The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-12-20

holding the next session of the Confer
ence.
Notices were announced and the Con-
ference adjourned.
THE GREAT CREATIVE INDUSTRY.
Its Attractions, Capabilities, Wants, Ad-
vantages and Disabilities.
NUMBER II.
Can remunerative crops be realized
from year to year with constantly in
creasing fertility? This occupies the
whole ground-theory and practice.
This is the question of questions to the
entire farming community, and should
be pondered by every individual farmer.
What answer does the history of agricul-
ture in this community give to the ques-
ton? What, but an emphatic negative?
Quilted, sterile fields and wide wastes tell
melancholy tale of havoc and destruc-
ton. Take, if you will, a trip by rail to
the capital of your State; keep sharp
lookout, and, with occasional reliefs of
green spots of fertility, you will see a
country denuded of its primeval forest,
and vast tracts with not q solitary speci-
men left to speak of the grandeur, beau
ty and glory of the past, but visible
everywhere, waste, sterility and desola-
tion. Less than a century has wrought
this. ruin and destruction. 1t is as if the
the Ottoman Turk had despoiled it; the
Bedouin Arab had annually raided it
and seized upon all he could lay hands
on. Such was the sad impression pro-
duced upon one who has lately seen this
region, and it made him tremble for the
destiny of his native land in the near
| future. ~
How many fields reduced to cultiva-
tion fifty years ago still retain their orig
/ inal productiyeness? Here and there it
may be a few acres favorably located and
cared for produce fair crops, or bank or
bottom enriched by alluvial deposits, but
for the most part lands cultivated that
far back have been turned out, and much
of the same has been felled a second time
and put to cotton. Thousands of acres
in living memory have been treated in
this manner, and with some honorable
exceptions and slight general advance
this is our agricultural system of to-day.
Is this rapid decadence and declension
inseparably incident upon the cultivation
of the soil? By no means. Not neces.
sarily so, but arising partly from reck-
lessness, partly from ignorance and dis
regard to physical laws. Nor is this i'm
poverishment permanent. The recupe-
rative energies of nature are wonderful.
The sun will continue to dispense his
heat, the air to watt its gases, the dew
and rain to descend and fertilize and
fructify the waste places again. They
will be reclaimed. So ..j.,>...;.,
The wisdom that imposed labor and
toll upon man as the price of food, be-
slowed on the earth such qualities, when
skilfully and intelligently directed and
utilized; as to be capable to produce in
endless succession. Hence, the pursuit
of agriculture is permanency, not to be
superseded by the alernbic of the chemist
nor the advancement and perfection of
science. But bread must be made by
bone and muscle as long as the genera
tion of man endures. @
Nor is. this retrogression general or
universal. In other quarters of the world
the same lands have been continually
cultivated from remote antiquity. China
has been densely populated for forty
centuries, and her productive capacities
are not known to be diminished. Much
of Europe was thickly settled before the
beginning of our own era. Italy sus-
tanned population during the Common
wealth greater perhaps than at present,
and yet the identical fields parcelled out
to the soldiers of Marius and Sylla, and
the seven acres Of Cincinnatus are pro-
ducing profitable crops at this day.
England has doubled her production of
wheat in-a a century. 1t may be urged
that theirs is an intensive system, conse-
auent upon an over-crowded population !;
that it is necessary in order to- sustain
existence itself; that the most rigid econ
omy must be practiced in the cultivation
Of their farms and in the consumption Of
their products, which often are but bare
subsistence; and that we who live in this
new world are not under the same exi-
gencies; that we have broad and splen-
did domain to choose from; that when
we cut down and wear out we have only
to migrate to fresher lands. Granted
that these are truths; yet, already in the
eastern tier of States, even in our newly
peopled country, the renovating system
has been found necessary. We begin TO
realize that if we would be supported by
our farms, and leave on them any valua-
BILE possessions for posterity, we must stop
this premature decay and rapid deterio-
ration. This has been successfully begun
in many portions of the country. Bare
mention need be made to refresh the
recollection to many of the systematic
cultivation, the admirable management
and the magnificent crops in large Sec
tions of Virginia, Maryland and Penn
sylvania, where but few. years before
disorder, waste and sterility were on all
sides apparent Like improvement and
regeneration we believe are possible tor
us who live in country in physical fea-
lures similar, in variety and abundance
of production not inferior. Not as some
have contended, solely by cutting up our
farms in small parcels and selling out to
Immigrants, and SO rob us of the glory
we may achieve for ourselves. Nor as
others say by concentrating all our means
and resources on few acres. We offer
no opposition to small farms, we invite.