Miscellaneous.— The mineral productions of Alabama which are of minor importance when ranked according to the value of their annual output are gold and silver, mica, mill stones, mineral paints (natural), silica, mineral waters, fuller's earth, bauxite, barytes, natural gas and petroleum. In 1915 the value of their combined output was $92,306. There are known to be auriferous lodes in Turkey Heaven Mountain, but they are not being de veloped. Some new prospecting was done during the year and a new placer was discovered and worked near Heflin. The year's output of gold was $5,243; and of silver, $6. Mica was mined in Randolph, Cleburne, Clay and Talla poosa counties. The total output amounted to 3,750 pounds of sheet mica and two tons of scrap. It was all consumed locally. Three natural gas wells in Fayette County and two in Walker County supplied a total of 441 cus tomers. Small quantities of petroleum have been found at several localities in the State, the latest and most promising being the new well at Cordova, in Walker County. Oil was struck in this well in December 1916, and it has the record of being the first well in the State to yield enough oil to be measured in barrels. At Hamilton, in Marion County, and at Atwood, in Franklin County, oil-saturated sands have been found and small quantities of oil secured. The strike at Cordova has revived interest in oil exploration in that part of the State. There is one mine near Rock Run, Cherokee County, producing bauxite; one mine in Calhoun County producing barytes; one quarry at Dutton, in Jackson County, producing millstones; and one mine producing ochre, in Clarke County. There are 14 mineral springs in the State producing medicinal waters. The 1915 output reached 86,499 gallons, valued at $8,912.
Forest Products.— Beech, hickory, white oak, yellow, long leaf pine, walnut, ash and elm cover the State in sufficient quantity to be a factor of prime commercial importance. Tie products from this source include firewood, ma terial for fences, logs, railroad ties, telegra* telephone and power-conduit poles, materials fa barrels, bark and naval stores. The total vahn of these reaches annually to about $6,500,000, of which about $4,000,000 worth is consumed on the farms and the remainder sold off the lands.
Agriculture.— Alabama is pre-eminently an agricultural State with a wide range of soils admirably adapted to cultivation. The number of farms in 1910 was 262,901, an increase of 17.8 per cent over 1900 when 223,220 farms were reported. The farm area in 1910 was 20,732,312 acres, of which 9,693,581 acres were improved land. The average acreage per farm was 78.9 in 1910 against 92.7 in 1900. The value of all farm property was $370,138,429, including land, buildings and live stock. The average value of land per acre was $10.46 in 1910 against $4.84 in 1900, an increase of 1161 per cent for the decade. These values have greatly increased (1917) but no statistics are available.
In Alabama, as in other southern States, there is a great tendency to lease farms to ten ants or on shares. Of the 262,901 farms in the State in 1910, 158,326 were operated by tenants and 104,575 by the owners. The leasing con tracts vary considerably; of the total number in 1910, 83,300 were cash tenants, 2,428 share cash tenants, and 67,352 were shareholders.
Another matter of great interest in con nection with farming in Alabama is the rela tive amount of land held or leased by whites and negroes. Of the total farm acreage of 20,732,312 acres reported in 1910, 15,640,877 acres were owned or operated by whites, and 5,019,435 by colored farmers. The acreage owned or operated by white farmers decreased during the decade 1900-10 by 324,383 acres, while that owned or operated by negroes in creased during the same period by 299,268 acres. By far the great majority of negro farmers are tenants. In 1910 colored owners held 1,466,719 acres, while 3,607,234 acres were held by colored tenants. Of 103,929 farms owned in 1910, 74,504 were free of incumbrance while 27,457 were under mortgage and the status of 1,908 was unknown. In 1900 80.8 per cent of the farms were free of mortgage while in 1910 only 73.1 per cent were free. Two-fifths of the entire farm area of the State is in farms of from 20 to 49 acres; one-fifth are from 50 to 99 acres, and about one-eighth from 100 to 174 acres. Of the farmers in Alabama in 1910, 152,458, or 58 per cent, were white and 110,443 were non-white, of which number all but 56 were negroes. In 1915 the area under cotton was 3,219,000 acres; the yield was 525,000 bales of cotton valued at $48,956,000. In 1911 Alabama produced 1,716, 534 bales of cotton. Due to ravages of the boll weevil cotton is greatly reduced since 1914. Velvet beans and peanuts are replacing its acre age. In 1917 velvet beans were planted on 2,334,000 acres, and peanuts on more than 900, 000 acres. The chief crops are maize, 46, 688,000 bushels in 1916; wheat, 1,045,000 bushels; oats, 10,500,000 bushels; potatoes, 1,800,000 bushels. Other important crops are hay, 362, 000 tons in 1916, and vegetables, peanuts to the value of about $1,500,000 annually; sweet potatoes and yams to the value of $3,500,000; cottonseed valued at $12,000,000 annually; orchard fruits valued at $1,800,000; bush fruits valued at $175,000; tobacco, 60,000 pounds in 1916. Sugar cane is largely grown and manu factured into syrup. In January 1917 the live stock comprised 150,000 horses, 278,000 mules, 405,000 mulch cows, 534,000 other cat tle, 121,000 sheep and 1,850,000 swine. In 1910 the total value of live stock, includ ing domestic animals, poultry and bees, was $65,595,000. Strong efforts have been made in recent years to diversify the State's agriculture more, and not without suc cess; but the system of renting farms by mer chants to small occupiers, largely negroes, who are supplied with necessaries by the merchant on a crop mortgage, makes it difficult to ef fect the change, as the cotton is a less experi mental crop than new ones, and the merchant wishes to sell the occupier other products him self. The partial exhaustion of even the fer tile cotton land, however, by continuous plant ing for many years, has awakened much anxiety for the agricultural future; and the planting of cow-pease, alfalfa, etc., to enrich the soil and feed greater quantities of stock has shown a considerable advance.