, 1875-10-30

awakened to their folly. The Chronicle pays
very great attention TO the cotton cultivation i.
of the South it has correspondents in all che
cotton States, and it's reports have acquired q
deservedly high reputation for accuracy and
fu'lness. Some weeks ago it instituted an
elaborate and careful inquiry into the state of
the industry this year. Its correspondents
not trusting to their own observations or TO
their ordinary sources of information, made
Inquiries from the planters themselves, and'it
has embodied the result in a highly instructive
and Interesting article. From this we learn,
THAT there are sections of the South where now
there is as little waste and as much Ingenuity
p~ractised in those particulars (the preparation
and preservation of homemade manures) as on
a New England FARM At the same time, the
use of imp Irted manures, far from decreasing,
has very largely increased. Indeed, the Chront-
Gle comes to the conclusion, as the result of its
Inquiries, 'that there has been this season
about 80 per cent. increase in the use of COM
mercial fertilisers, besides o much larger pre-.
paration aud preservation of homemade man
urcs." But q still more important change for
the future welfare of the South is a greatly
increased growth of articles of food. II the
old days of slavery the planters generally
avoided the cultivation of corn and the rearing
Of cattle. Partly they desired to devote all
their resources to the growth ofthe commodity,
cotton, for which the foreign demand was
Unsuitable. But tue chief reason which detcE-
mined their conduct was the thievishness of the
slaves. Incapable of owning property, the
slaves had little more notion of the difference
between mine and thine than irrational animals.
Everything eatable, therefore, which was
raised on the plantation, was so plundered,
that the planters found it more economical to
i'm mort from fho Waaf fha pnrn and nnrk thAv
needed for the feeding OF their slaves than to
grow those articles themselves. Gut emanCipa-
ton las already made so great a change in the
conduct Of the coloured population that the
old reason for combining production to the
growth of cotton has ceased to operate. The
co!oured population has now acquired pro-
perty; it ia quite as much interested, conse~
%quently, as its former masters, to put down
thievery, and thievery on the extensive scate
which forbad the production Of food-supplies
has been brought to an end. The result affords
Il very remarkable proof of the innumerable aud
widely r~amifyiug evils oe slavery, and furnish
es one more illustration of the unexpected ways
in which evil is turned into good. The man.
ner in which emancipation was effected in the
South combined almost every Objectionable
process. Yet in ten short years it has regener4
ated the slave population it has raised it from
q population of irresponsible and incurable
thieves into a population Of industrious and
law-abiding citizens.
We have already stated that the average plant
ed this year is considerably larger than that of the
last season. To this point, as e matter Of
course, the inquiries of the Chronicle were
very carefully directed, and, with the single
exception of Tennessee, the answers from all
the States leave no doubt that the increase is
considerable. 1t is, of course, impossible to
give with accuracy the amount of the increase
Out probably We shall not be far from the
truth if we answer that the area planted is
about the a m as in l873-the largest area
since the war. This great increase therefore arose
first, from the curtailment of reckless or Impro-
vident expenditure, second, from the utillsasion
of natural mauures within their reach, and the
importation of iertilisers, and third from the
increased growth of those foods capable OF being
produced by themselves. In short, on the one
hand they were more economical, and on the otncr
diligently set themselves to- work to avaii them
selves of the advantages surrounding Them and
which previously were iguOrantly Ignored as OF
no value.