Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 178, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1912 — RETURNS FROM SOJOURN IN SOUTHERN STATES. [ARTICLE]

RETURNS FROM SOJOURN IN SOUTHERN STATES.

S. E. Sparling Visited Several States And Found Some Excellent Agricultural Conditions. . Samuel E. Sparling arrived home Thursday afternoon from a prospecting trip through the south. We found Sam difficult to interview. He traveled so extensively and jaw so much with the eye of a student that to relate it in a newspaper interview Is a difficult matter. To start with Sam said that he had been every place in the south with the exception of Florida. He liked the black belt of Alabama and Mississippi and spent about a month in the neighborhood of Demopolis, Marengo county, Alabama. He spent about a week with Winifred Pullins, who is running a big farm near that place. Winifred is not cotton farming, but is demonstrating that alfalfa growing and draft horse breeding can be profitably carried oj in the south. Mr. Sparling says that cotton is producing from a half a bale to a bale and a half an acre. It is worth S6O a bale. Land is wbrth about $25 an acre.

The best developed country Sam .vfisited was Frederick bounty, Md., where he reports having seen the finest agricultural section he has ever seen up to this time. It Is largely devoted to small grain. Sam did not make a purchase and is still entirely footloose in the way of an investment. He may return there and he may go to some other point and he may decide to remain for some time 'in Rensselaer. He found lots of insurgency in the south and reports that Roosevelt is very strong throughout the states he visited.

Asked to go more extensively into a discussion of the states he visited, Mr. Sparling said that he could not,’ do so without taking considerable time and, that he might write a report of his trip for publication. This we tried to pledge him to do, but he gave no definite promise. .The Republican feels certain that he would be able to entertain its readers by one or more articles descriptive of agricultural conditions and possibilities in the south.