The southern press., 1851-11-01
The ImprOyident South.

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frequent paragraphs relating to an anticipated
Ia nine in parts of Alabama, and the apprehend.
ed evil affords an admirable text to preach
sermon on the improvidence of the cotton grow
ing States generally. Cotton, cotton, from the
first day of~the year to the last. is the eternal
cry of the Southern planters; and now that this
product has for some time past realized some
thing like remunerating prices, provision crops
Of every kind have been comparatively neglect
ed. Corn is scarce, and high throughout the
South generally at this time; and even the
commonest necessares Of life, bacon, eggs,
chickens, butter, &c, are scarcely to be had for
love or money. The Sumter Wing, of Alabama,
has the following paragraph, which indicates
the state Of things in thut section:
"While this state of atfairs lasts, will our
country friends remember us and send in some
thing for US to live onl il is true we have
mad little prairie beef at and cents Per
pound, and so far flour has been plenty at $4
so per hundred pounds, but this is about all.
We can get no butter, chickens, eggs, nor
nothing--not even corn, the staff Of life Some
planters have been around us wanting to
know if we would give them one dollar per
bushel for cortland we understood on yester.
day that there was some Western bacon in town
at IL cents per pound. VIII some of our
peas they do, the world may wag on"
On reading this, the Mobile Herald has the
following just remarks, which are applicable to
almost every locality at the South.
"If these men in Sumter were not our breth-
rem, we should say let them starve! They de-
serve no better fate
No country anywhere In the world has more
fertile lands than this of Sumter IL will pro-
duce potatoes corn, wheat, OATS apples, pears,
peas, beets cabbage, caudowers, hogs, meat,
cattle, sheep, chckens--and every thing else that
civilized and luxurious man needs; and this, too,
without any manner of nursing or coaxing. It's
people ought to be able to stand up and say
TO all the rest of the world, you may go We
need none of your aid 7 For rivers, in emer-
gencies, they ought to have profound contempt
The price of bacon or corn ln this or any other
mart ought to be to them as the price of opium
in the marts of Canton--yet Sumter has so
stultiiied itself, that ppon the coming of a rain
whose absence is not singular in this region
it falls into travail, like pismires suddenly
oyertaken In August by frost--and has no
rest save in the hope that the elements will let
fall their sympathetic tears, and fill up their
rivcrs to briog bacon and -four from the far
Westl'
The planters OF the goptbern States have
been lectured on this point for quarter of
century and yet it all has been Of little avail
Money for horses, mules, bacon, and corn still
6ow from their purses, and in larger streams
as cotton is high. They ought to calculate,
make balance sheet, aid, our word for 1t, they
will and they are losing under the present sys-
tenn of production. We have no hesitation in
saying that this exclusive devotion to cotton is
impoverishng the South and crippIing her
energies.- CaroliuicD.