The Orangeburg news. [volume] (Orangeburg, S.C.) 1867-1875, 1873-10-25

ABROAD must stop, because our nalondl
income exceeds our expenditures aud
we shall not incur any new debt, anl
nothing will be left us with which TO
pay the interest upon what we owe to
foreigners, unless We export moro than
we import to an amount sufficient
In the production of that Which is
consumed to support life of men aud
animals, we have, as agriculturists, been
skimming the very cream from our
lands, and at no very distant period
shall e obliged to go back and 90 over
them again and remove those which we
have worn out. The time is within the
memory of many who sit before mc when
the Gencsce valley produced the wheat
and -four which fed New England ; yet
within five FEARS wheat raised by labor
costing 81 so per day has been brought
from California, fifteen thousand miles
round the Horn, and ground in the
mills of Rochester, in the centre Of the
State of New York, to feed its people.
New England aud New York next
received their wheat from Virginia
raised on lands now ovcrgrown with
dark pine saplin9s, worn out by waste
ful and exhaustive culture without
rcnovatioa. iircu st. Louis -four was
the favoritc brand in ou7 markcts. Now
our bread is grown still further west and
north, and Mime sota and Iowa arc tn
wheat pr roducing sections ofthe couutry;
and we look for cur corn, which we
once produced at home, to the lands of
Indiana aud Illinois prairics, where,
admit, 1t is still produced in such quaint
ties that, because of the exactions of
railroads IN their tariffs of freight for
transportation o! coal, corn is the cheap
est material for fuel. were it not that he
who burns it is burnin. the very hc,rt
Out of tile soil that cannot always bear
the drain of its life e-blood without
repleuishing.
We lave brcn boastng and acting as
if we could supply the world with bread
stnfts and so we have dune almost. md
can do, If the iron horse is permitted to
draw our wheat and corn to the sea .
board without too great charge. and nnt
eat up the crop before it reaches the
consumer. But We must remember
that Tor every bLSh,l Of wh :at th,t
crosses the ocean, nothing cones back
which goes on to the land again. even If
we do not pay our d,bts, nutional or
individual, with it Silks, satins, and
broadcloths, whiia VIC receive in return
may dress our sons and daug hters in the
goodly array | see before me. but they
do not dress the land and the effect has
been that the wheat producing sections
OF our country recedc westward entiur
up new lands day by day in turn to be
given up, until Jumping the alkaline
plains, tho Rocky mountains, aud the
Slerras, We are bringing the food for the
population of Eastern sscities from the
western slope of the Pacific, raised in
the rich fields of California, by labor
drawn from the mines, the only other
source Of production from which to pay
our debts abroad and after these shall
be exhausted, neither the Star Of
Empire nor tho production of food can
further westward take its way" Let
me give you an Illustration of the man
ner in which We have used ~ another
natural product necessary to the hca,h
and comfort of man, which we dealt
with as if boundless, and indeed it
seemed to be, and inexhaustiblc. as
indeed 1T was not. How have we
destroyed our pine forests, extending in
a belt between the two oceans. and Of
the width Of ten degrees Of latitude
above and below tho great lakes With
In TWO generations we have so devastated
our forests, sending lumber all over the
world, besides using 1t rccklessly aud
extravagantly for ourselves that We are
now depending upon the Dominion Of
Canada for the sane means of building
and furnishing our houses with the
same material that our fathers used 10
building theirs, unless we qulntuple the
price, and in addition content ourselves
with using much inferior quality.
IN the same manner we have taken
all from our lands year by year, and
returned nothing. Crop has succeeded