The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1873-08-14
F M &c ITO M Z
The Evils I'm Ihe Southern AEri
cultural System Needing
Correction.
Extract Of an Address by ". D. Gibbs,
Esq, of Yasoo, before the Dover
Grange, June %, 1873.


want Of economy. | mean the Univer-
sal, mutual insurance credit system, now
in vogue i'll the extravaganza engendered
by it.
Secondly. We plant too much land
and prepare and till it too unscientii
cally and specifically.
Thirdly. We do not use the proper |
energy and diligence in manuring our
lands and do not pay sufficient attention |
to rotation of crops.
Fourthly. We depend too exclusively |
upon cotton. We do not raise too much |
of it, but We do not try to raise anything |
else
Filthy. We do not realize the neces-
sity Of economizing labor, by improved
implements and skill.
Sixthly. We do not take enough pride |
in our homes-home Improvements
home comforts We make too many
temporary improvements and too few
like campers and movers and too little
like resident citizens. e
Seventhly. There is amongst US too
much 9 unproductive consumption''-to
much talk and too little work-to much
disposition to hunt the shade and do any
thing rather than take the feld-too
much aversion to plow-handles.
L shall now devote a few minutes to
the consideration of the first evil men
toned and its remedy The others
shall refer to in lectures hereafter. After
considerable experience and widely ex-
tended observation, | do not hesitate to
pronounce the universal mutual insurance
credit system, now in vogue in the cot
ton States, and the extravaganza neces-
sarily engendered by it, as the fruitful
source of most of our woes. 1t is now
doing more than all other causes COM
bined towards checking the prosperity of
the South keeping down the price of her
lands and her products discouraging her
farmers; demoralizing labor; retarding
immigration and preventing the intro
duction of improved implements and i'm
proved systems of cultivation In plain
terms, it is DESTROYING the manhood and
sucking the very life blood of the South.
Look how it works The country mer-
chants for the most part own the planters
and laborers. They are in turn generally
controlled by New Orleans commission
merchants-New Orleans banks gener-
ally own the commission merchants. New
York banks in turn own the New Or
leans banks. So it goes. The tighten
ing of the puroestrings in Wall street
stops our rations in Yazoo county, or at
least adds % per cent. to the price there
of, and Wall street spectators put our
crop in market ut whatever prices suit
their arrangements. 1t is really owned
in New York before it blooms in the cot
ton fields. Here is the way the interest
counts up. The New York National
Banks issue notes on United States bonds
deposited in the L. S. Treasury They
draw interest on those bonds, and at the
same time loan their notes to the New
Orleans banks at six or seven per cent
Thus realizing twelve or thirteen per cent.
on their capital invested in bonds. New
Orleans commission merchants borrow
that money ut eight per cent. and let
country merchants have it at ten and
half per cent. on the face of their trans
actions, but really fifteen or twenty per
cent. by the time the cotton is handled
and sold. Finally the farmer or laborer
pays from fifty to two hundred per cent,
according to circumstances, for supplies
purchased with this borrowed money |
do not overdraw the picture We know
this to be true. We have cause to know
it. We have paid to know it. We are
still attending the school in which it is
taught. Look around us and we can see
it verified in the blight that seems to have
settled over our whole country, like a
'pall of gloom" 1t is visible in some
places in our shabby improvements, and,
IN others, it Is manifested by the abselce
of any improvements at all. 1t is seen
in our implanted homes and churches aud
in our dilapidated fences. 1t is read in
the careworn visages of our farmers and
too often in the troubled countenances of
our wives and daughters 1t is mani
tested in the want of confidence generally
existing in financial circles at the South.
We are thoroughly convinced when we
reflect that large cotton crop in 1872
was sold at sixteen to twenty cents for
middlngs and has left farmers and labor
ers without any money to show in the
way of profit.
The South annually pays $50, 900, 900,
at least, above reasonable interest, in the
way of profit to country merchants, corr
mission merchants, monOpolists, New
y ork banks, etc. No, the picture can
not be overdrawn The merchants are
not to blame for this state of affairs. We
can have no cause to quarrel with them.
If we must have unlimited credit, they
are entitled te our thanks for crediting us
at any figures. Many of them annually
strain every nerve and stretch their credit
to Its utmost tension to assist the farmers
and they carry loads for the farming
community, and such as we have no right
TO impose and such as merchants nowhere
else would undertake for any promised
profit. Besides, they don't all get rich.
a large proportion, think one-third, of
those who have tried merchandising since
the war have failed, another third have
made no money except on paper. The
fact Is, neither merchants nor farmers
nor laborers can stand the credit system
carried to the extent that it is now. Now,
let us examine into the cause of this I'M
healthy state of financial affairs. In the
first place, we make only one crop for
market and depend upon it to pay for
everything from a shoe-string to steam
engine. In the second place, the farm
ers were pretty well broken up by the
war and more efectually so by the fail
ures of &c and 81. and had to 90 in
debt, and they have never found out
where to stop In the third place, the |
farmers themselves spend too much-and |
all others connected with cotton planting |
spend too much and raise too little, con-
sidering the pecuniary condition of the |
This credit system, by which |
the cotton crop is owned in New
York before it is gathered, and under
which all profit goes to those who handle