The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-03-17
KING COrr0M.
E0me Bemsilblo Talk for tho Souxhorr
Planters FROM Horace Greeley. t.
From the New York Ir.buns.l

From the New York Ir.bunel
Hardly southern paper reaches us but has
editorial comment Of some sort on the prog
pective crop of 1869. 1t is generally conce dea
that 1t will be large If tho season is at all favor
ablc. Some ed tors have the sagacity to see
that saying so much about q great crop this
year will have bad effect on that part of che
crop OF 1868 which remains unsold.
Nov, friends at the South, before your dou-
bio ploughs have thrown all the Ian into
ridges for cotton rows take time and give this
whole business of agriculture sober second
thought. You havejust come out of great
war in which you were worstei l: The weakest
thing in the southern military service during
that war was its commissarlat. A strictly agr-
cultural people, having as much pelde OF acres
as any landed ar1stocracy IN the world, were
st1fe, weakened hampered, thwarted, demo-
ralized. and finally defeated, for want Of beef.
corn, wheat hay and oats.
:, A great war is like severe illness; it tries
the system. The agricultural system of the
South has been proved defective, because ia q
protracted fght the breach appeared there
hrst, Now = what is the great ohsract cteristic OF
the deriving Of q large income in clear money
from broad surface, by the sale Of vegetable
products. small planter Is one whose ac-
count sales OF cotton or tobacco: rice or sugar,
do not figure up more than $1,000. The sale
OF the largo planters range all the way from
$4,000 TO $500 600. A few. q very few. Southern
poprefSrs tors. reosyed H a. oyea from single
have been come .ted with the character and
status OF the laborer; but such connection was
not inseparable. A slave could cradle wheat
or fatten hORs II ordered to Just as wen as he
could pick cotton or sucker tobacco. Slavery
had inherent SINS enough without charging il
with blunders that were not. in tho nature Of
things. insegarable from unpaia laDor. From
the time OF 'P0eabOntas the Southern domain
was divided into large estases. Those who
surveyed an1 plotted it felt as Brutus did
abous CDsar's bcuy: .sLet us oarve him as a
dss as iGs the xoas not hew him like
These broad areas were cleared and cropped
by spOrt-loviug men, for whose ears the bay
Ing OF ack OF fox hounds was sweetest
centre OF . twelve hundred acre act, and
What will he do 2 He will have as aw inside
fences as possible; he will make his mouey on
planning or worry lie vi lray, dunn rius,.us. @ d.
nsoi mus after us the. d.luge.', yAls 10 nm,
OF rotation. fertahg,rsf boue dust. the foot oS
the sheep having Eoid beneath it; he snswers
you by bas on his hunting horn. s.My mig.
gers know how t. nake cotton" Thesa seven
WOE Is wore the doom Of true progressive agri-
culture outb OF Mason and d xon.
Tho inducements that draw the Soutbern
agracuitnraIist toward cotton fields are very
great He is in debt. He wants carriage
horses to replace those VIII oh Bragg, OF Jokn-
ston. M.. or Lee broke down dragging cannon. He
thing with those ghostly and b!ackened oninl-
noy.stacks. The saws Of mia gin-stand are
bent and rusty. HIS press 10 rude and slow.
His mules aye stiff and his ploughs worn: his
tobacco sbeds went tor camp Ares: We admit
thatit wouid be help on your place it you
could sell three hundred bales mex. December
at two bits pound But let US reason about
i. You do not propose to move West You
know of no good cotton or ,ooacco land
that is aper than your own plantation.
6esides. you have no money 70 60 on. II
be in the acres over whiol you walk. II
you drain those acres OF the last ton OF
potash and phosphorus they contain, YOU
leave to those vino oone alter you wide waste
o. broom-sedge and stunted piDes--a heritage
Of brers.. and guIlies, and r,tten tences.
No. gsntlencn you will be wiser and
moro provldent than that You will see that
while there is some money IN cotton and to-
bacoo. there is ia Il littls trade wealth or power
little OF that which makes nations great aud
keeps them SO The South has never beon
sufficiently devoted 20 the production 0e arti
q es OF prinoa necessity. Mankii.d won.d be
better of il frost or worms should destroy
every tobacco plant that spfOuts this spring.
Cotton 10 very important textile; bat nations