The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1845-08-18
THE CROPS.
Extract Of a letter 10 the editor, dated
PETERSBURG, Va, Aug. Is, lS45.

Ertract Of letter 10 the editor, dated
PETERSBURG, Va, Aug. l3, ls45
have seen some meagre accounts in the news
papers of the effects of the longcontinued drought
upon thecrops in the southwest; but nothing giving
adequate idea Of the extent Of the injury sus.
tanned Having just reached here, passing rapidly
through the suffering States, it may not be out of
place to give you very brief summary Of my OBJ
servations route.
In Louisiana and western Mississippi, the crops
of cane in the former, and of cotton and corn in BOTH
are very promising and the estimate is, that full
crops Of all will be made In Alabama and Georgia.
the extent of the injury is uncomfortable; for il is
indeed unparalleled. From Mobile to Augusta
road,cse, there is exhibited wide and des
oaton. In all that distance, (say 500 miles,) am
convinced that not single field that saw, of either
cotton or corn, would yield fifty per centum of fair
average crop of either; and am equally convinced
that nineteen-twentieths of all the fields | saw
would not yield one-fflh of an average crop. saw
hundreds upon hundreds Of cotton crops, upon soils
of great fertility, and upon which, in fair seasons,
the cotton must have been breast high, and uxuri-
ant with foliage and forms, blossoms and bos, now
stunted of their growth, and sered and sombre with
auumn's colorings, now but little more than ankle
high Ay, verify, fields that must have Welded, in
favorng seasons, from 800 to 200 pounds per acre.
will not now produce 200 pounds; and, for the larger
part of them, not one hundred. And, mind YOU,
there are no remedies through which these over
whelming losses to the planter are to be retrieved.
II is too late. The thrft-time for these crops has
passed Should favoring Heaven gush down its
showers ever so bountfully nop, it would but en-
nance the ruin il would to avert A State could
not "slough off its primordial condition." Gas the
Committee of Foreign Relations expresses tself,)
more rapidly than would the cotton stalks g slough
of" all their forms from the second growth, which
would sprout up out of wet crsped and sal
low vegetation; and the forms would all drop,
bghted and blasted under the near and npping
fros s arafh axy c,rt q, a,
The corn crops look even more unpromising than
those of the cotton; and yet they seem q am told)
better than they are; for the seeming ears for
the most part, hold but cobs, ungraned altogether,
or most sparingly grained. They wear the appear
if winter with its freezing blasts had caught
the stalks in their young growth, and drove back
the sap into the parched and thirsty soil. Checked
in growth the crsped and fired blades have dropped
sallow and leless, and hang all withered around the
stunted stem. And to be brief, and in verify, very
many--ay, most-of the corn-felds | passed in Al
ALBANIA and Georgia, between the 5th and 10th of
August, ls45, made that sad and sombre show,
which ! supposed nought short of mid-winter could
have 80 robbed of their luxuriant growth and SUM
mers green.
But what is the extent of this desolation in the
SOUTH All! that can't say, from personal knowl-
edge yet, from testimony l should deem as reli-
able as my own, must believe that | neither saw
all, nor the worst. AT Covington, Georgia, l met
with gentleman Of intelligence and veracity from
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, well known to me, and Just
from home, and who travelled with me to Augusta.
He represented the whole country from Tuscaloosa
to Montgomery to be in similar plight to that we
were then travelling over and, from all the most
liable information he had received, the drought and
the desolaton had extended every way in Alabama,
and reached far away into central Mississippi.
They had suffered less in Alabama in the black,
cane.brake, and prairie soils, in parts of the coun
ties of Perry, Greene, Marengo, Sumpter, and
few others. In Georgia we had opportunities for
still more accurate information The dense settle
ments and branch railroads brought hourly
ehanges of passengers; and we thus brought
in contact with those who altogether, had traversed
the State and most gloomy to agriculture were the
tdings thus poured into our ears-corn selling at
some points at dollar per bushe, and at others
at two dollars, and ranging between them; and yet,
when | left New Orleans, on the 4th inst, corn
was plentiful drug there, at forty-hve cents the
bushel.
In South Carolina the crops said to be equally
bad; but you know all that Of South Carolina
agriculture was that in view of the railroad from
Augusta to Charleston; and though the plantations
are "few and far between" yet they appeared to
have Jared better in that low and narshy region
than elsewhere.
In North Carolina and Virginia | heard great
complaints Of drought, halfcrops, and all that; but
those who have the crops growing in those
States, on the railroad route, will perfectly under