The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1859-02-24
p9- The cotton regions of the Mississippi


within the last five years, from the album
dant crops and the high price of their
great staple. There is no industrial inter
est in the world that is making 80 ample
and solid returns to its managers, as cotton
planting, on the rich alluvial bottoms OF the
Mississippi. Nearly every laborer employed
upon them in raising cotton, besides his own
food, produces S4O0 or $500 worth of the
staple. At present the South is, beyond
question, outstripping the North and East
in the accumulation of wealth, if not in the
increase of population. The cotton crop for
the last year isnow estimated at 3, 1905 ooto
1900, 900 bales and is worth at the prices of
the year, from $165, 900, 900 to$l8o, 100000;
more than one half of the amount will be
received in the cotton zone of the Mlssls.
sippi Valley. This vast revenue distributed
annually, among the comparatively small
number of large planters, is building up
enormous individual fortunes. Net yearly
incomes of $50, 900 to 100000 are not now
unusual from the old and large estates on
the river; and there are proprietors who
possess two, three, and even five and six
such estates If England has her cotton
Lords among her manufacturers, we have, or
soon shall have, our cotton Princes, whose
baronial estates and profits will rival the
fabulous revenues of some of the Russian
nobility.
The wealth of the cotton planter has been
increased as much, if not more, by the ap-
probation of his lands and slaves, the last
FIVE years, as by the returns of his crops
The increased price of the product has in
creased the value of the labor bestowed on
it, and slaves have doubled in price. As
the exhausting culture is wearing out the
high lands of the Carolinas, Georgia, Ala
bama, and Tennessee, they are being rap
idly abandoned, and there is a rush from
all of them to the alluvial and exhaustless
bottoms of the Mississippi. There are
streams of population pouring into them,
on every road leading from the old cotton
States. The advance in the price of Missis-
Slppl COltOH ldHusI WllnIn Tue iaSI ioui
years, is unexampled in land operations
neither the panic nor the overflow of last
year appear to have checked it. Lands
that went begging for so cents and dollar
an acre in Levee scrip five years ago, are
now assessed at SIS, $40, SIS and $40 pei
acre, by the tax appraisers, and are now
selling for those prices. Good improved
plantations that were offered but a few
years ago at $40 to $50 per acre, CANNOT
now be purchased for less than $50 to $75
When we consider the Importance of the
narrow zone to which its cultivation is linn
ited-and the rapid deterioration of the up
lands by its culture, it seems difficult to Sc
limits to the future value of the rich anC
exhaustless bottom lands of the Mississippi
When they shall be cleared, protected ane
drained, they will become the most valua
BILE acres in the world. Another genera
ton may see them worth $500 to $500 pc
acre.
Recently, in examining the records o
the river counties in Arkansas we foun'
that many individuals had secured from
10000 to 10000 acres for themselves o
these productive lands, most of which the
had obtained within the last five years. b
the purchase of levee script at 35 to 80 cent
per acre. Now the same lands are held 4
95, $40, and SO per acre, which the settle
las to pay for them. Some of the holder
won't part with their lands at any price
and are preserving them as princcly inheri
tances for their children and grand children
who will become landed monopolists, SUI
rounded by a dependant tenantry, or the
will amass immense fortunes in cash, by eN
tortionate sales to the settlers and caltivator
of what should have been preserved as tn
common domain and inheritance of ever
citizen who desired home on it. Thu
the extravaganza and reckless management
of our public lands is laying the basis fo
permanent inequalities of wealth and priv
lege, that are destructive of the principles
Republican society and government, an
win operate most unjustly upon the comm
generations of citizens of the Republic.
1t is high time that the people should a
rest the prohigate squandering of the publ
domain, and insist that it should be pr
served for the occupancy of the actual Sc
tiers and cultivators. All the schemes
late years for disposing of the public lane
by reducing the price of old surveys to
bit an acre-bestowing them as bountii
upon soldiers, and transferring swamp Ian,
to the States for levees and drainage, ha'
all resulted in giving them TO rich speculate
and creating class of land monopolis
who are now realizing princely fortun
from the prices they extort from the phone
and laborer for a piece of the public domai
which should have been preserved as Il
common heritage of all the citizens.
Legislative Proceedings.
In the Senate on Monday, Mr. Anthem
returntd joint resolution No. ,, recommen