Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-10-15

| use ana WthE VI tho pieneoe'o"t WV
stock is lost, and the interest on capital,
and proper cost of superintendence
But suppose you take the cotton now
grown and ready to be harvested as the
test To make two thousand pounds oil
| lint there will be required six thousand
ak hundred and sixty.six pounds OF seed
cotton, which it will cost
Ono dollar per hundred to pick out. =, =,
making ....... .......''.' '..'.''''SO1 "
81 cents ner 10. on 1000 lbs, ........ so "
Weirhing and tagging cents per BALE ! Y
FREIGHT 81 % per bale, 9s
| Drayage 25 cents PER bale, .'....,.'' ~''''" p
Commissions. 21s per cent: on s9VVi..'''''' q
Insurance on month. at q per cent-''''''." "a
sls5 10
So that to take crop ready made to
your hand, and hire it picked out will
Weld YOU less than Sl65 to the hand,
when il has cost already more than that
10 make il. Can cotton be made at this
rate, and the profit approach that OF
grain and meat2 If the price Of cotton
goes up it will be because the value OF
the currency goes down. Fifteen cents
represents now little more than ten cents
in gold. Can you pay $3.50 wages for
half work, and take ten cents for cotton,
when You could not make cotton for less
than seven cents, when you had full work
and no wages to pay1 This business of
making cotton is sort of ignis fatuus,
which misleads to monomania. The idea
that cotton is king makes slaves of those
educated to it, and they make cotton
when they might be emancipated and
prosper as producers of breadstuffs, meat
and stock.
1t would seem, certainly, that these
figures should convince every individual
man that he should raise no cotton for
sale at the present or prospective prices.
Probably not more than twenty cents, if
so much, will be again realized. How,
then, is any one man to make as much
by planting cotton as by raising grain
and stock, in a country which buys so
large a portion of what it consumes from
abroad2 By one process there is certain
independence and comfort, with little
profit to lay up; by the other, uucer-
tainty and discomfort, and'insuficient
money to place us beyond the reach of
want of the necessaries of life. II, in the
most prosperous times, and with slave
labor, when double the quantity of cot
ton could be made to the hand which is
made now, the planter prospored best
who made only so much cotton as he
could, after making an ample supply of
food for his own use, hew evident is it
now that he can do better making meat
and breadstuffs, which have more GER
tain return and are less dependent on
the uncertain labor, because it costs less
labor to produce them; and this espe-
cially when cotton is a drug in the
market, and the other products of
our soil are commanding the active mar
ket prices, with a tendency constantly
upward, resulting from the insane policy
of making that we cannot eat at low
rates to buy what are articles Of prime
necessity at the highest. The United
States, which formerly made about a
third of the whole cotton consumed, is
now making not more than one tenth,
while the product of other countries has
been so stimulated by our withdrawal
from the market that it is growing, and
has grown already, to such an extent
that the world can do without our cot.
ton. We have lost the command of the
market, which we once had, and we shall
not regain it. We cannot make cotton
proftably with freed labor, nor so low
hat others cannot afford to underbid us,
md we never shall. Hence the low
prices. Hence the folly of making cot
on at all, until we no longer lack bread.
The idea that next year may do better
han this, under these circumstances, is
Make no cotton next
rear, and we shall have labor enough
Ind bread enough, and be independent,
hough we have no great deal of money
o spend. And if then we choose
o make little cotton again
beyond our home consumption,
We can risk doing it at low
prices or at no price at all. But so long
IS we depend on others for bread, so
ong will the price be high, and that Of
cotton lower We are making cotton at
ow prices to buy bread at high, and this
because there is an over-supply Of cot
on resulting from the addition we make
o ii and a short supply of food resulting
rom the fact that we make only half ;
enough for home use, on soil which
night venture to compete for cereals
md stock with any section Of the world.
We are glad that the time has come when ,
individuals can see the identity of their ,
,wn interests with the true and properly ,
prevailing policy. The lesson may be
ard one, but it will be profitable in the ,
nd, if it convinces the country of the ,
oily Of raising at the hardest rates what
We cannot eat, TO buy what we must eat ,
1t prices augmented by the fact that we
are diminishing the supply by non
production while we are enlarging the