The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-05-19
INpusTRIAL RESOURCES.

Your Committee, feeling assured that the
rvery comprehensive character of the duty as
signed them, VIZ: that of reporting on the In
dustrial resources of the State, IS, itself, an
evidence that no exhaustive treatment OF the
subject is expected by the Convention, nor
even specific account of what has been done
towards the development of their resources,
limit themselves to few general considerations,
as to their nature, and the great policy tor pro-
noting their development.
From South Carolina to Texas inclusive, the
climate of the Atlantic and Gulf States is OF
that intermediate kind which embraces the
features both of the tropic and temperate zones,
and while exposed to many of the evils of both,
likewise enjoys in combination many of the
advantages of each. 1t is precisely in such q
climate that the utmost diversity Of industries
can most easily flourish, provided the markets
of the world be open to'it, and there be pop
ulation sufficiently dense to make division Of
labor possible. Indeed it may be safely said
that no other climate but one offers equal OPP
portunities for divefsifying labor. The natural
products of our country exhibit this diversified
character; we have here side by side, the ami
mails and plants of the tropics, and those of the
temperate zone, pines by the side OF palms,
wheat growing in sight OF rice fields, apples n
pening in the same orchard with oranges, crows,
bears and foxes inhabiting the same swamps
with the ibis, the vulture, the parokeet and the
crocodile, though our forefathers, unacquainted
with tropical animals, gave them the names OF
cranes, buzzards and alligators, which make us
forget their equatorial character, and prevent
us from rejecting when we read of such things
in books of foreign travel that they are, in
| truth. nothing but what we see about us every
day. In our waters is found equal variety
The herring, which is peculiarly Northern
| fish is sold in our market by the side of the
fishes of the caribbean Sea, and the muscle, the
clam and the oyster, all useful as food, are
found even where the Peninsular of Florida is
built up of coral reefs, like the South Sea
Islands. Even in the domain of the miner
there is something to remind us of this COM
mingling of temperate and tropical features In
the aspects of nature by which we are surround
ed. For does not the guano of the equatorial
islands find its counterpart in our phosphate
bedsY And does not the coal, which is rather
characteristic of temperate climates, show it
self not far from these highly priced depos-
its7
In short, the climate of the Southern States,
their geological structure, their great rivers, and
the seas by which they are washed, otter every
incentive which climate can offer to develop
ment of the utmost diversity of physical and
intellectual labor.
But it is perhaps feared by some that eli
mate like this may be incapable of supporting
such diversified industry, in consequence of the
very variety of its products-that what yields
everything with facility will yield the best of
nothing. Such conclusion, however, is for
hidden by simple array of facts. The cotton
and the rice we produce are the best in the
world, nevertheless the wheat has likewise been
recognized as having no superior. And in the
opinion of your Committee there can be no
doubt that the difficulty of obtaining the best
of any grain product in climate of so catho-
lie character is precisely such difficulty as is
necessary to incite the human intellect to the
exercise of patient and minute observation,
coupled with reflective ingenuity.
But that such 8 climate as we possess is real
" capable of developing and supporting this
diversity of occupation may be established In
another way. There is no climate in Europe
exactly comparable with ours. If we travel
Eastward in search of a counterpart, we shall
pass over the whole of the old world until we
reach China and Japan. Here alone, do we
though of course, i'm forms which, belonging
to the old world, are 80 far different from those
of the new. But our extremes of temperature,
our cold winters and hot summers, our COM
mingled tropical and temperate fauna and flora,
are as familiar to the Chinese as to ourselves.
The United States and the Flowery Kingdom
are what the physical geographers might call
homologous parts of the two continents. The
same relative situation to the equator, the same
coast confguration, the same great rivers, the
same warm oceans current like the Gulf Stream
flowing Northward along the coast, the same
svstem Of hurricanes, which the seannen Of