Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-03-15
FARM AND GARDEN.
PLANT CORN.

There is a great deal Of go7d, sound
sense in the suggestions of the Memphis
Ledger on this subject. 1t says: "ThOse
farmers in the South who raised enough
corn last year to do them uuul the next
crop is gathered, find themselves compare
lively independent this spring. They are
able to hold their cotton and sell at pleas
ure, while the planter who raised only cot
ton has to buy his bread and feed for all
his stock at high prices, and at this season
of the year finds himself impoverished, and
under the necessity of not only parting with
the last bale of cotton, but of asking ad-
vances from his merchant. If successful
in the latter he pays high rate Of per cent.
on the loan, or will, when he sells bis next
mortgaged 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 aud kill bis 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 aud carry on business after the
ante-bellum style. If they ever become re-
ally Independent as individuals and com
munities, they must be selfsupPorting.
That is, they must produces the necessaries
of life by delying in the soil, and>Taising
cotton only to buy luXuries and to keep
money in circulation. Tie profession of
the farmer is as honorable and ennobiing 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 hundreds of
able-bodi9d young men, sllured 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 st the plow-
handles. Crowds of young farmers make
this mistake every year. After once
donning the kid gloves and sleek, shining
garments that first tempted them, they lose
their individuality, affect to belong to so
ciety after few introductions by some
friend who was introduced in a similar
manner feg months earlier, aud rarely
rise to eminence in the commercial commu-
nifty; and whatever their appointments,
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 consequence
is, some of them fee to the shade and wait
for the negro to make cotton, like he did
before the war; but the negro likes the
shade, too, and can initiate all the luxuri.
Gus habits of the white man to perfection;
so that the sum total of labor in the South
produces hardly half what it would if
judiciously managed. The negroes
who work land on the shares or
lease land at so much an acre, gener
ally work moderately well, provided
they are not in debt to the owners
of the land; but the laborer5 employed by
the month or season at a stated price will
never do half work unless 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 aban
don the fields a month before Christmas TO
prepare for their annual frolic, and leave
their employers with the bag to hold, and
to fill, too. The farmer who has smoke
house full of bacon and crib fullDf corn
can always secure labor, and this kind Of a
man is seldom afraid to go into the field
and set the hands an inspiring example.
Until the white labor Of the South is util.
lied, and people raise their own hog and
hominy in preference to cotton, all the
money Of this part of the country will be
drained to 60 to st. Louis for corn and Gin
ciDnati for bacon, prime necessities, which
can be raised at home at saving of at least
fiftv nor cant -