The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-11-27

bushels average to every acre IN corn all over
their State, and they have 81, 600 IN cuItlva
ton with that crop in their narrow little
ridge Of territory. That is what intelligent
labor can accomplish. The forces OF nature
are impartial. Let a people but invoke
them with the hand of skilled industry, and
they spring to do her bidding.
l might read to you q long array OF flSures
to picture the sad decrease in production,
but it is sufficient to say, that since ooyears
ago, oats, rye, hay, rice, flax, hops, SILK
hemp, maple sugar, peas, beans, lax SEED,
grass seed. clover seed, all tell the same story
Of diminished production without exception.
Some of those have fallen off but a little,
like oats. which IS only 10000 bushels less
than in our fathers d, :, some like rice have
been reduced one half, OF sweet potatoes
two iiths. or as in the case of beans and peas
only one third OF the former product Is now
left and IN others again. a. IN lass seeds.
we do not make onc-tenth OF the amount
that we produced in 1880.
This record reads like a death roll IN an
army. but it sheds a lurid light upon the
distress, and pinching want that has SO long
walked among Us. 1t IS commonly sup
posed that the two great crops OF tobacco
and cotton have been 50 increased as to bal
ance those enormous losses which every one
recognizes. illdI IL 81 SltdI hllNtohC'
though gaining we are yet far behind the
product of 1880 in tobacco. and while the cot
ton crop is much larger than IN 1880, 1t Is
scarcely, if any more than the yield OF 1860
tireaty years ago.
What indeed have we laid up, of AgrI-
cultural wealth to compensate for these
enormous losses, Why we may congratu-
late ourselves that there Is more wine by
500 q gallons IN which to drown our sorrows,
and about a million more pounds of honey
with which we may salve our wounds, or
temper the frey peach with the copious liba-
tions from which our spouting stump speak
ers are wont to tell the people that we are
better than anybody else, work harder, tight
better, make more, live happier, and de
serve when we die, to be better provided for
than the outside barbarians. | appeal to
you my friends, if these are not facts of the
greatest Importance to the future OF our
State. Where is there an assemblage Of
North Carolina freemen to whom | may tell
these unwelcome but wholesome truths,
better than to the sons of the soil, the farm
ers of the land, that | see around me. |
am a farmer myself. | know your trials and
difficulties. | have felt with you the evils of
our labor system, or rather absence of sys-
tenn, and with all of your cares it IS upon
you after all, hat the burdens of lifting
North Carolina again to her happy and
prosperous estate of former years must fall.
L will not exhibit our great reduction in
our live stock, the diminution of our capital
with which 20 conduct the operations of
farming, which, like every other business,
ought to thrive in proportion to the invest
ment, if properly managed. will not point
you to the low price and grade of labor, to
the wretched roads and d~ecaying fences, to
the railway villages hastily built up, by the
sad desertion of many homesteads in the
quiet country, where the from grass has
been left to wave its banners over the desc
latlon behind. No you are not the people
for whom such pictures should be drawn.
Let me rather rejoice with you, that We
have passed the worst.
Concluded ncrt reek.