The Fairfield herald. [volume] (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1849-1876, 1869-01-20
Wednesday Morning, Jan. 20, 1869.
Desportes, Williams Il Co., Props
Higher Wages and Our Merchants.


Somewhat higher wages are already
boipg offered to laborors by our farm
ers, and wo only hope that tolcrablc
crops at tolcrable prices will enable
them to pay them next winter, with
out repenting Of their bargain. For
instance, about eighty dollars is be.
ing offered for ploughman, which is
at loast twenty dollars more than last
year. a third Of tho crop, but with
fifty pounds Of meat, is another con-
tract in general favor, which is also
better, all things considered, than
last year, for the crop promises to
prove moro valuable than it did at the
samc season last year. Let tho freed
man but work steadily, and even bet
tor torms may be made by him for
1870, and no one bc loser by them.
If he would work more skilfulIy, that
is, give as hearty attention to thu
making of manure and to tho prcpa-
ration OF tho soil, as to ploughing and
hooing tho crop, highor wages than
tho present higher wages would be his
for 1870, to a certainty.
The class that will DO most immc
diately benefited by such course of
events will be our merchants. can
that tho laboring man makes" says a
high authority on such Subjects" is
immediately spent at the retail mer-
chants store that is most convenient
to him" Cur merchants may calcu.
late, therefore on good trade, for
cash, hereafter They have had it
this winter. They will have it, but
with greater completion, greater
risks md reduced profits, next winter;
andsso, for overy succeeding season.
But ovcrtrading and too crowded a
competition will soon have its natural
offcct. The mercantile class ditror
from the agricultural in being rcady
to combine IN business, when an invest
ment promises well. They will soon
perceive that there is too much capital
invested in trade, and will commence
to transfer it towards such manu/ac.
turing enterprises as promise greater
profits, and to Improvements IN Ami-
culture. Immigration will then re-
ccivo a surprising stimulus. Our
towns and villages will grow. Skilled
labor will be in demand. and for twa
generations Mt least, while wo arc in
tho progressive state, the demand for
labor ever increasing, tho wages of
steady labor will increase.
If these conjecturcs as to tho future
have any foundation in tho fact, tho
day of can aristocracy of planters"
has gone, and that of "morchant
princes" has begun. And it is our
merchants who arc destined to i'm
prove our Agriculture, Ly cngrartinr
upon it scientific inventions and dis.
ooverios, and by trusting greater
amount of capital to the soil, with a
tirmor faith that it will return sure
profit, than even those have, who
have worked it from boyhood. For it
Is fact, that merchants who turn to
agriculture for recreation, cver manaqc
TO make stpay.
Again, if we have conjccturcd at all
near tho truth, how beautiful tho cir
ole of agencies by which tho class first
benefited by Southern Agriculture un,
dor its obangcd condition, will bo led,
by its instinct for profit, rs tho matur-
cst fruit Of its prosperity, to improve
and vary agriculture throughout tho
South ! The philosopher, amidst tho
porversity and blindness of his coun.
trymen to their own best interests.
can afford to bo calm and patient,
whon no secs them travelling round
the circle to tho point from which
they despiso him for saying that just
there (at improved agricultural it were
better that they had started, since,
by tho waste ofa generation, and all
of onergies, to that we must como, be.
foro we shall movo onward to higher
condition Of material and social pro-
gress and Improvement.
-----------~so . - <s-------.-
The Share Of the Drop System.
The impression prevails amongst