Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-10-20

WHY IS IT THUs?-I has been estimated
that the cost of producing bale OF cotton
will average $3I. Now suppose the bale to
weigh 500 pounds at s cents, it will bring in
the market $40; a net profit of So. There
fore the farmer who raises ten bales OF cot
ton has the handsome income OF $50, and ne
who raises twenty rejoices in twice as much.
From this we see that the man VINO can
make 100 bales of cotton may do very we'll,
but he who makes much less had best try
something else. We are astonished at the
vast amount of cotton that is planted, when
it is universally admitted by our farmers
that it is an industry in which there is lit
| tie or no profit. Still thousands OF acres
were planted this year and as many more
will be planted again. Why is it: Is it
because they have contracted the habit of
raising cotton and can't shake it off even
though they are willing to admit it is bad
one. Have they handled the soft stuff so
long that they can't quit, or still worse have
they Inherited it from their fathers? is
this strange fascination for cotton fields IN
their very blood, great appetite handed
down from sire to son? We cannot tell.
Would that our farmers would rise in their
strength and with one great effort overcome
this mighty passion for hoeing and ploWing
cotton and with all respect to their fathers
turn their attention to something else.
We heard one of our most experienced
farmers remark the other day, that any
thing, even raising grass, was better Dus-
mess. We will not insist on total abstl-
nence, one may indulge himself if he wish
es in few garden spots around the house
for the sake of "auld lang syne," just an
occasional acre will do no harm, it may
serve as a gentle reminder of the unprofta-
BILE days that are Greenwood 1fl6,uae.
-
NATURES SECRET.-Where the diamond
comes from nobody knows. You can no
more predict the existence of diamonds
than you can the existence ofgenius, though,
to he sure, all diamond fields, to certain
extent, resemble each other; and all, bor-
rowing as they do their light from the sun,
are found only in warm climates, says a
writer in the C6rnhM for August. Nor can
you tell where the diamond goes to on
combustion. Burn it, and it leaves no ash {;
the flame is exterior, like that of a cork,
and when it has blazed itself out there re-
mains not even so much as would dust the
atenna of butterfly. If a man has his
mysteries, his strange conversions, his going
in a sinner, his coming out saint, SO, too,
has nature. The philosophers stone is form
ed of the vilest material, and the chimney
sweep is covered with that which, under
happier auspices, would be jewels. This
mysterious process of crystalization places
between two bodies of the same nature a
greater difference than between bodies diff
ferently composed. And yet not so great
mystery either, for every year a process
is discovered for making diamonds-only,
somehow, the diamonds are never made;
or, at the best, 80 microscopic and at such
an enormous expense, that they are abso-
lutely useless, except to gum on cards at
the British museum. In France they say q
solution of phosphorus in sulphuret of car
bon yields minute diamonds; but that these
things are better managed there than here
has been long allowed.