The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1869-12-23
Gle daeekIp Clarion.
Address OF Hon. Horace CaPr0n.
The Wants of the @Outh.
Mr.

WIVES a LNAAIA4 Gl4AlEC III AhI
and appliances Of cultivation, a necessity
which many Of you fully realize and
thoroughly understand. Free labor, to
be most efficient, must be educated labor
lin certain degree skilled labor; it
must be supported and supplemented by
improved machinery, so that every dollar
expended in the exercise of human mus
cles, may become two by the magical aug
Ilentation of rural mechanism. 1t Is thus
that our lands must be cultivated and
crops grown, in part by Drawn and IN
part by brains.
This change in labor also involves the
necessity for smaller farms, better culture,
the use Of manures, rotation N crops, and
a large working capital in proportion TO
permanent investment.
Broad acres of impoverished soil, with
out abundant means for needed fertilizers
and fixtures, machinery and farm ami
mails, are not only nOn-prOductve, but
absolute sources of cost and discourage
ment-a milestone upon the neck Of en-
terprise. Without a working capital to
that invested in land, recuperatIOn must
be tedious, and the profits Of farming
small with its aid in utilizing the labor
at command, that which is more efficient
and Intelligent will naturally flow in.
The result will be paid development,
a higher condition of fertility, larger
crops. valuable and creditable improve
ments, good neighborhood roads, larger
profits, wealth, comfort, and content
ment,
As natural sequence of this system of
industry, variety in production will take
the place Of an unceasing culture Of cot
ton and corn. The broad capabilities of
soil and climate will have free scope and
exercise. and while the product of cotton
will be greater than now, there will be
corn enough for man and beast, and album
dance of beef, pork, and mutton, the fl
nest of vegetables, and rarest of fruits,
not alone for home consumption, but for
the supply Of less-favored regions. SUI
gar in favoring soils, may take the place
of cotton as an export crop; sorghum may
Weld its sweets for local use of dwellers
among the hills A multitude of new
and profitable crops may swell by mil
lions the grand aggregate of the cash re-
beipts Of agricultural labor.
Ramie, introduced in 1865. in the Bo-
tanic Garden at Washington, and propa-
gated for years in the experimental gar
den Of the Department of Agriculture,
promises to vie with cotton in profit and
usefulness, and if the manufactures sue
coed in improving and cheapening its fab
relations, and thus create great and per
manent market for the new fiber, which
can be produced in quantities unlimited,
at reasonable rates.
You have also an Unreasonable source
of wealth in the cultivation of fruits
Even that most valuable of all domestic
fruits, the apple, can be produced here
in the highest projection. 1t is true that
failures have resulted from introducing
varieties of northern origin, but your po-
molopists have collected native varieties
fully equal in flavor and keeping quail.
ties to the best of those from any other
section.
Merely mentioning the pear and the
peach-the latter especially reveling in
your bright and heightened summers
allow me to direct your attention to the
fig and grape. The former of these prob
ably, requires less skill in propagation
and care in culture, or in drying or Other
preparation for market, than any Other
fruit of value.
The grape, more capricious as to climate
and locality, can here enjoy its favored
region On your hill sides the best table
and wine grapes of the Northern State:
will attain perfection. And it is prophe
sled that only upon the elevated land:
and mountain slopes of the Southern
States will the region be found that is tc
yield wine equal to a Johannisburger, 8
Tokay, or MargeauX; while in yom
lower lands you have the famous Soup
that h,crbI,r
ed, both here and in foreign Countries
Vast developments await you in this di-
rection; and when you reflect that even
ON your worn out lands, unfit for corn or
cotton, fruits and vines may be produced
in the greatest abundance and perfection,
the propriety of giving attention to these
crops will become apparent
Nor will this measure of diversity suf-
flee. Manufacturers must occupy the
sites of water powers, and the surplus for
ests products be used in propelling ma
chinery by steam, thus identifying your
State and enriching your people, not on
ly by the products and profits of this in
dustry, but of the stimulents it will afford
to agriculture in the consumption of its
products and the enhancement of their
values. | hope to see the day when, with
the help of manufacturers in other States
of this country, we may be able to manu-
facture every pound of cotton that we can
produce. You may in self-defense be
compelled to do it, as Great Britain is al
ready preparing to colonize India with the
skilled laborers of Lancashire, as teachers
and directors of the teeming millions
whose services may be had for remun-
Grafton scarcely appreciable. Ship
abroad among the nations of the earth, at
little cost for freights and commissions,
all your cotton in yarns and fabrics, bear
ing the added value of much cunning la
Dor, ready for the markets of the world,
rather than depend upon the wants or the
caprice of other nations for the sale of
the raw material.
The small beginning of five and half
millions of pounds of cotton manufacture
ed in this country in 1871, increasing to
fifty millions in 1921, has augmented to
four hundred and fifty millions in 1865
one million bales of 450 pounds each-a
consumption greater than that attained in
1860. 1t will continue to increase, and
with its swelling volume, change the
whole current to trade advancing our
national wealth and prosperity.
We must not ignore the efforts of the
British cotton commission to attain indie
pendence of foreign markets thro' their
Indian empire. 1t is true that the fiber
known as 'Surats" sells at lower rates
than our uplands, but it should be re-
membered that it is owing more to care
less handling than to any defect in the
staple itself, and that strenuous and-sys-
tematie efforts are producing a cleaner and
better fiber. Ii the ''Dhers," with their
clumsy machinery, have produced from
this cotton-with careful manipulation of
the fiber from the beginning-th finest