Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-11-15
COTTON RAISING uEpRoF1rABLE.

Whether Southern planters will easily
learn the lesson of the present hour, re-
mains to be seen. 1t is always with great
difficulty, and often only the result oil
the hardest lessons, that people are
brought 10 change the habits of the past
and the routine Of business in which 1t
has been reared. But we have not a
doubt that the lesson Of necessity will be
learned sooner or later by all. That the
laboring population of the South can no
longer be relied on, all see and acknowi-
edge. 1t seems therefore to us the die
tate of common sense that those crops
which can be raised with least labor
should be substituted for cotton. While
the cereals can be raised with less labor,
and that continued but half the year,
cotton requires underwriting industry
the year round. There is rot more
than time enough to spare from cotton
crop during the whole year, even with
the most efficient and constant labor, to
make the repairs necessary to keep up
the plantation, when full crops are
raised. How then is it possible any one
should expect to make cotton proiita-
bly, hereafter at any price it is likely
again to commando To make cot
ton now is TO gamble on
the chances Of prices to come,
and on the hope that short crops will
make large prices. Have we not tried
that now seven years, in all of which,
counting the stock on hand at 100000
bales at the beginning of the war. and
including it, only about ten millions have
been furnished In all that time, in
which, without war, thirty millions Of
bales would have been produced, there is
falling off of twenty millions Of bales.
That deficit is now already nearly sup
Piled so that, with the aid of diminished
consumption, induced by the scarcity of
cotton, the price has gone down to q
lower figure than the market exhibited at
the outbreak of the war. Fifteen cents
in greenbacks is not more than eleven
cents in gold. And when labor was eff
eient, and planters we're doing what they
can never expect TO do again, they did
nothing more than make fair living and
pay six per cent on their capital invested.
Their profit was in the growth and in
crease Of their slave property alone.
How, then, in the present circumstances,
can they hope to prosper, paying wages
for half labor, unless il be by raising such
crops as can be made by a greatly
diminished amount Of labor. With a crop
Of thirty.fve hundred pounds Of lint to
the hand and ten cents price in gold, no
man could, even before the war, hire all
his hands, pay the rent Of his farm and the
interest on bis capital in mules, stock
and farm utensils, and then get more
than everseers wages FOR his superin-
tendence. And now that the price is
reduced to anti war figures, that he must
pay the same or higher wages and get
less than the same work, and cannot
average two thousand pounds Of lint to
the hand, and must pay higher for every
thing he buys for all purposes, it is
preposterous TO expect 10 make anything
raising cotton. They who attempt II, in
the hope that prices viii 20 up, win keep
on starving and running in debt as long
as they do so. Merchants viii not con-
tinue 10 trust men who cannot pay, any
more than those who will not. And those
Who thus scufie on in the dream Of a
brighter day viii be sadly disappointed.
We beg our country friends to come to q
decision and . reasonable conclusion on