The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-05-15
The Secret of Yankee Prosperity.

The Secret of Yankee Prosperity.
A Southern man, after having made flying
trip through the New England States, comes
back filled with astonishment at what he has
seen, and perfectly discouraged with his own
section of country. There he saw little vii
}ages sticking in the midst of barren and unin-
habitable mountains, with no surroundiuss to
support them, evincing O spirit of life and
prosperity unknown to even our large towns
the recognized trade-centers of our best agri-
cultural regions. And in the country he saw
little farms producing like frst-class English
gardens, though on soil originally too poor to
have grown bear-grass, and in situations that
Southern man never would have thought capa-
BILE of being converted into q goat pasture.
The people, all as general thing, seemed con-
tented and prosperous and if he had inquired
into their circumstances he would have found,
strange as it may appear, everybody in these
little villages we'll off and making money, and
the little farms, with their stone piles here and
there, and their stones constantly working to
the surface to be carried off into other piles,
and their annual calls for fertilizers to the ex-
tent of one hundred and fifty dollars per acre.,
actually clearing their owners from one to three
hundred dollars on every acre inclosed. No
wonder that he is discouraged when he looks
from this picture upon our favorably located
towns and notes their inactivity, their poverty
and general dilapidation, and upon our broad
and fertile acres, and reflects that they are
really, in very many instances, not paying the
expense of culture.
One would naturally conclude that there
must be some secret connected with all this,
and so there is. At the village station the
close observer would notice piles of cotton
bales, circumstance calculated to create no
particular interest in the South, but there,
thousands of miles away from where cotton
should be grown, it would take the form of
mystery. Stepping out upon the platform in
quest of solution, his ears would be greeted
by a sound as of waterfall having peculiar
humming accompaniment spindles. The case
would be made plain-the strange little village
would be recognized as manufacturing point,
and then he would know that we in far off
section we're digging its prosperity from our
soil-feeding it into vigorous life upon the
very food for which our towns were starving,
and asking it nothing in return; actually ship
ping our cotton at our own expense, and then,
in order that it might grow fat on its business,
buying its fabrics at its own profitable figures,
and paying transportation on them to our
homes. What kind-hearted people we South
erners must be!
Then for the secret of success among the
farmers. Passing through the country with
his eyes open, the close observer would at the
proper season soon have his attention arrested
by an improved mower sweeping over the
meadow under the exclusive management of
youth of, say sixteen, and accomplishing more
in day than could in that time be wormed
out of dozen freedmen with their scythes.
A little later and he would see the younger
brother of the youth turning the hay; and
then in due time would come still smaller
boy with rake, followed by trio of little fell
lows having all sorts of fun as they, with hay
fork, stored away the crop in the hay-loft.
In everything done on the farm in New Eng
land this same plan is resorted to. If the soil
must be prepared, instead of setting dozen
freedmen at it with their mules and plows to
sweat through a week, as we would do, out
comes machine managed by a boy or two,
and in an incredibly short space of time:the
job is done, and we'll done. A lot of seed is TO
be sown that would give our hands long and
tedious task; but there STRIPPING with seed
sower puts it down exactly right and in very
be hoed, instead of charging it with q black
to horseshoe, takes his seat as in sulky, and
rides about over the field hoeing several rows
at time. In short New England works by
machinery, and therein lies the secret of Yam
kee prosperity. She has simply changed places
with us-she owns her labor. If it were other
wise, or, in different words, did she have to
work on our plan, ard depend on our kind of
labor and did we not in the goodness of our
hearts give her the profits on our products, q
few years would find her entirely depopulated,
a happy hunting ground, upon which the red
man might pitch his wigwam, never to be dis
turbed by any encroachment of civilization.
There is no reason why we in the South
should not own our labor in the same way, and
set our spindlcs going, thus giving prosperity
to our own towns and villages. We can never
be success till we do it. Let Us think the
matter over.-Alo6ile Register.