The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-20
The Help the south Needs.

HTOWI Me ~. 4. 1TtOOne.
AS nation progresses, its Government has
new duties to perform. In particular is this
true of our own Government. Statesmanship
which thirty years ago might have been pro-
found, may be worthless to-day. One who is
not impressed, or who is incapable of being
impressed, with this idea, is unfit for states
man. The rapid increase of our population
and the great demand for fabrics, for varied
and abundant food, for good furniture and for
comfortable dwellings, give new energy to the
farmer, the mechanic, and artisan. The sup
plies of food and clothing which we require
are so large as not to be realized by state
ment in figures, and they are increasing,
to-day, with rapiditty in excess of any other
period. In addition to our own people, we are
receiving each day through the ports of San
Francisco and New York, thousand foreigners
from the two widely distant shores of the Old
World. Manufactures are fourishing-at
least they are getting strength in a mortal
conflict with foreigners-and we are fabri-
eating and consuming more goods of all kinds
than were produced in the whole of Europe at
the time of the Revolution.
1t is important to know that less than one
fourth of the territory east of the Mississippi
furnishes our meat and bread. The Southern
States never have made their bread till this
year, and they may do so few years longer;
but if they do, it will be at the expense of the
cotton crop; nor will an accession to their
population be of advantage to them or to the
nation. The capacity of the South to feed
their people poorly has been reached; if better
food is to be provided they certainly do not
want more people. We know all that can be
said regarding the vast extent of uncultivated
land and of the benefits they will receive
from capital and the establishment of manu-
factures. 1t is true there is some land
left, and it a blessed thing that there
is; but the amount not subject to over
flow, or to malarious disease, really is very
little. Long ago, wherever there was a chance
for the opening of even a second or third class
plantation, there the planter made an entry;
and now, only some forests attached to large
plantations, and some upland valleys, which
can be made valuable by drainage, remain.
To be sure, there are millions of acres among
hills, but nobody thinks they can be turned to
the least account. When some plan shall be
adopted for restraining the waters within the
Western levees, and making il worth while
to cultivate the plantations already made, we
can go into the jungles of cane brake and
Spanish moss, and have many new farms of
marvellous fertility; but this is in the future
and for those who take their lives in their
hands, and much money in their pockets.
1t is those vast portions of the South where
health can attend civilization, and which have
De6n DIOuBnI luVO culuVatlOn, that require
attention, and this, not of individuals, but of
the Government ITSELF Their condition briefly
is this On first being cleared, good crops were
raised for several years, but the soil, being no
where natural for grass, has been removed by
successive croppings, or has been washed into
valleys, or foated out with the streams into
the ocean. At this time all Southern fields are
in the different stages ranging from compare
tive freshness to marked decay and absolute
barrenness. There are tens of thousands OF
farms, once yielding abundantly, which now
cannot produce eight bushels Of corn or fifty
pounds of lint cotton to the acre. OF course
such land, as well as the owner, bear the marks
of debasing poverty. So far from this condition
becoming In any respect better, every year
adds largely TO the number Of farms on the