The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1882-01-11
The Agricultural Interested Mississippi.
1.ooK nELoW FHE SUFFICE.

A LOOK BELOW THE Sohf &-11-''
EDITORS CLARIoV. / seldom take up
peuer published either North or South, that
i. not something to say Of the prosperity
- the South and often Of Mississippi
when this prosperity Is viewed by the
l;ght of facts. it Is more speeious than real,
for / take it As proposition that viii net
he disputed. that no country can be SAID 10
he in a flourishing condition, whose l&boring
classes are not contented and thrifty. APP
plyinv this rule to our State, at least as Tar
a. nv observations have extended, | would
| Ike 10 see the man able TO point out tue
welfare AMI progress of this great common
waaltb Our railroads may be doing we'll,
hut they are sustained by foreign capital
| Our infant manufactures may be doing
we'll. but they are in the hands Of moaied
men With corporate privileges. In fact
all of our chartered institutions have the
appearance of success, and may be prosper
| ing. But turn from this favored picture
to the toiling masses and tell me when
they have been as utterly dependent,
and | may say, almost as hopeless. Scores
of them. within the last two months, have
been sold out, lock, stock, and barrel, TO
use homely but expressive phrase Ii
/ this IS prosperity, Ireland should now be
enjoying the very excess of political, social
commercial, and agricultural advancement.
Her great corporate institutions are all 40
| ing well. Her banks, her manufactures,
her absentee and resident landlords $50
long as their agents could collect their
rents), all seem riding on Wave OF pros
perity. But what of the people, the toillng
masses? Not only does the disturbance
there shake the Emerald Isle to It's very
center. but the troubles arising from tins
source are taxing the genius OF the most
liberal statesmen in England to meet them
without drenehing the land in blood. There
is scarcely town or village in the United
States which has not caught the spirit OF
sympathy with the downtrodden Irish, and
exerting its utmost proves to raise fuhds
to aid them in their struggles with the
British Government. So long as the poor
tenant and laborer could eat potatoes and
salt. 90 barefooted and bareheaded, and
live in mud-hovels and pig-styes, the
bankers, the great linen merchants,
the railroads and all other eorpor-
ate bodies were doing we'll. 1t
any man can carefully look over the
agricultural condition of Mississippi, and
see signs of prosperity, he has better visual
organs than l have, supported as they are by
the best pebble glasses.
There must be some active, organized
cause for this; and it becomes generous
thinking men to find it out, and correct 1t
without delay: and while do not pretend
to belong to that class, lam nevertheless en-
titled to my opinions; and l give them
freely and without reservation. l believe
the Agricultural Lien Law to be the prolific
: source of the evils under which we now
labor as a farming community. 1t has not
only demoralized the spirit of our latorers'
I but it has reduced ii to six, from twelve
months; and were ] to say, that the SIX
could be compressed (measured by the ante
bellum standard) to four, l am satisfied,
many old farmers would say, that L was
nearer right than wrong. Will any sane
: man contend that we can succeed as Il farm
{ ing people, cotton and corn producing
farmers, with only six out of the twelve
: months devoted to the labors of the field
This has been an unprecedented bad year,
[ readily admit, but turn back to
: any years since the passage OF this
t obnoxious law, and say wherein we sue
t ceeded. after deducting what we have had
5 to buy to live on, the loss OF mules and
n horses FROM imperfect corn sold to Us iron
[ the West. the wear and tear Of machinery
;, we use in cultivating our crops, the decay
e of fences and houses, and above all the con-
| slant exhaustion of our lands. The tact Is
fifteen or twenty more years of such farm
! ing will produce bankruptcy that will be
: hlightipe upon every interest, and render
: the farmers a set of landed paupers. The
, bottom lands in the hill country Of oul
State, which in former days were the oita
del of the planters hopes, have pretty wei
grown up in willows and brlars; the slopes
. without any change of crops, and rockies:
d Moving, have washed away; while the
levels are FulHeu ny tAC SuISef'iAU "aSii
D of sand and clay, with nowhere ditch t
: take off the water or detritus from the
hills. Such is the actual condition of :
i majority of farms in this part Of the State
h and it is not to be wondered at that II takel
q nearly all the cotton we make, to furnish
Q supplies that we should raise at home.
+ So long, however, as this lien Law
remains upon the statute books, witt
its sweeping penalties 20 the unfortunate
i tenant. the same results will follow. The
e merchant, who should never have had contro
of the labor, looks only to the cotton crop
i and the dependant laborer is often compell
; ed, against his best judgment, to neglec
e everything else for cotton to pay his in
a debtedness for supplies, the greater part o
which should be grown on every cottoI
farm in the State. The merchants, wht
q now mostly control the farm labor, have NJ
e interest in the protection of the landlord
n interests; and whether his lands wash away
o from careless blowing, or how the stock ,oI
J the farm is treated, how the fences decay o.
u are burnt up, how the houses tumble dow n
e &c, are of no earthly interest to the MAI
who furnishes supplies He only wants hi
/ cotton for the corn, meat, and clothing
o which he has furnished {and sometimes Al
;. rates Of interest that would bankrupt IN
dustrious giants), and he keeps a sharp look
8 our on the cotton crop, supplying not :
!. pound more rations than will answer thu
l. demands Of physical nature amongst thu
IS tenants, and furnishing them not an houi
/. longer than the work on the cotton is con
r tinued. This culling and trimming thu
tenant down to the parrowest margin O
supplies has produced a counter purpose in
q him to appropriate the smallest amount o
labor. I imagine that there are few farm
ers in the State who will not at once recog
+ nize the force and pertinence Of these facts
: WHAT, now, shall we do about it? | often
e hear that his unjust, exaeting and oppres-
siye law must be continued another year
in order that the laborers or the working
!, classes now involved almost beyond the
Q possibility OF moral or legal escape may have
IS another opportunity of working out their
4 indebtedness To plunge man into the
: depths of mud ard mire and let him strug-
2 gle hour after hour, until his chin is hardly
visible, and then compassionately tell hin
r 10 work on an hour or two longer before you
: give him relief would be as sensible and al
humane treatment of an individual as te
4 continue this aecursed law through the yeaI
: 1882. IF there is capital enough IN the