Semi-weekly Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, South-Carolina) 1851-1852, 1851-11-07
THE IMPROVEMENT SOUTH.

bG I.Hi W. ~ Law
Our readers cannot have failed to notice the
frequent paragraphs relating to III anticipated
famine in parts Of Alalama, and the apprehen'
ded evil affords an admirable text to preach
serron on the improvidpnce of the cottuu grow.
;nr 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
something like rcmuuerainy prices. provision
crops of every kind have been comparatively
neglected.
Corn is scarce, and high throng h"ut the
South generally at this time; and even the
commonest necessities Of life, bacon, eggs,
chickens, butter, &c, are scarcely to be had
for love or money. Ihe Sumter Wang, OF AlI-
bana has the following paragraph, which indl-
Gates tn. state of affairs in that sect"n
"Whie this state of affairs lasts, will our
country friends remember us and send in some
thing for us to live on9 1t is true we have had
n little prairie beef at and 5 per cents per
pound. and So far -four has heen plenty at 81
so per hundred pounds, hut this is about ALL
We can get no butter, eggs, chickens nor no
tbinr-not even corn, the staff of life. Some
planters have been around US wanting to "w
if we would give them one dollar per bushel
for corn; and we understood on Yesterday that
there was some Western bacon in town at II
cents per pou"d. Will some of our country
friends bring US in some potators and ii's:! IL
they do, the world may way OIL
On reading this, the Mobile Herald has the
following jnst remarks, which are applicable
to almost every locality at the south:
"If these men il: Sumter were moi our bretli-
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. 1t
will produce potatoes, cOrm. wheat, oats, ap'
ples, pears, peas, beets, cabbage, caultinwers,
hogs, meat, cattle. sheep. chickens, and every
thing that civilized and luxurious man needs
coaxing. Its 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!' For ri
vers in emergencies, they ought to have pro.
found contempt. The price of corn or bacon
in this or any other mart onght to he to them
as the price of opinm in the marts of Canton;
Sumter has so stultifed herself that, upon the
coming Of rain (whnse absence is not slngu-
lar in this regon) it falls into travail, like pis.
mires suddenly overtaken in August by a frost
and has no rest save in the hope that the ele-
ments will let fall their sympathetic tears and
GIL up their rivers. to bring bacon and -four
from the far west"
The planters Of the Southern States have
been lectured on this point for a quarter of
century. and yet it has been of little avail NJ"
ney for horses, mules, bacon. and corn still
flow from their purses, and in larger streamsa IL
cotton is high They onght t" calculate AID
make balance sheet and orr word tor it they
will ind they are losing under the present sys-
TEN of production. We have n" hesitation in
sa, ng that this exclusive devotion to cotton is
impoverishing the South and crippling her en-
erges. Carolinidn.