The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-08-09
The Granger
Grass VS.. Cotton. Tobacco & Grain.


Breeders Association, contrasts the
condition of the cotton planter in
Middle Tennessee with that of the
stock raiser in the following extract
at is at once a painful and pleas
ing picture to contrast the cotton
planter with the stock raiser of this
basin. The one pinched, hard.
pressed, hard worked, always striv.
ing, but never advancing, like an
old hack upon a treadwheel, his
course is always up hill, but he
never progresses. He is always
poor, because he draws the fertility
from his soil, and sells it at price
that barely pays for the labor en-
ployed. His style of farming is
such that each year makes it more
difficult for him to live the next
The increasing width of the gullies
and red rims that surround his
lower lands, looks like inevitable
fate creeping upon him. Year by
year his yield is diminished, and
year by year his arabic land grows
more sterile. His houses fall to
decay, with no means in prospect to
repair them. The belt of briars
and bushes that envelopes his fences,
widens into greater proportions
each year. There is no time for
him to attend to the beautiful, for
poverty draws every year its Gordon
closer and closer around him. And
yet with him cotton reigns supreme.
1t intoXicates his brain. 1t holds
out visions of wealth, and is more
alluring than the mirage of the
desert, and quite as deceitful. The
visions of one year are replaced by
those of another, until prostration
and poverty seem inevitable to the
soil and to the planter. A ship, as
1T revolves in her diminishing cir
cles about the maelstrom, is not
more fated to destruction than the
cotton planter of Middle Tennessee.
He may look abroad at the alluring
sunlight, he may feel the gentle airs
of heaven as they fan him in his
circling course; he may experience
a glorious eXaltation with a golden
mirage before him, but nothing ex-
cept vortex of bankruptcy and ruin.
Now, turn if you please, and look
at the stock grower. His talk is of
grass, because to him grass is flesh,
and wealth, and ease and plenty.
With him stock raising is fine art
as well as a profession. His farm
is model of beauty, and a picture
of contentment. The beautiful in
nature warns his sympathies for
the beautiful in his vocation. He
studies with the eye of a connois-
seur the picture of fine cattle, fine
horses, fine hogs and fine sheep;
and his ambition is not satisfied
with any but the best. If there is
anything he will 60 in debt for, it
is improved stock; because he
knows from the experience of 9th
ers they will pay, with proper at
tention and care. When he has
made his beginning, then every
sterile spot on his farm is an eye
sore. 1t must bring grass, for every
three acres of such land reclaimed
will enable him to keep in addition
to his present stock, one COW or
four sheep. His sheep and cattle
are made instruments for trans.
planting some of the fairness of the
bottoms to the leanness of the hill
sides. Every spot is turned to ac-
count. Even the crevice between
the rocks is made to give out the
wealth of his soil, and to supply
turfs of grass to be turned into fat
beeves and fat sheep. The bushes
and briars and broomsedge and
trumpet vines and all hurtful weeds
and bushes are kept at a distance.
Grass or grain is always growing
for his benefit. Nature tolls for his
comfort. Her very beauty, glowing
under the splendor of a more than
Italian sky, contributes to his
wealth and to his enjoyment. The
fountains and the woods are made |
to yield him rich returns. The |
very air is melodious with the mu-
sic of his wealth. He feels that
placid enjoyment which every one
must feel when he is growing in
dignity, in power, in wealth, in hap
piness and in influence. His farm
grows richer withal, and thus his
capital in trade is increased. His
OalAo doSuhAC 4PASA piOPOieAoHo DO
his stock increases in number, and
at each annual sale he feels a keen
er ambition to excel himself at the
next He feels less dependent upon
labor than the cotton planter, be-
cause with the latter there can be
no income without it, nor some
times even with 1t. He gets about
him, first, his necessities; then his
comforts; then his luxu-ies. He
feels that he grows; his mental fac
uities are sharpened, and he is con-
stantly animated with fresh hopes.
But these hopes are not so often
as with the cotton
planter. Stock men are proverbi-
ally cheerful; often enthusiastic.
Cotton men are harrassed by many
doubts and fears. The rains or the
drought, the caterpillar or the rust,
the labor or the market-these bring
more pains than pleasures. They
grow morose, doubtful of the flu
ture, complain of hard times, heavy