San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-06-07
.....,alIyntion In Agriculture.
galveston News.

bels - nroye the fundamental error
1alse s s southern people in culivating
aps An agricultural journal esti-
Slion't that the South last year bought
9 @.Ss North Nor S2o2,ooo,Coo worth Of
m' wheat, meat, and hay, md that
ON, \. Maid for with cotton. The
wa tbe same year, sent North and
S ss"aS SSOO,OOO,OOO worth of cotton;
i sI If wool and beeves, fruits and
in aua.t "a to large amount. None
s,Ss philanthropic economists have
o m down the figures to show the
t'y"gce of trade between the cotton
a sducers and the wheat and grain
plOSucers. Cotton, the agricultural
Pl ';tsr referred to contends, is supplied
v si, ur.sent cheap prices by Southern
np ut a csst of labor equal to
l asrsn times the cost of labor to pro-
i ,s.o the wheat and corn that they
a au'I compelled to buy from the North.
a a,0 farmer. That is to say 1925
s"sbels of corn are raised by one man
y S%st which, if paid for in cotton,
Ill III. require the proceeds of the labor
y" VS. seven men raising cotton in thu
Soutb. Without stopping to expose
,Ss evident inaccuracy of all such
s tai and even accepting them
sS correct, they only serve, it is here
~ @0ntended to mislead. Although in
me o OF another form yearly paraded
before the Southern farmer by patron
vino agricultural writer's North and
South, they are yet so far from hay
mo any influence upon this class of
nroducers that annually the cotton
inducing interest grows, and becomes
more prosperous and independent.
The true question to decide is what
induction best pays the Southern
armer. He is supposed to be rea-
sOnable creature. This domination
nv cotton is thing he has been
obliged to listen to and consider ten
otwenty years. His agricultural pa
per, and his grange organ have con-
tinually reasoned at his cotton infat-
nation. His social and political Or
panization, known as the patrons of
Susbandry, has time and again yield
ed to the theoretical farmers of the
mess, and in the interest of diversi-
fed farming in all manner of ways,
encouraged treason against the great
Southern staple. Great pumpkins
marvellous beets and potatoes, and
prodigous ears of corn have been ex-
hibited at the grange meetings, and
at all the Southern fairs. Farmers
see all these things, but as the theo-
nzers will have it, continue constitu-
tonally inferior to the evidences of
their senses and to human reason,
and go on charging their cotton fields
improving their farms and gardens
and it is true in Texas producing of
breadstuffs and meat mainly what
they consume. Cotton has been pro-
duced in Illinois, tea in Texas, and
lettuce in Greenland. A cotton-r raiser
South has produced a little wheat, an
Illinois wheat-producer little cotton
and rice ,anda king of France has made
locks and mended tin-cups. These
parties could afford the experiments.
But what the farmer North and South
produces anything for is the net gain
in money. He in the North can raise
forty to forty-fve bushels of grain and
sell it at his doors at a profit. And so
the cotton raiser at the South can sell
his cotton at profit. Both for home
use may tinker III other productions
which they could purchase cheaper
than make. But what both see, and
in the main conform themsel to,
is that production is tending to the
special cultivation of that staple which
the particular climate and soil of the
country enables them to supply to the
world most abundantly and prohtably.
In the most Southern cotton districts
wheat production is as absurd as the
mechanical pursuits of the old French
monarch, and about Oh a par with
the attempts at cotton-raising IN the
Northern States. One man may III a
year in Illinois raise wheat that would
pay for the cotton raised by seven
men South; one man in Western
Texas may raise cattle that would pay
for the wheat raised by twenty men
in Illinois; and one miner IN Colorado
Or South America may produce OF ores
or gems that which would pay iol
both the wheat and cattle of the ILL
nois and Texas farmers and rancheros'
The ranchero does not dabble IL
wheat and cotton or mining expen'
ments. The farmer of Illinois es'
cbeys cotton after one trial. The