The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-01-18
G III A r l. E S TON
MONDAY MORNING. JANUARY 1s. 1869.
Our Danger.

Inc cotton crop OF 1868 has been u Od-
send to the South We have money in
abundance, our credit is rapidly improv-
ing, the chains are broken which bound
us, our future is bright with hope. And
yet all this will be an evil, rather than a
good, if we do not persevere in that wise
agricultural policy whose first fruits we
now enjoy.
Our danger is that the planters may be
tempted by high prices-the result of a
moderate crop, growing trade and reckless
speculation-to pitch huge crops of cotton.
Each man who sold upland cotton at 25 or
n or 20 cents pound, doubtless wished
that he had twenty bales instead of ten, or q
hundred in place of fifty. This feeling,
however natural, we must conquer or be
undone.
We have made money by the cotton crop
of 1868, because cotton was not our first
and principal care. There had been two
seasons of anxiety, disappointment and
loss, which forced the planter to acknowl-
edge that his only safety lay in securing,
at any cost, what bread aud meat he re-
CURED. The dpllest andmost wrong headed
could See this necessity, and, as q oonse-
quence, the South produced all the bread
stuffs she needed, the corn crop of South
Carolina alone being 2, ,O0O, 900 bush els more
than it was in 1867. Cotton was secon-
dary consideration with the planter; but
the two-and-a-balf million Of bales which
form the crop of the year have still brought
US more money than four million bales
would have done at the prices Of before the
war. Had the whole strength Of the South
been directed to the culture Of cotton the
crop would have been three million bales
or more, and then our fortunes would have
been staked upon one cast of the die, prices
would have fallen and the purchase of
Western grain would have swallowed up the
greater part Of the net proceeds of our cot
ton. AS it is. we have been independent
of outside help. We have not eaten into
the morrow, we have not been obliged to
throw our cotton upon the market, and we
approach another season with distended
purses and the fairest prospects of success.
But the lessons Of this year and Of the
years which have preceded it will be worse
than thrown away, if high prices induce
our planters to make cotton their king and
not their slave. The first labor, the first
thought, the first pains, should be given to
wheat, corn and provisions; and then, and
not before, might the reign Of cotton begin.
We should have the best seed, so as to i'm
prove the staple; fertilizers should be used
freely, so as to increase the yield per acre;
no more land should be planted than can
be cultivated regularly and well. And q
cotton crop made in this manner will re-
peat the lesson Of 1868, and realize for us
far more money than a larger yield at lower
prices with millions of dollars to pay away
in buying our daily bread.
There is, we repeat, but one safe plan:
PLENTY OF PROVISIONS FIRST AND NEXT A
MODERATE CROP OF COTTON. If our planters
will stick to this policy, they will grow rioh;
If they do not, they will assuredly rue the
day when the desire to become suddenly
wealthy caused them to forsake the plain
paths of prudence and common sense.