New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-27
THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET

THERE'S LIFE IN THE OLD LAND YET.
Elsewhere in this deep-freighted issue of
THE TRIBUNE all who think of migrating
Southwark and all who are interested in
Southern prosperity may find columns that will
engross them. Experienced observers and
writer's, by attending State Fair and noting all
they see with nice judgment of what is signih-
cant and what is immateral can form q quite ex-
act opinion of the condition and the drift agri-
cultural interests. There have been two theories
Of Southern society and the manner in which
that vast region will rise from her desolations
and put on beauty for ashes. A quite common
idea in many Northern minds is that chattel
bondage was q cancer which had sapped the
yigor Of society, eneryatng woman and de-
bauchng man to such degree that the sur
face is so to speak, numbered with the wreck
of an effete civilization. Others, and we think
wiser observers, see not wreck, no marks OF
essential weakness, only the exhausting effect
of dire malady acting on constitution that
was originally tough and springy. The first
imagines that he sees grdled oak the other
notes an unbroken connection between the root
and the top; he sees great gashes and gnarls,
but believes that an inextinguishable vigor in
the stock will purge away the mischief and
outgrOw the shock A perusal of the carefully
written and thoughtful reports of the North
Carolina and Georgia Fairs will show to which
class our correspondents belong.
The South has two noble characteristics
which, left to their natural working in society,
are enough in themselves to lift communities
from any depth of disaster and set them on
the highway of renown. She has a brave way
of looking facts full in the face, admitting the
truth, comprehending the extent of disaster
rs preliminary to fresh enterprise. This she
honestly came by through the blood of the
men who two hundred years ago felled the
original oaks and pines on tho banks OF the
Potomac, the James, the Roanoke, and the
Savannah. Second, the browning occupation to
which every good SouthrOn aspires, the noblest,
purest, most honest, and permanent vocation
for man is in his opinion that of tller of the
soil. Given these as premises in any society,
and no disasters can prove irretrievable.
The difficulty with the Southern mind Is q
failure to act UP to the best of its convictions,
and in respect to labor to class mental with
more muscular industry. The Patent-Offce
has not been sufficiently hOnored south of the
Potomac; the tax of faculty required to master
mechanical problem has always been counted
irksome; the planter preferred to hire this
thinking done for him, and pay for it with
the proceeds of less exacting industry. The
hereditary love of broad surfaces, an imperial
Norman taste that came across the Channel
with William, and was undated in the days of
John Smith and Sir Walter Raleigh, this pas
sion for wide-spreading possessions has been
first the pride, then the snare, now the bane
of the South. But sound agricultural htera-
ture will do much to correct it. "Ten Acres
Enough is half truth, but it is one Of
those pungent half truths that will do the Old
Dominion and the Carolinas more good than
many an inert whole truth. AT present the
South has an attitude that calls for counsel;
she has pocket full of cash. and she may do
better thing for herself than she can for the
North by inviting our mechanics Southwark,
buying our improved machinery, and aspiring
to monopolize at least q respectable corner IN
the Patent Office Reports.