The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1870-12-01
AGRICULTURAL.
Too Much Cotton RuinOus to the
South.


While every week of European
war and business arrangement
buoys up the hope of the wheat
grower and sustains his price, IN
the samc ratio is cotton depressed.
The declaration of hostilities in
July, followed by the amazing Wig
or of the Prussian advance and the
collapse of the French armies, has
made it more and more certain
that thousands and thousands of
spindles must cease to run that
millions who had money to buy
cloth last year will have no money
this year. Navigation became
tirnerous and capital over.cautious.
The result is just what all the
South feared-cotton hardly over a
shilling a round-in fact, less than
12aeents gold. tits now quite we'll
ascertained that cotton gives no pro.
fit worth mentioning when the price
goes below Is cents, and none at
all when only 10 0cents is the price
of good middling, At the New
Orleans Fair in April the cost of a
pound of cotton was discussed, and
the, conclusion reached that on the
best alluvial soils, in good sea-
SON. and with close management,
10 cents will make pound. But
on the average Upland, and with
the average economy, the planter
loses who does not receive IS
Southern prosperity which for two
years has gene beyond all prece'
dent in the days of the old regime,
has received blow; the planter is
disheartened; the merchants are
afraid to buy, and Southern goods
are gathering dust in the loft of
the New York warehouses. ,.
We have again and again coun-
selled the cotton growing States
that a devotion such as they have
given to a single product, Tor
marketing which they must look
to foreign countries is bad eeono.
mv;.and can result in no lasting
and permaneat thrift. Acommu-
nifty that lives cQttaas esfy5 or
rice, or sugar, Will run over a great
surface with low and exhaustive
tilage. Nothing is returned to-
the soil for crops taken off. Pros
perity is measured by dollars that
come over seas-not by such true
tests as the condition of roads,
houses, bridges, churches and stock.
A foreign market is a precarious
market. When it is good, it throws
abundance ofspending money into
the planters pocket, and he scat
ters It for things that perish with
the using. He buys saddle horse
from Kentucky, a carriage in New
York; his family indulge in ex-.
pensive silks, rare china and velvet
carpets. ~
Then comes a crash; the mer.
chant has advanced several thous-
and on a crop that hardly pays for
picking and holds mortgage on
theland. Expenses must be reduced,
oldluxuries are partly abandoned,
and retrenchment throws gloom
over the family and broods over
the neighborhoed. Another year
the price goes up, and with it the
wise calmness and grand uniformi.
ty of mature, becomes speculation,
almost a game. If the planter be-
comes a -gamester, what wonder
that the merchant the lawyer, the
politician follows inhis wake, and
the whole social fabric is convuls.
ed by Va sudden telegram from
London. Cannot our Southern breth-
hren see thatacomposed well based
established, yetprogressiye civiliza
ton is inconsistent with their mis-
placed confidence in single.pro-
duct ? and will they not take a les
son from the gloomy experience
of this year, and no longer prop
oil their hone on a cotton bale I?