The Commonwealth

MR. MEEKINS A SUCCESSFUL FARMER.

Washington Times.

A rare type of the Southern planter is exemplified in the person of Mr. Isaac M. Meekins, of Woodstock Manor, Halifax county, N.C., and these facts about him may prove interesting to people who imagine that agriculture in the South is a poor business.

Mr. Meekins is a guest of the National, and looks more like a prosperous professional man than a farmer from the cotton belt.

“I don't want to talk too much in the first person," said he, "but my own experience demonstrates that the culture of the soil in Dixie can be made to pay. My country home has every convenience of a city residence, including electric lights from a private dynamo, hot and cold water, bathrooms, a telephone, and the like. I have 500 acres in cultivation, and my chief crops are cotton and peanuts, for both of which there is ever a cash market. Even at the minimum price of five cents a pound I find a profit in cotton, and when it brings eight cents my gains are something like $25 a bale. I have 350 bales now lying in my gin lot at home. The peanut crop never fails, and brings me from 70 cents to $1.00 a bushel.

“In addition I raise my own grain and hay and always kill enough hogs to supply the demands of the plantation. To produce your own supplies is one of the secrets of successful farming, and another is to breed good live stock. My mules are worth $100 a pair, but one of them will do three times the work of an ordinary beast. If farmers will only devote their whole time and talents to their business they can get more pleasure out of it, and at the same time live more independently than any set of men on earth."