Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-12-04
Letter from Alabama.

LIVINGSTON november ~ lru&s
EDrroRs LEDGER: After an absence Of
several weeks from your city, in which
time / have visited oil the stations
on the Mobile and Ohio railroad,
from Corinih TO Meridian, and all the
towns on both sides Of the road for dis.
tance Of twenty miles, have concluded,
at request, TO write you, not "what will
be interesting to planters" but some
thing they will not be willing to hear. /
supposed, when left your city, | would
find many evidences Of an improved
method Of agriculture and horticulture,
and more attention paid TO improving,
adjoining aud identifying homes than be-
fore the war, but to my great surprise
and modification, no such signs
have met my eyes in Eastern Mis-
sissippi. The same old-fashioned way
which our fathers followed in days gone
by OF planting hedges and never trim
ming them, plowing up and down the
hills, 80 when the rain falls 1t may carry
with it to the branch below all of the
loose soil; planting the same land in
similar crop year after year, as IL they
were anxious to see how soon they could
exhaust their lands pulling fodder, and
leaving il in the field exposed to storms
till it rots. They still commence build
ing houses and never finish them; set
out fruit trees and leave them to the ten
der mercies of the rabbit, curculio and
caterpillar. The fact is, the man who
will plant a full crop of king cotton
needs thirteen months in the year to at
tend to it, and therefore has no time left TO
look after orchards AID parterres Of flow
ers. The life ofthe cotton planter is one of
the hardest and most irksome that falls |
to the lot Of any mortal, yet men follow
it with an assidnity worthy Of more |
agreeable one. Some men seem to think |
they can eat cotton, array themselves in |
cotton, and when they die they will be |
waited in cotton to better world.
Judging from what have seen, heard |
and ate ON this trip, what they most
need is. in my humble opinion, good
cooks, missionaries and works on agri-
culture. In many of these counties, you
will not find one man in fifty who takes |
or reads work on farming. They have
not the money, yet they have money to
pay to see shows. For two have just
passed through the country, and have
been informed they were everywhere well
attended, not only by the freedmen, but
by whites from country, town and viii
lage--even the educated and refined
of Aberdeen and Columbus. When ! see
men cultivating their land, year after
year, in similar kind of crop, without
any rotation whatever, with the old
harry" the pattern of which they re-
ceived from their grandfathers, and that,
too, without leveling or hillside ditching,
am l, therefore, to conclude they are
good farmers2 Would it not pay these
planters to spend at least as much money
for the Southern Farmer, published by
DR.. Phillips, in your city, as they now
spend for Brick Pomeroy's paper o.
casionally one finds a planter who is
thoroughly posted in all the improve
ments in agricultural implements and
modes of culture One such in Pontotoc
Zone of the poorest in the State) county
said he had gathered from one acre
seventy.two bushels of corn this year.
Another, who plants more than he can
with the old pillow, and suffers
his fence corners to grow up in bushes Z
and briers, picked from twenty acres one
bale of cotton. Such man should have
to live all his life on fat bacon fried to a
crisp and pone corn bread badly cooked, |
and have the nightmare, rise each morn
ing with the heartburn and waterbrash, :
and finally end worthless life by dys-
pepsia, as many have done. There has
been but slight improvement in any of
he towns or villages that are not on the s
.airoad. The fences round the court
iouses and graveyards are down; the glass
,ut of windows, and the Stats broken 9
rom the venetian shutters. In some
owns not pound of paint nor bucket y
# whitewash have been used in years, and
he houses and fonces have a dingy
md dilapidated appearance. Along 7
be line of the railroad you hear the
ound of the ak and hammer, @
md see many new, neat cottages and
torres, painted and whitewashed, and t.
ther evidences of thrift and enterprise. "
fany in the interior are sitting with y y
heir hands folded dreaming of railroads
o build, of better time coming, or else II
f some colorado beyond the Father of j.
Waters where all of their wants will be G
applied, without an effort on their part; :
theirs are up and at it like true men that
hey are, determined to win.
Respectfully, SNAP II