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

abroad must stop, because our national
income exceeds our expenditures, and
we shall not incur any new debt, an /
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 c obliged to so 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 me when
the 9 .ncsce valley produced the wheat
and -four which fed New England yet
within five gtars wheat raised by labor
costing 81 80 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 and New York next
received their wheat from Virginia
raised on lands now ovcrgrown with
dark pine saplings, worn out by waste
full and exhaustive culture without
renovation. Then St Louis -four was
the favoritc brand in our mrrkcts. Now
our bread is grown still further west and
north, and Minnesota and Iowa arc the
wheat pr reducing sections of the country:
and we look for cur corn. which we
once produced at home, to the lands of
Indiana aud Illinois prairics, where,
admit, it is still produced in such quanti
ties that, because of the ezactions of
railroads IN their tariffs Of freight for
transportation Of coal, corn is the cheap.
est material for fuel, were it MT that he
who burns it is burning the vcry heart
out Of tile soil that cannot always bear
the drain Of its lie-blocd Without
rcpleuisLing.
We have ben boas,ng and acting AS
If we could supply the world with bread
stuiss; and so we hnvo done almost. and
can do, if the iron horse is permitted to
draw our wheat and corn to the sea
BOARD without too great charge. and nat
eat up the crop before it rc,cA.s Tho
consumer. But W. must rem m.m5cr
that for every buah,l OF VIII at thl
crosses the ocean, nothing cones back
which goes on to the land again, even if
we DO not pay our d,bts, national or
individual, with it Silks, satins. and
Oroadcloths, which We receive in return
may dress our sons and daus hters in the
goodly array | see before me. but they
do not dress the land and the effect ha.
been that the wheat producing sections
OF our country rccedc westward. eating
up new lands day by day, in turn to be
given uP, until Jumping the alkaline
plains, the Rocky mouutains, and the
SierraS, we arc bringing the food for the
population of Eastern scitcs 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 the production of food can
further westward take It's way" Let
me give you an illustration of the man
ncr in which We have used IN another
natural product necessary to the health
and comfort Of man, which we dealt
with as il boundess, anl indeed it
seemed to be, and mex haustib!c, as
indeed it was not. How have we
destroyed our pine forests, extending in
belt between the two oceans. and of
the width Of ten degrees of latitude
above aud below the great lakes With
IN two generations we have 80 devastated
our forests, sending lumber all over the
world, besides using 1t trcchles,ly and
eStravagantly for ourselves, that We are
now depending upon the Dominion of
Canada for the same means of building
and furnishing our houses with the
same material that our Ethars used in
building theirs, unless we qulntuplc the
price, aud 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 succned.d