The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1876-07-19

d you erect a Procrustean Bed of two c
e three occupations, and fitting the PEI
= pie on ii, cut of the long characters an
e draw out the short, you make detormI
Il ties, who continue for awhile IN thes
!, forced employments, without life q
j spring, and then fall into idleness. Blu
e If new business is opened, numbers 0
E people, suited to it by nature, will ente
1t with activity, pleasure and success.
t new industry would quicken clrcu-
lation. When men say there is n'
f money in the country, they do not-a
! least they should not, mean that dollar
: are fewer than usual They mean the
} money Is in the Golfers of the bankers
/ and not i'll circulation. Our single pro-
-cotton-comes but once a year
Daring the other ten months, the far
mer is own g the merchant, the merchant
the doctor and lawyer, and they the far
MGR. All are waiting for the cotton.
When it con- es, the farmer pays the mer-
chant. the merchant the professional
man, and he pays the farmer Had we
twelve great products, one in each
month, this phenomenon of circulation
would take place twelve times instead of
once every year, and the credit system
would pass away.
[ have seen all this illustrated in Mis-
sissippi. In 1865, an old gentlemen liv-
ing near the village from which | came,
concluded to send some fruit from his or
chard to market. He made rough box
of peaches and shipped it to New Or
leans. 1t sold for five dollars. The gen
/ tleman and his neighbors conceived an
| idea. They began peach culture. Last
summer, the fruit crops of that section
sold in New Orleans, St. Louis and Chi
cago, for Il hundred thousand dollars.
| a peach box factory has been establish
ed whose annual income is ten thousand
dollars. y factory for canning peaches
is in contemplation. New cars aud of a
different make have been put upon the
railroad to carry the fruit. Men hither
TO unemployed or engaged in less remu-
nerative pursuits, are now in the forests,
telling timber for the factory, or at the
factory, making it into boxes, or in the
orchards, packing the fruit for shipment.
And in the midst of the early summer,
heretofore the most unpruductive season
of the year, hundred thousand dollars
is scattered through that community
among the orchardists, the factory men
and their numerous employees.
The effect produced by new manu-
featuring industry, though not greater, is
more striking than that caused by an ag-
ricultural pursuit. Some years ago,
gentlemen established cotton factory
in the pinev woods of our State. He
erected buildings and carried thlther ma
chnery and skilled laborers. Machnists
went there, expecting the machinery to
break. Doctors, anticipating the people
would get sick. Lawyers, knowing that
disputes would arise. Merchants, build |
erS, architects and the thousand classes
who minister to the wants of organized
society sent their representatives there.
Thus sprung up in that pine barren the
thriving village of Wesson. Now, the
neighboring farmers have at their doors a
market for their cotton, grain, and all
the produce of their farms. While the
men and women in the country, too del
icatey organized to work in the fields,
find in the halls of the factories, light,
lucrative and pleasant employment.
Diversity of industries is the thing
needed in our State, to give impetus to
our advancement to wealth and power.
| believe Mississippi is at the crisis
Of her fate. you keep her people in
old pursuits, where increase of skill meets
no reward, in the course Of years habits |
OF Incidence will settle on them, and Mis- |
sissippi will become such country as
Ireland or Poland But if new indus I
tries are orened, where enterprise is re-
munerated, in process of time, habits of
energy and skill will become fixed on the I
people, and we may grow into wealthy
State, like Holland, England or France. |
What industries should be introduced?
Any, whose products we can create |
cheaper than we can import them.
If the Genius of Mississippi could
speak to his children, he would point to
your forests of hickory and the oaks, of
walnut, cypress and pine, and would say,
''These trees have | given for your use,
other countries to be made into imple-
ments, utensils, vehicles, furniture, with
which you fill your houses, and the frame
work Of your dwellings themselves" He
would point to your gardens filed with
vegetables, your thickets covered with
berries, your orchards laden with ripe
and luscious fruit, and would say,
These things l yield for your happi-
ness, yet you put them in boxes and bar
Fels made in other countries, and send
them to distant places to be manufao-
tured." He would point to your fields,
white with beautiful cotton, and would
say, 'This staple | give you of finer
quality and in greater quantity than any
other land on earth, yet you wrap it in
baling brought from other countries, Sc
cure it with ties wrought by alien hands,
and ship it to distant shores to be fash
toned into the garments which you wear"
One pound of lint cotton makes five
yards of fine cotton cloth. Each yard of
this cloth sells here for what you get
for the pound OF cotton. Who lives on
this quintuple margin? The railroad
which carries the product to the sea-
board, the commission merchant who
sells it for the planter, the vessel
which transports it to a foreign mart,
the factory which made It INTO cloFh,
the ship which brings it back to our
shore, the wholesale merchant who buys
for the retail merchant, and the retail
merchant who sells to you. No wonder
that, after it has made this six months
circuit, the Mississippi farmer gives for
his own cotton five times what it sold for
half wear before. What real value has
been added TO the commodity During its
transit? None but what was given it by
the manufacturer. And that might
have been done here as well as in Eneg-
land or T france.
As with cotton, SO it Is with every
! other product, which raised on the soil
of Mississippi, is sent to other countries
to be fashioned into form for your use.
You can do no greater thing for your
State than give her industries for manu-
featuring the products of her soil.
" L = y