The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1880-08-14
Our Agricultural and Manufac-
turing Interests.


Editor Patron: The farms and farm
property of the United States are said to
amount to over eleven thousand millions
dollars, and the farm products annually
to three thousand million dollars; farmers
pay an immense tax to support the State
and National Governments, and furnish
exports sufficient to pay for all our i'm
ports and large surplus besides, and this
after feeding a nation of fifty millions of
people; and yet this great interest, in
which so large portion of our population
is engaged, has no place in the Cabinet
and no representation in the National
Senate
The South prospered for while by the
production of her great staple, cotton.
but In the course of few decades the soil
became exhausted for want of rest divers
lfled products, rotation of crops, etc; and
although she succeeded in producing two.
thirds of the cotton of the commercial
world and of far superior staple to that
grown in any other country, she failed to
encourage and build up the twin
lndustry-manufactu permitted
her raw product to be transported
from 900 to 5000 miles to foreign mills
to be converted into textile fabrics, thereby
mourning expenses, loss, waste, damage,
lures, which, on the crop of 1850,
amounted to $136,65o,ooo, or say three
fourths as much as the producer receives
for growing and gathering said crops.
This vast sum together with the profits of
converting it into textile fabrics, say 900
per cent, or $40 900, would all have
been saved and Injured to the South, had
she manufactured it herself before put
ting it on the markets of the world, send
ing it directly from her own sea ports.
There is no good reason why she should
not, for she has not only all the facilities,
but many advantages over the North and
Europe for so doing, such as cheap food,
fuel, building material, abundant and more
reliable water power, shorter and milder
winters, hundreds of thousands of indi
gent women and children, idle for lack of
such industries, and what is more impor-
tant than all, an abundant supply of IN
damaged seed cotton at hand, which seed
cotton can, by the new process" be con-
verted into yarns for from two to three
cents per pound less than by the ordinary
method.
If a part of the labor necessary to pro-
duce our crops of 5000, 900 bales of cotton
was used in the production of necessary
food supplies and in developing our min
two-t thirds the usual amount of cotton, its
enhanced value would make it equal in
value to full crop. This fact has been
long known and but little needed. Go
into the commission merchants Office and
examine his charts and tables showing the
production and price of cotton for the
last * or 40 years and you will be aston
ished at the unerring rise or fall in price
aS he N, large
quantities. 1t is we'll known in the older
Southern States-say Georgia and the
Carolinas-that when the producer grows
all the necessaries of life, and cotton only
as surplus crop, it invariably pays him
for his labors; whilst those who produce
cotton only, to the exclusion of family
supplies, lose, because middle men having
advanced them provision, ETC.. at their
own prices, when the crop is ready for
market, price and take his cotton; and
lucky is he who gets a receipt in full at
the end of the year.
Great Britain has, as a manufacturing
and commercial nation, prospered tor
many years, her great industry being as
sisted and protected by her commerce and
navy, but now her coal, iron, and timber,
being nearly exhausted, the competition
of foreign machinery has caused the fail
ure or suspension of many of her manu-
featuring industries, and the operatives
for lack of agricultural or other employ
ments have become emigrants.
France is both agricultural and manu-
featuring, and has suitable industries for
all her people of all ages between five and
seventy five years. She but few years
since passed through more disastrous
war, if possible, than that of our secession,
having to pay her conqueror hundreds of
millions of dollars, besides territorial and
other losses, yet to-day she is free of
foreign debt, and the most prosperous ma
ton on the Eastern Hemisphere. Why5
because of her varied industries, giving
employment to all her people in the pro-
duction and manufacture of all the neces-
saries of life True, we suffered by fire,
sword, emancipation, disfranchisement,
the enfranchisement of our former slaves,
and confiscation, perhaps more than she
did. and in our impoverished condition are
taxed to pay s 900 100000 OF debt incurred
by our adversaries, yet we have the ad-
yantages of climate, variety OF produc-
ton, virgin soil, in and west OF our great
valley" and if we would only follow her
example in combining manufacture with
production, and export goods, instead OF
crude products, directly from our section,
our prosperity would soon surpass hers,
for the conversion of our cotton crop into
warns more than double its value, and only
REQUIRES one-fifth of the labor necessary
to produce it, we having the necessary
white labor idle for lack of such industries.
Why not profit by the example of France,
and manufacturing our great staple reap
the full profits of the cotton industry, and
save the hundreds of millions heretofore
made annually by cotton mills distant from
1000 to 5000 miles from our cotton fields?
There is no antagonism, as many sup
pose, between these two industries, but on
the contrary they are indispensable to
each Other, for neither could loe carried on
without the other. They supply the two