Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1875-06-10
Agrifn1tnral department.
(Original.]
REFORM.

From the mountains to the sea.board, and
from ocean to ocean, the people of America
are clamoring for reform. Politicians are
busily devising schemes, which, they say, if
adopted, will save the country from anarchy
and hopeless confusion. These schemes are
very contradictory. Every shade of republi-
canism, from the most tunrestrained democracy
to something savoring of monarchy, is advo-
Gated in the United States. The advocates of
these widely differing theories all are conf.
dent that the adoption of their particular po-
litical creed would make the country fabu-
lously prosperous. Some of these political
creeds must be right, or at least correct po-
litical creed might be constructed out of the
material embraced in all of them. All that
is necessary to accomplish the noble work is
some master mind to sift the various creeds,
rejecting the trash and demagogisn and
select the truth and weave it into fabric
which will sustain the weight Of American
government.
However great reform may be called for in
the politics, it is even more necessary in the
agricultural theory and practice of the South.
For more than two hundred years the south
ern section of the United States has been ex-
clusively engaged in agriculture. That some
advances have been made no one will deny /;
but that those advances have been as great as
they should have been no one will affirm.
The majority Of the southern farmers are prac-
ticing the same theories that we're adopted by
the first settlers of the country. Son has
treaded in the footsteps of father for five or
six generations. The circumstances by which
we are surrounded demand reform. This
reformation must, as matter of course, be
gradual; but it must be thorough. 1t must
be both general and particular. 1t must en-
brace all things and descend to the minutie of
every thing. 1t must commence with what
are regarded as little and insignificant things,
and by degrees extend its Transforming pow
er to great and important things.
The first thing that is demanded is refor-
nation in the domestic economy. 1t requires
too much money to feed and clothe man in the
southern country. We are compelled to pay
an enormous amount for the food we eat and
the clothing we wear. The southern farmer
supports directly several classes of men. He
pays the pork.raiser and corn.grower fair
per cent for their labor and care. Another
per cent must be added for handling anoth-
er for wholesale selling, and several for retail
dealing. This the southern people must stop.
Interest is an eating moth. In our case we
pay interest on every thing. Even heavy
discount is made on the market value of our
cotton when we offer it for sale. Nine.tenths Of
the cotton-growers are forced, from pressing
necessities, to sell their cotton as soon as it
can be put in marketable shape.
To remedy this, which may be regarded the
great feature of the reformation demanded
by the times, our farmers must inaugurate a
totally different system, or ruin will ultimate
ly overtake them. They must spend less and
make more. Making is one thing, and clear
gain is another. Little expenditures amount
to great bills in the course of short time.
There is no land which is so we'll adapted to
meet all the absolute and reasonable wants Of
man and beast as the South still we depend
upon the whole world for every thing we need.