lambs, and a flock 
 numbering five thousand ewes. At this point 
 it is best to turn out the old ewes, or earlier 
 unless they were acquired young. Can't you 
 see waves of wool where now is nothing but sad, 
 sordid, scorching waste? 
 
 The human equation enters so largely into 
 the degree of success which may be wrung from 
 any enterprise that for the purpose of this 
 article I deemed it prudent to confine my figures 
 to normal averages. Some persons would, of 
 course, do better and others worse, for such is 
 the law of human endeavor in all undertakings. 
 The annual wool clip from Southern bred ani- 
 mals is somewhat less than from northern 
 sheep, but it costs so much less to winter them 
 here that it leaves a balance in favor of the South. 
 
 WHEN, WHERE AND HOW TO OBTAIN 
 SHEEP. 
 
 Perhaps, if we are real good boys, Santa 
 Claus will bring us a Bo-peep for Christmas, but, 
 seriously, as Sherman said in '78, "the way to 
 resume, is to resume"; likewise, the way to 
 obtain sheep is to get them, which in our 
 situation, means to go after them where they 
 are and while the getting is possible, for be it 
 remembered that there is much cut-over and 
 other land in other localities crying for develop- 
 ment with an eye to sheep. Minnesota, Wis- 
 consin and Michigan have awakened to the 
 
 42 
 
needs of the situation presented by their poorer 
 cut-over lands, of which vast areas remain idle 
 for causes very similar to those now confronting 
 us of the South, and these states, with their 
 accustomed hustle, will be found competing 
 for sheep with increasing activity as time goes 
 on. Shall we evolute by sitting idle until their 
 wants have been supplied, or will we start the 
 tide in our direction and keep it coming before 
 the process is made more difficult or improbable. 
 Some time ago, in Michigan, the West Michigan 
 Improvement Association, co-operating with 
 other forces, created a promising movement of 
 sheep from the West towards the cut-over 
 lands in that State, but it struck a snag when 
 the landowners gave the leasing and land values 
 a skyward tilt which in some instances amounted 
 to 1000%. This danger cannot be altogether 
 avoided where the desires and necessities of 
 diverse land ownerships prevail, but it can be 
 minimized. The Cut-Over Land Department 
 could, for example, be empowered to do the 
 buying under the personal direction of some 
 qualified head assisted by men in the field who 
 understand the business. I do not have in 
 mind theoretical professors, but practical men 
 to whom the smell of wool is like unto perfume; 
 men whose sheep sense has been acquired by 
 hard knocks. Such men are available, and like 
 all well chosen help earn their own cost with a 
 profit for the employer. Such men are an in- 
 vestment, not an expense. 
 
 Two thousand sheep under a single ownership 
 afford a fair unit to begin with. Smaller 
 flocks for ranging are not so desirable, but may 
 nevertheless be profitably developed. The 
 Western range lands are disintegrating and 
 doubtless some sheepmen there could be per- 
 suaded to move South with their flocks, if 
 permanent range at low cost be assured for 
 a sufficiently long period, but as a rule the sheep 
 owner shies off from the prospect of a "raise 
 before the draw" where private ownership of 
 land prevails. With these handicaps in mind 
 and their consequences duly appreciated, I 
 have no doubt that methods of meeting the 
 difficulties involved may be worked out. 
 
 If, as suggested, a sheep department of the 
 Association be created, the individual members 
 
 . 43 
 
who desire to stock sheep could formulate re- 
 quisitions covering their requirements and 
 file same with the department to be filled first 
 come, first served, or on some basis of pro rata 
 allotment. If we assume fifteen million to be 
 the annual acreage rate by which the cut-over 
 land areas are expanding and that a sheep per 
 three acres is good practice, we find that it 
 requires the introduction of five million sheep 
 a year to establish an equilibrium and that 
 we must remain dependent upon the normal 
 rate of increase, or a more ambitious beginning, 
 to supply the needs of the other millions upon 
 millions of acres which we have already accu- 
 mulated; and in this particular let us not lose 
 sight of the greater density of sheep population 
 to be supported by the process of improving 
 the range. 
 
 Long ago the State of Florida held third or 
 fourth place as a sheep grower. There is no 
 valid reason why the entire South for a generation 
 hence may not enjoy the distinction of pro- 
 ducing more sheep than any other part of the 
 world of equal area. The annual returns from 
 salable sheep products, not taking into account 
 the benefits to the soil, etc., of one hundred 
 million sheep (this number is only half of what 
 we can raise ) presents an income which makes 
 the returns from the cotton crop piled on top of 
 the returns from the lumber business look like 
 a piker. Such a flow of wealth from lands now 
 idle, when set in motion cannot fail to boom 
 public improvements and afford other attrac- 
 tions which must result in collateral develop- 
 ments beyond our ken to realize. It could not 
 fail to multiply our sparse population several 
 times. I am utterly unable to see how such 
 possibilities when they are more fully appre- 
 ciated can fail to change that attitude of mind 
 which, until now, has been feeding on the hope 
 that the cut-over land, the foundation of all 
 this, is an undesirable possession and to be gotten 
 rid of — even if it were easily possible to dispose 
 of it in the present circumstances, which, for- 
 tunately or unfortunately, is not the case. 
 I would look upon it as a mistake rather than 
 good fortune. 
 
 44 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 If my remarks have made no impression upon 
 the readers, or have failed thus far to inspire 
 them with the necessity for a changed attitude 
 of mind towards the great problem of "what to 
 do with our cut-over land" and how to go about 
 it, then I fear that anything which I might add 
 to this article would be equally without purpose 
 and would serve only to further tire the patience 
 of my good friends, if it did not also exasperate. 
 I shall, therefore, make my adieu with the 
 promise that nothing would bring me greater 
 pleasure than to feel that I may, in some manner, 
 be of future service in aiding this great work 
 of converting an empire of devastated areas 
 into prosperous ranches and homes. 
 
 45 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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