The Land is New

Transcribe. It's huge with crops whose very names are strange for our lips.

The past survives of course, as is fitting. It's in our speech, our thoughts, our way of going in and coming out. But the land is new. The National Broadcasting Company, in collaboration with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, presents The Land is New, the second in a series of programs describing one of the most significant

developments of our time, the rebirth of the South. It was a curious pilgrimage that we took, wandering across half a counter, knocking on a hundred doors, catching on our tape recordas the voices and the sounds of this 20th century revolution. We found no villain, no tyrant, and the heroes, a bespeckled scientist striving to solve the riddle of why cattle sicken and

a farmer holding on trying again, his crops blowing like a standard over his land. Or the sun-brown citrus farmer, who, when we asked what he planned to raise on his plot of land, pointed to his three sons and said, he figured this was a mighty fine place for them to grow.

Our guide on this journey through the south and a witness to this new world Renaissance was NBC correspondent Henry Cassidy. I'd like you to listen first to this voice. It will explain much, I think, of what follows.

His name doesn't matter. He was speaking not for himself, but for a whole breed of men, those whose business is with the land, men who know its order, and are intimate with the feel of growing things.

I have no regrets. I think a well-managed pawn can be made profitable. It is not any get rich quick, scheme by any means, but it's a way of life. You love the outdoor life and He loved the independence of a farmer. A farmer is the most independent man in the world.