Carl Morgan Jr. makes no bones about what he wants. For years as the president of the Selma City Council, Morgan kept charge with his booming voice and deliberate gavel.

Today, Morgan doesn’t have to deal with unruly council members or spectators. Rather, he has a tougher job: Keeping a farm equipment business alive.

“There was a time when Dallas County had five full-line farm equipment dealers here,” Morgan said. “Anyone that made farm equipment was here.”

Today, that’s not the case. And in fact, Morgan’s Black Belt Tractor Co. is the only place where farmers can find parts to tractors.

“Between Dallas, Perry and Wilcox counties, we used to have 91 Grade A dairies,” he said. “Today, in those counties, there may be six dairies.”

There have been other factors to the farming business.

“The loss of the kill floor at Zeiglers really hurt,” Morgan said. “They used to have a slaughter house, and now they don’t. All their meat comes up through the port of Mobile.”

When you add up all the diminishing factors of farming — not to mention a federal farm bill that targets corporate farmers — a business like Morgan’s is hard to operate. And when the manager of the company is 82 years old, it’s even harder to operate.

Morgan is honest about the problems he faces. He wants to retire, play golf and maybe even fish a little. His son, Carl Morgan III, is battling multiple sclerosis.

“If I were 40 years younger, I could really do something with that place,” Morgan said of his business. “But I’m a little too old for that.”

So what will Morgan do with his business? Quite simply, he wants somebody to come get it from him.

“I’m not sitting here trying to beg, but that’s a good business down there,” he said. “We’ve got almost $600,000 in inventory.”

Morgan wouldn’t talk about exact prices he’d sell the company for, but he said it would be a bargain.

“I’d give them the key and walk out the front door if they wanted it,” he said, laughing.

Morgan’s struggle operating the business is telling of a small farming industry that has steadily declined over the past generation. Small farmers in Alabama’s Black Belt have struggled with crops and federal funding. But all is not lost in the farming business.

“We have some of the finest native grass pastures anywhere,” Morgan said. “As a result, we still have a lot of people who are cattle farmers. I think we’ve still got 10 cotton producers as well.”

Carl Morgan isn’t like all business owners in Dallas County. The city government legend — the only person to hold the mayor’s seat during Joe Smitherman’s 36-year tenure — has a right to retire.

However, he doesn’t want to walk away from a business that local farmers need.

“I wish somebody would come get this thing from me,” he said. “If they did, I’d show them how to run the business. I’d help them any way I could.

“I feel a moral obligation to our farmers,” he continued. “But I think with some proper leadership and a little backing, somebody could make a good living with this thing.”