The Portland daily press., 1882-01-05
Land and Living in the South.


The character of the soil In different parts OF
the South is matter of great interest on ac-
count of the necessary relation between its
qualities and the industries and civilization OF
the people of the country. The usual southern
idea or estimate of "good land" as expressed
BY southern men whom / have met, differs
somewhat from that which prevails in the
most fertile portions of the northern States.
There u.s. of course, much rich land in the
South, but there is great deal which is called
good by southern farmers that would not be re-
garded as rich by men acquainted with the
soils of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois or of the
portions of Pennsylvania and New York
which are best adapted to agriculture. The
spine land" in the Southern States is only
moderately fertile, but, as the cotton plant will
grow upon it, and produce fiber of the mar
ketable quality, it is always spoken of by its
cultivators as Every fair land" I have rarely
heard Southern men say anything unfavorable
or disparaging regarding the soil of their re-
gion. They seem usually to have an affection
for it which sometimes appears to make them
blind to its defects.
Where the soil is poor. the people often man.
ifest a kind of good-natured, patient fatalsm,
submitting without complaint to the inconye-
of the returns for their labor, as If poor crops
were part of the order of the universe, a d.
vine ordainment not to be criticised or RENE
died. though in truth much of the steIility is
in the methods of the cultivators rather than
in the soil itself. But in many places in the
South the soil will not yield what an average
northern farmer would regard as "a living"
and many emigrants have gone thither and be-
gun farming only to learn, too late, that they
had made ruinous mistake in selecting land
They often feel much resentment because they
imagine they have been deceived by their
southern neighbors in regard to the quality of
the soil, kbut of course there is usually no
intentional misrepresentation in such cases.
the error arising from the difference of stan
dards just mentioned. (But the statements
made by railroad companies having lands for
sale in the South should commonly be taken
with large allowance as they frequently con-
tain grossly exaggerated accounts of the pro-
ductiveness of the land) There is large
class of farmers or planters" in the South
who do not require or expect SO much from the
ground as northern men demand. They are
satisfied with a lower degree of fertility, and
their comparative estimate of the grade or
quality of land differs from that of most immi-
grants from the North. An average southern
family needs much less for "a living, than
northern people require, and on much of the
land of the South northern people are unable
to live by the methods of agriculture to which
they have been accustomed in their old homes;
nor can they succeed by those of southern men
around them, unless they will adopt the scale
of living and expenditure which satisfies their
southern neighbors The habits and tastes of
the poorer white people OF the South are in
remarkable degree adapted to their circnm-
stances and the conditions of their life, but
northern methods of living require a very diff
ferent environment.