Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1916 — South Setting the Pace. [ARTICLE]

South Setting the Pace.

No longer is the South depending on cotton. The total value of all agricultural products of the South last year was about $3,600,000,000 ahd of this only about $750,000,000 was represented by cotton. Cotton, therefore, comprised but little more than one-fifth the total agricultural products’ of the South. In 1915 the gain in the value Of all farm crops in the United States over 191 4 was. $526,070,000. Of this gain $3 17,209,000, or a little over 60 per cent, was in the South, an amazing illustration of the increase in the diversification of Southern agriculture. The gain in the entire country, outside of the South, was I $'208,861,000. or $108,400,000 less than the gain in the South. The percentage of increase for the South in 1915 over 1914 was 13.85 per ' cent. The percentage of increase for I the rest of the country in 1915 over I 1914 was only 5.25 per cent. The | South is going ahead industrially, ’agriculturally and financially, still | producing the greatest cotton crop Jon earth, the Southern states nevertheless are actually outdistancing many of the Northern and Western states in the production of other farm products. The South is fully awake to its opportunities. It is supplying a substantial basis for its own and national prosperity following the close of the European war. —Leslie’s Weekly.