A man from Pleasant Grove township was here last Saturday and told us of the taxes for 1921 against a tract of land owned by one of his sisters who lives with him. There are about 100 acres of the land, but only 12 acres cleared. She rented it for 500 pounds of lint cotton. She expected to use her rent for buying clothing and other things she might need. The cotton brought $80. Her taxes were $66, and so she had only $14 left. It is consoling however to think taxes did not take all of her rent as it did in many other cases.
Mr. J.E. Whitehurst last year owned 26 acres of land a part of the John J. Harper place on the Smithfield and Clayton road. After paying for the guano [imported bird droppings, used for fertilizer in the 1920s], he got $120 rent, but his taxes on the place were $121, so he was short one dollar with nothing at all coming to him.
--J.M. Beaty
From the editorial page of The Smithfield Herald, Feb. 28, 1922
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