Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-02-04
FARMERS IN COUNCIL.
The National Agricultural COnven-
IIOn-The Cotton Tie and steel
Rail Grsb-PIaIn Talk from Pro-
fessor Perry-H. i. Kimball on the
New South.

NEW YORK, February Sat the session
of the National Agricultural Convention
yesterday, Prof. A. L. Perry, Of Williams
College, in his address on free trade, pro-
ceeded to illustrate how agriculture is in
jured by the tariff in the case of cotton ties
and steel rails. He said in a crop of
100000 bales of cotton, IL the
tariff duty Of 35 per cent. raises the
cost of the ties ~ cents per bale
as is conceded by a Pennsylvania
one years crop is $720.OO0, and therefore
the extra cost under the 20 per cent. duty,
which Is now sought to be imposed by the
Mckinley bill pending in Congress. will be
81 440, 900 on the annual crop OF 5000 900
bales of cotton.
In the case OF steel rails and
the tariff the Professor showed that It
costs seven dollars extra for each rail
of heavier pattern, or three thousand dol
lars per mile extra for a single track road
laid with steel rails. The farmers and plan
ters pay this extra cost when they transport
their produce and cotton from the prairies
OF the West and the fields of the South to
the place of export. Every one helps to
pay It who sends a pound of freight or
travels mile on steel rails.
Hon. H. |. Kimball, Director General of
the International Cotton Exposition at At
lants, read a paper on the results Of the
great exhibition. In his most sanguine mo-
ments, he said, he had not dreamed
of such a grand composite display
of every Southern industry and resource
ores, minerals and woods-which in their
audacity the directors, building wiser than
they knew, had accumulated In this great
exhibition. It was such an exhibition of
purely American industry as bad never be-
fore been collected. Fifteen years had
elapsed since the old labor system
had been killed. The former masters had
neither money nor credit, and the former
slaves were intoxicated with the first
draught of liberty. 1t was the old story over
again of the "bow that had been so long
bent as to have lost its elasticity" But
the essential elements of true manhood,
which during those four years of strife
and bloodshed the Southern people had so
fully demonstrated [applause still remain
ed, and gathering up the broken threads OF
her former prosperity the South wove them
into the complete garment which she so
lately spread out at Atlanta. APP
plause. He was a Yankee, born
in Maine, Republican and a prohibitionist,
but feeling that the South was the natural
home of enterprise he had builded there
He had lived there through all the stages Of
reconstruction and had never suffered the
slightest osiracism, and he knew that here
after sectional strife was done. Tho
next great result was the wonderful
sale of Northern implements and labor
saving contrivances among Southern plant
ers. The sales OF manure spreaders
amounted to over $4,000 One thousand
five hundred cotton planters, 200 new pattern
carriages, 500 car loads of engines, plows,
harrows, cultivators and other machines
have, up to date, been sold in the South
since the exposition. In conclusion, he
said: "We want men and women of brain,
who are not afraid of work. We have dis
carded sentiment aud turned all our ener-
gies toward practical things. There is
room for all, hearty welcome for all, and
fortune for all who will come and settle
in the young South" Great applause
Gen. Tremaine moved a vote of thanks,
which was seconded by Mr.. Frances D.
Moulton, who said he had been a delegate
to the Atlanta Exposition, and where he
thought TO fiud hostility he had found q
hearty welcome. The motion was unani-
mously carried.