Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-07-06
The Southern Planters Opportunity.

sgThe American aristOcrat of twenty-five
years ago" says writer In the ChftSt'dH
Union. 'was the Southern planter, and the
most influential element in Enghsh So
cietv and politics to-day is the Engllsh
land owner. The power of the latter,
however. the writer thinks, is on the
wane because of the heavy taxes to the
laborer, the church and the tenant, which
forbid successful competition with free
soil. and not therefore the best eXamplar
for the Southern planter. But in Saxony
there is an agriculture and system OF
land tenure which the South might
well look forward to with
hope and proud ambition. The soil tillers
of the great plains of SaXony are OF two
classes. First, and most numerous, the
peasant proprietOrs, owners of five to one
hundred acres, who are industrious,
thrifty, intelligent, fairly educated in the
common schoOls-cften in the model farm
schOols-and who not unfrequently rise
to the first rank Second, the large land
owners and renters OF government
lands. Unlike men of similar
standing in Great Britain, these farm the
land themselves. They are educated in
the universities and agricultural schools
and manage their business with such
system, tact and application Of scientific
knowledge as is found nowhere else save
in great factories. Those within radius
of several hundred miles of Halle COM
prise an association whose centre is the
agricultural experiment station at that
place. At the head of it is the talented
Prof. Max Maecker, who, with score OF
skilled assistants, is continually wrestling
from nature her secrets for the uses OF the
Saxon farmer. Every acre of these 800
or 5000 acre farms is under cultivation,
and one which the writer visited two
years ago employed fifty to three hundred
hands. used steam plows, manufactured
beets into sugar, and corn and
potatoes into alcohol in its own
works. The large iocks and herds
were managed on the sOiling system, in
GLIDING the use of the refuse OF the sugar
works. The crops were cereals, roots
and forage on soil kept fertile by rational
culture and treatment. Fine roads ira
versed the estate, which no useless
fences encountered. Here then, continues
the writer, is the opportunity for the
Southern planter. He possesses the
land-education is his, and it is open to
his sons on a broader basis. Science
awaits his call; cheap labor is at his
command; nature offers him tacll-
tiles the equal of which the West
has not controlled in her palm
lest days. He retains much of his old
time prestige, and is recovering what he
lost by the war and cotton speculation.
What should hinder him from re-establish-
ing himself at the head of Southern affairs
politically, socially and commercially,
upon the broad basis of freedom, lntelli-
gence. science and mechanics? The plant
ers' sons to-day do not lack energy, en-
terprise or intelligence. The South
is entering upon an era of pros
peritv such as the West has enjoyed,
Notwithstanding the grumbling of the
discontinued and the villifcations Of
demagogues. She needs, in common with
the whole country, only the influence of
conservative. educated men, possessing
that peculiar influence which always
characterizeS landowners, to cOunterbal-
ance the power of moneyed corporations
and the dangers of unemployed
labor. The South does not need immigra
ton. She has not too much land tor her
own sons. Her planters have but to fol-
low the Saxon eXample-tO set her labor
ing classes an example of industry, and
redeem labor from drudgery by marry
ing it to wealth and culture"
To us this is curious piece Of writing
from an American pen, and evidently
from one not acquainted with the real
progress made by the Southern planters
since the war, nor yet well informed as
to the unexampled facilities and free
dom of American farmers. What does
the North or the West enjoy that
the South has not? Even the
highly favored SaXony with its thousand
year-old castles and its experimental
station, with its talented professor, shows
no advantage over the South save in
population cheapening labor. Our scien-
lists are fully up with the learned Saxon
of Halle. we have farms quite as large,
not for beet-sugar and alcohol,
it is true, but for stock and crops fully as
important. Neither have Southern plant
ers lost that energy, boldness and indie
pendence which distinguished them
twenty-five years ago. Many of them
have less means and less leisure, but
they are substantially the same in char
acteristics, and if the last twenty-five
years teach anything they teach that the
Southern planters are of all men the most
recuperative. They never lost con-
troll of the South except during the days
of demonstrations" and only that of the
government by the subyersiOn of its con-
stitution. Quickly recovering from that
disaster, they speedily resumed their
sway over home affairs and are to-day the
freest, most Independent and capable
body of men on this or any other con-
tinent. They are emphaucally
the rulers of the Southern
States with all the prestige of ante-bellum
days, which now, as then, originates in
that very peculiar influence. which al
ways characterizes landowners" And
they are rapidly correcting all errors of
the past, closing up the ranks and pre-
pairing to enjoy all the advantages offered
by the progress of the age. Twenty-Five
years more of peace and prosperity will
show the South to be the most wealthy
and prosperous country on the globe.