The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1871-01-13
EXTRACTS FROM THE ADDRESS
OF HON HORACE CAPRoN,
X.

EXTRACTS FROM THE ADDRESS
OF HON. HORACE CAPRoN,
Before the Agricultural Associa
ton of Augusta, Georgia.
You possess a tract of country fit
for a mighty empire. 1t is actually
wilderness, Almost a solitude. Its
railroads, turnpikes, farm improve
ments, scientific husbandry, manu-
factories, model school houses, and
churches are yet mainly in the future.
All this work is before you. 1t is
true the country is comparatively
new and very wide, and the workers
are few but parts of it have been
settled for tNo hundred years, and
yet scrubby pine forests grow where
the settlers grew their supply of corn
and tobacco. Has Improvement been
commensurate with your resources
and in proportion to the numbers of
the population; and has population
kept pace with other less favored
portions of the country, OF made such
advances as might reasonably have
been expected with these immense
resources The truth compels me
to say no your consciousness echoes
the negative. Why 5 it The
reasons are many. Prominent among
them are these:
First. A wasteful and slovenly
system of agriculture, the curse Of
our whole country, has been prac-
ticed in the cotton States.
Second. The extension of the
raw products of agriculture by man
ufacture has been ignored or discour-
aged, culture has been restricted to
few crops, and the policy ofbuying
nearly every thing needed to eat,
drink, or wear has been encouraged.
Third Labor has been mainly
restricted to a servilo class, becoming
badge of dishonor rather than the
crown of glory that it is; a large
portion of the people have formerly
lived in comparative idleness or un-
productive employment and the in
tcllect and ambition of the inHuen-
tial orruling class has been spent
upon politics to the neglect of mate
rial development.
You have sometimes held CONNER
cial conventions while destitute OF
any commerce of your own. 1t is a
significant sign of the times that you
now, an exclusively agricultural
people, assemble TO consider the
means of agricultural improvement
and the general prosperity of your
section.
/
As as individual grows rich BY
what he saves rather than by W hat h'
makes, so a community thrives by
the amount of its surplus more thai
by the extent of its sales. How Otter
has the money received for a crop 0
cotton failed to discharge indebted
ness incurred for all other supplies
How many plantations have beer
mortgaged TO secure such debtsY-
The day will come, if wise counsel j
needed, when the products of cottol
will be all surplus, other product
paying the expense of the farm.
have received, officially, abundan
testimony, from individual successes
and failures, eff the superior profit
of mixed husbandry with COTTON
am positive in the conviction tina
the permanent prosperity of these
States depends upon a more diversi-
fed agriculture. While tits true that
large cotton crop may produce actu'
ally less money than a small one, NJ
sane man will question the politica
economy which adds to this source
of revenue, many others, which
together, make an aggregate many
times larger.
For some years to come the cotton
manufactures of the world cannot
contribute to the industry of these
States more than too or three hundred
millions of dollars per annum while
the total production, with the variety
required to realize the highest capa
bilitics Of soil and climate, shoulC