The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1869-05-08
King Cotton.
Some Sensible Talk for the Southern Plan
- ters from Horace Greeley. assa

1 4
ters from Horace Greeley agfg
Hardly a Southern paper reaches
us but has editorial comments of
some sort on the prospective crop
of 1869. 1t is generally conceded
that it viii be large if the seasons
is at all favorable. Now, friends
of the South, before your double
| plows have thrown all the lands
into ridges for cotton rows, take
time and give this whole business
of agriculture a second thought.
You have just come out ola great
war, in which you were worsted.
The weakest thing in the Southern
military service during the war
was its commiSsariat. A strictly
agricultural people, having as
much pride Of acres as any landed
aristocracy in the world, were
from the first, and in all stages of
a four years strife, hampered,
weakened, thwarted, demoralized,
and finally defeated, for want Of
beef, corn, hay and oats. A
A great war is like severe i'll
ness; it tries the constitution and
unmasks the weakness of the sys-
TEN. The agricultural system Of
the South has been proved defect
Z
| i've, because in a protracted fight
the branch appeared first. Now,
what is the great characteristic Of
planting? 1t is, and from the first
has been, the deriving of u large
| income in clear money from q
broad surface, by the sale Of vegi-
table products. A small planter
is one whose account states ofcot-
ton or tobacco, rice or sugar, do
not figure up more than $1,000.
The sales Of the large planters
range all the way from $4,000 to
| $4,000. A few, a very few,
| Southern proprietorsre over
q hundred thousand dollars. for a
| single crop. The mode OF deriving
an income may have been connect
ed with the character and status
OF the laborer; but such connection
was inseparable. a slave could
cradle wheat or fatten hogs if or
dered to, just as well as he could
pick Gotten or sucker tobacco.
Slavery had inherent sins enough
without charging it with blunders
that were not, in the nature Of
things, inseparable from unpaid
labor. From the time of Pocahun-
tas the Southern domain was di-
yided into large estates. Those
who surveyed and plotted it felt
as Brutus did about Caesars body:
"Let us carye him as a dish fit for
the gods, not hew him like a car
cass for the hOunds.n
These broad acres were cleared
by sport-loving men, for whose
ears the baying of d pack Of
hounds was the sweetest music.
Put a man in the center ola twelve
hundred acre tract, with these
tastes, and what will he do? He
will have as few inside fenSes as
possible; he will make his money
on crop that will cost him the
least time for planting, or worry.
He will say, dana giUiH3Us, UiDdne2tS
=" after us the deluge.n Talk to
him OF rotation, fertilizers, bone
dust, the foot of the sheep having
gold beneath it he answeres you
by a blast on his hunting horn,
"My niggerS know how to make
cotton" These seven words We're
the doom Of true and progressive
agriculture south of Mason and
Dixon. stI 'l--1
The inducements that draw the
Southern -Agricultmalist toward
the cotton fields are very great.
He is in debJ. He wants carriages
| and horses to replace those which
Bragg or, johnson or Lee broke
down dragging cannon. He is
living in cabin, and would to do
something with those ghostly and
blackened chimney stacks. The
saws of his gin stand are bent and
rusty. His press isrude and slow.
His mules are stiff and his plows
worn; his sheds went foreamp-fres.
We admit thatit would be a help
on your place if you could sell
three hundred bales of cotton next
] December at two bits a pound.
4 But let us reason about it. You
do not propose to move West
] You know of no good cotton fo1
tobacco land that is cheaper than
your plantation. Besides you
have no moneygte go~eRv If you
/ leave your children anything, ii
Z muSt he in the acres. over which