Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-03-08
OUR POWER

FRANK FOX Sec'y.
OUR PRODUCTIVE POWER.
The great variety of soil, climate and
capabilities of our country are as yet
largely unknown. Should we become
fully reconstructed, and settled down to
the true business of a nation, a larger
development of our vast productive
power may be expected.
W. would by no means suggest the
practicability of attempting to produce
everything. But all correct reasoning
would favor the use of all the natural
capabilities of our entire domain. For
the same reason hat we in this partic-
ular latitude known as the Dairy belt
should engage in dairy, stock, and grain
pursuits, with such manufactures as our
situation suggests, the southern and
other sections should engage in the cul-
t%ivation of sugar, cotton, rice, oranges
indigo or whatever is indicated by the
particular features of the several To-
c%alities. In the same line of reasoning,
the lumber and the mining interests are
located.
We would however be understood to
recommend the most theoretical and
experimental research as to the adap-
tation of our situation to any and
all sources of wealth. In this light the
action of the Government in testing the
capabilities of our country in regard to
tea culture is to be approved. In the
State of Georgia, the government is dis
tributing tea plants. Gen. Toombs has
said to a reporter of the Atlanta Con-
stitution: eff the people would only
learn the process of curing the leaf, as
good tea can be produced in Georgia as
in China" why" added he, tea has
been planted and grown in this State
for the last forty years, nearly. Right
here, in a few miles of you, are trees, if
somebody hasn't cut them down since l
saw them last, that are thirty feet high,
tea trees, that were planted away back
yonder in 1922 And now we hear of
the items
COFFEE, OPIUM MI INDIGO.
On these items Mr.. Il. j. Finnie, of
Brown Hill, Virginia, writes to the
Louisville Cou11er-Jommal, and the let
ter is so full of suggestion that we quote
from it, and commend it to our readers
as a thought in the right direction:
Some time ago | described infinitely
in your valuable paper the mode of cul-
tivating coffee, and the climate suited
to its production. As stated in the
newspapers, the Department of Agri-
culture now announces that the climate
and soil of Florida, Lower California and
portions of Texas are well adapted to
the growth of the coffee plant. That
coffee will grow in the plains, where
there is not sufficient frost to-. kill the
plant is true, for | have seen it growing
on the Malabar coast, at Travanau, zeal
Cape Cormorin, in the East Indies
But the greater the elevation below the
frost line, the better and more valuable
the cotfee-berry. The mountains of
Ceylon produce a large quantity of very
good coffee, and so do the Neighary
Chauts (hills), but neither locality has
obtained any celebrity for it's coffee in
the markets of the world.
| doubt not that the mountainous re-
gions of California will produce a good
article of coffee, and if there was enter
PRISE enough to be found among capital
lists to enter upon staple agricultural
productive enterprises, | have no doubt
that the United States has suitable ter
ritory enough to produce all the coffee
the whole country consumes.
There is another great product which
the United States could produce in
quantity to supply the world. The cul-
tivation of this valuable drug could be
produced all wei the cotton States, for
it is an annual, and the long summers of
the South will mature the plant well.
But in California, [ think, we might, by
irrigation, produce it continuously all
the year round. One set of laborers
constantly planting, another set contin-
uously cultivating, and yet another set
always following gathering the rich har-
vest of that great commodity which is
now a monopoly by the English Govern
mcnt in India, from which she derives
many millions of pounds sterling an
nually. | say a monopoly by the En-
glish Government in India, because no
native is allowed to cultivate the poppy,
except under a contract with the gov !
eminent, through its opium agent, and
the agent eXacts every ounce of the pro-
duce. The common poppy of our gar
dcns is not the opium-producing plant.
The pods Of the opium-producing plant
are much larger-as large as a small
hens egg, or rather about the size of a
cotton boil when fully matured, and
about the same shape. The opium is
caused to exude from the pod by a sim
pie process, and is at Onc ready for the
market, no sort of manufacture being
required.
The near proximity Of California to
China, the great opium-consuming u
try, renders that great State peculiarly
suited to the cultivation Of opium. So
well satisfied am | of the Importance of
the cultivation of opium in California,
that about two years ago | drew up al
bill asking Congress to grant me a boun-
Diary Of land there, not as a gift, but on
credit of twenty years, to be be paid for
at the end of that time with Interest,"
and sent it to our then member of Con-
gress, and asked him to have it passed.
But he would not present it on the
that Congress was down on all
Iasked no subsidy. l only
credit. Had that bill been pre-
sented then, and had Congress passed it
| should now be in California develop
ing it's great resources. Opium, sugar
and indigo on the plains; coffee and
sheep on the. mountains; cinnamon, all
spice and black pepper-ay, and cay
enne pepper, too-and the tropical fruit
- -. L. = H. III