Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-03-12
PUBLIC LEDGER



Those farmers in the South who raised
enough corn last year TO do them until
the next crop is gathered. fnd them
selves comparatively independent this
pring. They are ablet to hold their cotton
and sell at pleasure, while the planter
who raised only cotton has to buy his
bread and feed for all bis stock at high
prices, and at this season Of the year
finds himself impoverished, aud under
the necessity Of not only parting with
the last bale Of cotton, but OF asking ad-
vances from his merchant. IL success
ful in the later he pays a high
rate of per cent on the loan, or
will, when he sells his next mertgaged
cotton, besides paying high profit on
the goods he has TO buy from the same
merchant. The farmer who raises corn,
is sure to raise hogs and kill his own
meat, which saves another heavy outlay.
The people Of the South will always be
poor and in debt as long as they affect
to be planters and carry on business al
ter the anti.bellum style. II they ever
become really independent as indiyidu-
ais and communities, they must be self
supporting. That is, they must produce
the necessaries of life by delying in
the soil, and raising cotton only to
buy luxuries and to keep money in cir
culation. The profession of the farmer
is as honorable and ennobling as any Of
the learned professions, and, all things
considered, is quite as profitable when
industriously pursued, and far more
healthy. The misfortune is that hun
dreds of ablebodied young men, allnred
by false ideas of city life, abandon the
fields every year and flock to the towns
and cities, where they become consumers
on small salaries, and no one is left
behind to take their places at the pillow
handles. Crowds young farmers make
this mistake every year. After once
DOMINIC the kid gloves and sleek,
shining garments that first tempted them,
they lose their individuality, affect to
belong to society after few introduc-
tons by some friend who was intro
duced in similar manner few months
earlier, and rarely rise to emlnence in
the commercial community; and what
ever their disappointments, they are
too proud to dig and ashamed to beg.
Those who are left behind often grow
gloomy over the sad fate which chains
them to toll in the sun. and the cCnse-
quence is, some Of them fee to the shade
and wait for the negro to make cotton,
Ike be did before the war; but the negro |
likes the shade, toe, and can initiate all !
the luxurious habits Of the white man to
perfection; SO that the sum total Of labor
in the South produces hardly half
what it would if judieiously managed.
The negroes who work land on the
shares or lease land at so much an acre,
generally work moderately well, pro-
Yided they are not in debt to the owners
Of the land; but the lsborers employed
by the month or season at stated price
will never do half work unless a white
man of energy takes the lead and rises
with the lark. Even when cotton is
raised it is hard to have it picked out.
The hands often abandon the fields a
month before Christmas to prepare for
their annual frolic, and leave their en-
ployers with the bag to hold, and to ill,
too. The farmer who has a smoke
house full Of bacon and crib fun Of
corn can always secure labor, and this
kind Of a man is seldom afraid to go
into the field and set the hands an in
spring example. Until the white la
Dor Of the South is utilized and people
raise their own hog and hominy in pref
erence TO cotton, all the money of this
part of the country will be drained every
year to 90 to St. Louis for corn and Gin
cinnati for bacon, prime necessities,
which can be raised at home at q saving
of at least fifty per cent.