The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-30
The Negro and tho South.


The Memphis AUalanche declares in sub
stance as follows:-After a fair trial, the
negro has failed. To bring him up to a high
standard is impossible. It is of no use for the
farmers of Tennessee to waste their time and
money on him, for already their crops have
falleu short one-fourth. The loss of his labor
makes a serious vacuum, but practical mea-
sures can be adopted which will restore
everything to its former vigor. An associa-
ton must be formed at once to get labor from
abroad. A new system OF farming must be
inaugurated which will require least labor.
This will be grazing and grain growing, and
the farmer must teach his children to work.
The main idea is to turn grass and grain into
stock. 1t is true the negro did well during
the war, and he was power in the State; but
now he is sadly demoralized, and his mind is
so charged with radicalism that he will not
permit decent white man to approach him
on anything like friendly terms. As for
growing cotton any longer, it is out of the
question. One cannot stand the tax, and if
Congress does not remove it the golden goose
will die. Even now the worlds market does
not depend on our snowy fields, and it never
will again.
We had understood that the South raised a
very large corn crop this year, and never
short may be stated to be because the weather
was unfavOrable and injurious insects
abounded. Had these causes not operated
one will wonder why cotton did not yield as
bountifully as grain. We are told they will
get laborers from abroad. These, we suppose,
will be Irish, for Southern agents, now in
Europe, say that Germans are out of the ques-
ton. Suppose, now, ten thousand Irishmen
with their families land at New Orleans, come
up the river to Memphis, and, taking the
railroad for Western or Middle Tennessee,
hire out to work on the plantations. Every
planter in Tennessee knows that such help
will not be worth a picayune day. More
than ALL these planters have not the remotest
idea that any human beings on the face of
the earth, except their old negroes, will accept
the ratiOns which they continue to give, of
a peck of corn and a few pounds of bacon
aweek. Let nobody get the foolish idea that
Irishmen are coming to America to starve. In
their poor cabins along the railroad, they live
in a style the Southern planters would call
perpetual frolic. Ireland is known as the
Emerald Isle because the grass is so green,
and an Irishmen is accustomed to milk and
butter, and, above ALL to potatoes. Think Of
these long weary miles through the South,
where scarcely spear of green grass is to be
seen. Milk is rarity, butter a myth, and it
is doubtful whether dozen wagon-loads of
round potatoes are raised for market between
Nashville and Memphis. To expect that an
Irishmen is going to live on seed tick coffee
rusty bacon, and corn-bread, when there are
good wages, beefsteak, and Democratic
oaucuses in the North, is an absurdity.
At last, it is granted that Cotton is not King.
When the King dies the name of his successor
resOunds The successor of the dead monarch
is labor, and before him every knee shall bow.
We have so much land that even skilful culd-
vators in the most favored regions of the
North relax their grasp on large farms, for the
contest with the cheap lands of the West is
overpowering, and one who has not skill in
other pursuits must, himself, work or die.
That plan of teaching white children to work
is good one, and the sooner it is carried out
the better. Mr.. Topp, the President of the
Charleston and Memphis Railroad, stated,
before the war, that there were over $4,000
country people in Tennessee who had no work
to do, while the corresponding class IN the
North were active in various mechanical in
dustries.
Now, as the white people are going to work,
and on the new system, we hope they will not
take Offense if we give a few directions. In
| the first place, as grass is to be the leading
crop, the seed must be obtained from Louis
Vile or Cincinnati. But do not imagine that
these old cotton fields, which have been cropped
for fifteen or twenty years, will bring grass,
| for they will do no such thing. To try 1t is to
throw away the seed. You must have land
which has been cleared only few years, and
where the deadened trees begin to shed the
| bark; or what is better, clear new land, no
or two years, then sow a mixture Of
blue grass, clover and red-top. Then
YOU must NOW the weeds as often as they
appear. and keep off the cattle for yeai
al least, for the soil is tender, and the STOCK
win pull up the young grass by the rGosS, s 70,