The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-13
King Cotton.

Hardly Southern paper reaches us but has
editorial comment of sOme sort on the pros.
pective crop OF 1869. 1t is generally conceded
that it will be large If the season is at all
favorable. Some editors have the sagacity to
see that saying so much about great crop
this year will have bad effect on that part Of
the crop of 1868 which remains unsold.
Now friends at the South, before your
double ploughs have thrown all the land into
ridges for cotton rows take time and give this
whole business of agriculture a sober second
thought. You have just come out of great
war in which you were worsted. The weakest
thing in the Southern military service during
that war was its commissariat. strictly
agricultural people, having as much pride of
acres ss any landed aristocracy in the world,
were from the first, and in all stages of four
years strife, weakened, hampered, thwarted,
demoralized, and finally defeated, for want Of
beef corn, wheat, hay, and oats.
great war is like a severe illness; it tries
the constitution and unmasks the weakness
OF the system. The agricultural system Of
the South has been proved defective because
in prot tacted fight the breach appeared there
first. Now what Is the great characteristic
OF planting? 1t is, and from the first has
been, the deriving of a large income in clear
money from broad surface, by the sale of
vegetable products. A small planter is one
whose account sales of cotton or tobacco, rice
The sales of the large planters range all
the way from $500 TO 100000. A few, a
very lew. STStnern proprietOrs received over
SloOySJ0 from a single crop. That mode OF
q eriving an income may have been connected
with the character and status of the laborer
but such connection was not inseparabe. A
slave could cradle wheat or fatten hogs If
ordered TO, just as ell as he could pick cot
ton or sucker tobacco. Slavery had inherent
sins enough without charging it with blum
ders that were not, in tue nature of things,
inseparahle from unpaid labor. From the time
OF POcahontas the Southern domain was
divided into large estates. Those who sur
veyed and plotted it felt as Brutus did about
Ciesar's body
"Let as carve him as dish fit for the gods,
not hew him Ike carcass for the hounds"
These broad acres were cleared and cropped
by sport.loviDg men, for whose ears the bay
| ing OF a pack of fox hounds was sweetest
music. Put man with these tastes at the
centre OF 1900 acre tract, and what will he
do He will have as few inside fences as pos
si6le; he will make his money on a crop that
Wall cost him the least time, or planning, or
worry. He will say, dun virimus, vivamus-
latter us the deluge." Talk to him of rota-
uon, fertilizers, bone dust, the foot of the
sheeP having gold beneath it; he answers you
by blast ON his hunting horn. 'My niggers
know how to make cOtton.' These seven
WORDS were the doom of true progressive agri-
culture south Of Mason and Dixon.
The inducements that draw the Soutbarn
agricVlturist towards cotton-felds are yerv
great He is in debt. He wants carriage horses
to replace those which Bragg, or Johnson. or
Lee broke down dragging cannon. Heis living
in cabin, and would like to do something with
those ghostly and blackened chimney stacks.
The saws This gin-stapd are bent and rusty.
His press is rude and slow. His mules ara
stiff, and his ploughs worn; his tobacco sheds
went for camp fires. We admit that 1t would
be help on your place II you could sell three
hundred bales next December at two bits a
pound But let us reason about 1t. You do
not propose TO move West. You know of no
good cotton or tobacco land that is cheaper than
your own plantation. Besides, you have
no money to go on. II you leave your children