New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-07-20
COTTON.

COTTON
While our exchanges indicate greater general
prosperity at the South than has been felt since,
in the name Of King Cotton, the first rebel gun
was pointed across Charleston Harbor there is
no reason for suppOsing that the crown will ever
again climb upon the battered bTows of that de-
throned power. TherepOrts from Texas are, it
is true, quite flush. They have a very large crop
and no threat of worms as yet. But in the old
Cotton States correspondents unite in placing the
estimates for 1869 but little higher than the fig
ures of 1868. The seed, to begin with, came up UNI
evenly and gave aragged stand. Then bad weather
followed, great freshets flooding all the flats;
cool, damp, backward weather, good for ducks
and grass, favorable TO rust, and lice,
and cut-worms, but bad for this hot-blooded
child of the tropics that is never so green and
thrifty as when cOn-blades twist and shrivel
under q blazing sky. OF late the heat has
been satisfactory to cotton, but in many fields
il cannot forget the stunt OF a foggy May and
cool nights in the irst half of June. But we have
vet to name the chief difficulty with which the
planter must strugglc-a weak, irregular force.
Probably there is on the whole as much
industry in the South rs there was under
the old regime of the paddle and the stocks.
But free labor is free labor, aud means not
only the work Of persons not slaves, but liberty
to be idle the right of going a-iishing. the fran
chse Of tho ballot, the pleasure of being out
of the field all day Saturday, the refinement of
giving ones wife and sisters a seat on the shady
side of the cabin if they wish, on the sunny
side if they choose it. This irregularity of the
Al . .l,,,, 81 4.
males from the cotton patch appreciated now,
will be acutcly felt in the picking season, which
begins in month and ends only with the
year. We do not believe cotton bales by tho
ten thousand will be regularly picked
out by white fingers. The Saxon will
plant and cultivate cotton with greater ease
and skill than the African ever displayed; for
here he finds a theater for the display of me-
chanical ingenuity, and here he can shift the
most of the toll upon his brute colaborer. But
lac cannot pick by mule power. No race of
laborcrs, free, intelligent, mechanical, and
cnterprisng will be content to begin in Au-
gust n mode of activity which lasts in drear,
braness monotony till Christmas, and affords
no more outlet for the display of talent than
picking backberries or breaking rock. They
can do it, and they may for few
seasons; but the inevitable drift of free
dom, and brain, and blood, will push them
to less Goldfish ways of making living.
The grand advantage which cOerced labor
gave was absolute quantities on every side to
deal with. The planter could know in Febru
airy just how many mules he could hitch up,
just how large n pillow gang he could send
afcld how large a hoe gang, how many
baskets and how many bags to have ready by
the middle of August, how long his gins must
run. when the teams must begin to make trips
to the landing. The number and age of his
hands, their hours Of labor and their holidays,
the precise rate ut which the ebony fingers
would fit from boil to boil, could be
known and calculated with as much
certainty as Lowell counts her water
wheels and Manchester her spndles.
These certainties all upset. this nice system
bctangled with all the peradventures Of uncom-
PEELED labor, cotton-planting has lost its charm
Prince HaTy's spur is cold and we are older
grown Nor will influx of coolies or capital
turn the ebb tide TO flood. 1t has never been
well with communities where q special crop
arrogates all the rural honOrs and dominates
over other agricultural interests. He who made
the world fitted it for great diversity Of
plants and crops, and no belt of the
earths surface is moro exquisitely adapted
to various and miscellaneous culture than
the cotton belt of our Union. 1t is a
land where the fig and the peach may nod
side by side like twin cherries on one stem;
where a crop of sweet potatoes may succeed
planting of round potatOes where wheat may
follow maize, and rice replace barley; where
one may pluck in his garden an orange ut
breakfast, q watermelon after dinner and straw
berries for tea. 1t was n misuse of that |
climate and that mellow soil to cash
every acre of it with the turning pillow, and |
pile all the surface into cotton ridges.
The present year is one of great material |
at the South. The prospect is that |
she will sell three million bales for rs much !
money as six millions would have netted her |
IN those old palmy days to which she will still |
gaze back with unfOunded regret. Besides she |
will have less pork to buy, less flour, not so
many Shoes nor hats lighter doctors bills to set |
.le She pays smaller usury to the commission |
merchant, and much less to Northern hotel
keepers. With marvellous advantages OF eli
nate, with the irrcprcssble vgor and thrift OF a |
ace skilled III the imperial ant transmitting /