The weekly Mississippian. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1859-1864, 1860-07-18
Piantsr,s Convention Of the South,

Planters Convention OF the SOUTH,
10 meet in tie City Of Holly Springs, Ma ss's-
Of tsis Convention. Eiescs Of 1t. NJ f.
Aaary, DC, D..
Tn November 1853, the State Agricultural
Bureau of Mississippi, adopted resolution,
offered by the Hon. a. NJ. Clayton, requesting
the President of the Bureau, to correspond
with the Agricultural Associations in the
Southern States, as to the expediency of hold
ing annual Planters Conventions, composed
of delegates representing the Agricultural,
Mechanical and Manufacturing interests of
the Slave States.
The suggestion Of our STATE Bureau met
with universal appreciation and the first Con-
vention was held in the city of Nashville,
during the State Fair of Tennessee) in Oc-
tober 1859.
The following resolutions indicating the OBJ
jects to be accomplished and the plan for per-
manent organi Iation were offered by Mr.. Hud-
son of Mississippi, and unanimously adopted
by the Convention
WHEREAS, The great mass of the South
are engaged in agricultural pursuits, and as
agriculture is the basis of our social and politi-
cal stability, and the great element of our
strength and power and whereas, experience
has demonstrated the immense value OF State
and County Agricultural Associations in pro-
noting improvement, by stimulating spirit of
investigation and inquiry, as to our wants and
the best means of supplying them, therefore,
RESOLVED, That we recommend to the sew
eral Southern States the establishment of a
State Board Of Agriculture, with auxiliary
County Societies, and that committee Of
five be appointed to prepare plan, and res
pectfully urge its adoption by the Southern
States.
Resolved, That regarding Planters Con-
ventions of the South as of great value, it
should he the duty of the State Boards to APP
point annually, delegates to attend at such
time and place as may be designated.
Resolved That the place Of holding these
Conventions ought to be changed from year to
year, and hereafter provision should be made
for an exhibition of Southern industry at our
annual meetings.
Resolved, That, regarding the collection of
lance, we recommend to the several Southern
States plan for the annual collection of agri-
cultural statistics, and for their publication,
and that committee Of five be appointed to
prepare aplan.
| Resotved, That plan should be adopted and
here urged on the Agricultural Boards of the
Southern States, by which semi-monthly re-
ports of the growing cotton crops could be
had from every county in the South.
COMMITTEES APPOINTED By THE CONVENTION.
Committee to prepare plan and urge its
adoption on the Southern States-Dr Minor
Lamar. Mississippi; DR. Matt Clay, Brookville,
Miss; Rutherford, Mount Bethel, South
Carolina; Gen VIM Brazelton, New Market,
Tennessee; VIM T Farley, Celenvile, Tenn.
Committee to collect cotton and other Stats
tics. &c.-Col John Pope, Memphis Tenn; DR.
johnson, Jackson, Tenn; 7 E B Pegeus,
Oxford, Miss; Hon John Bolton 0 Neal New
berty, South Carolina; A Sowell, trenton,
| Tennessee.
Committee to draft constitution and bylaws
etc.-TJ Hudson, Lamar, Mississippi; J E
Sanders, Mobile, Alabama Richard Peter, At
lanta, Georgia; s 3 Cockrill, Nashville, Tenn;
DR. Lee, Pine Bluff. Arkansas.
1t. Maury justly regarded in the old world
and new as eminently practical and wise, de-
livered at Nashville, during the setting of the
Convention very able and interesting address
on the subject of Southern improvement. We
commend the following extract alluding to
the Planters Convention, and the above reso-
tuiions to the careful consideration of our
readers
1t appears to me that in this Bureau you
have already at hand all the organization re-
quisite for obtaining such information without
cost and with but little trouble /; and all that
is wanting is only to put the machinery of a
statistical department in motion.
Let the Legislature make it the duty of the
sheriffs and their deputies in all the counties,
to make monthly reports to the Agricultural
Bureau, of the crop or the preparation there
for, according to the season. Is the breadth
of land in preparation for any particlar staple
greater or less than usual How has the
weather been during the month-favorable or
unfayorable ?
At another season the reports would tell Of
the appearance and promise of the crops. the
raEages Of insects, the damage fium unseason-
able weather, and its extent from that or any
other cause. La short, the reports for each
month would give exactly that sort Of infor-
nation which would enable the Bureau to
state in monthly bulletins the general result
Every newspaper would be glad of such a
paragraph.
Now if this were done regularly, both
planters and merchants would soon perceive
that these returns, coming from the Bureau,
would contain the most reliable accounts to be
had of crops and both merchants and farm
ers would go by them, and both, but especi-
ally the latter, would gain by them.
In q little while, and as soon as the plan
was fairly understood by farmers generally,
the compulsory reports OF the Sheriffs might
be dispensed with, the Bureau substituting
therefore the reports of its own correspon-
dents and affiliated societies. Other States
would follow.
1t is said concert of action amoung farmers
is difficult True but it is not so difficult
to get farmers together as it is to have COM
bined action among sailors and yet sailors
have showed the utmost readiness to come
forward with daily reports of wind and wealth
er at sea. The results obtained, and the value
and importance Of the information derived
from these simple reports have astonished all
who use the sea. Make your plan general
Iress it upon thu attention of the States soil.
cit the cooperation Of their societies,-and
my word for it, these monthly reports will
prove as valuable and as interesting to the
farmers, as the abstract dogs have been to
mariners.
dwell upon the importance of every State
or State Agricultural Society, having its sta
tistical department because the farmer is not
interested in the crop Of his neighbor alone,
hut as seller, he is interested in crops in ali
parts of the country that meet him in market
IS competitors-and attach great Importance
to simple returns,-to formularies for co-ope-
rators which shall be of the most simple char.
acter, calling at first for information only up
on such points as will enable your statistician
to answer monthly or quarterly, the simple
question, What Of the crops
Let the beginning be by little and little,
contenting yourselves first with few things,
and they OF the most obvious importance. Al
terward, as you make progress, the scope and
aim Of the plan may be enlarged, so as to in
clude statistics generally, and finally, perhaps
to embrace system Of agriculture meteorolo-
gical observations in the State also.
There is here convocation OF planters
from cotton growing States. The object of
their assemblage is to take into consideration
just such measures as the one am now ad-