Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-10-21

Cotto n le King quite as truly as DelOre the
war, though the kingdom is not so tyrannical
now as then. There is sufficient profit in
| its cultivation to attract Northern capital
in large Jumps. Strangely enough, the cot
ton planter ueglects to raise much of any
thing else, but buys melons and other
vegetables of merchants.
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPATCH.l ~
MERIDIAN, MISS, October 18.-The days
when the South shouted "Cotton is King,
and the North his subject" have passed,
| and in their stead have come days when
the North and the South unite in common
interest and pay homage to cotton and its
kingdom. This New South is every day
receiving more attention from Yankee capi-
talists. Vast as the realm Of cotton may
appear at present, it is but the hint of what
the future will develop. 1t is estimated
that hardly per cent of the cotton area is
now devoted to cotton.
The growth of manufacture In the South,
too, is sympathetic, and Northern capitalists
have found no investment so successful In
the South as that put into cotton factories.
As yet our home consumption amounts to so
much that only small margin is left for
export. The immense population of warm
foreign countries will demand all our surplus
cottons just 80 soon as we can deliver them
upon competing terms with English mills.
The fortunes Of war" worked disastrous
changes In Cotton's realm; the lack of cap
ital for so many years retarded the growth
of manufactures, but the millions being in
vested now by powerful corporations show
hoc
PHENOMENAL GROWTH OF WEALTH.
The growth of wealth is positively phe-
nomenal, the cotton crop alone pouring
annually into the country $3.50, ,000, 900. As
yet land can be purchased low, laborers are
abundant, water power cheap, and the day
not far distant when the Southern pride
will realize its ambition, "that the manu-
facturer of the crop, as well as the crop it
self, shall be a monopoly OF the cotton
belt"
The whole question Of cotton has been,
until recently, covered in its use as manu-
factured article for clothing; but, by expert
authority, it is stated that "if the cotton
plant could be grown at the North, yet
without the lint, it would have oeen made,
long ere this, one of the most profitable of
crops. The seed itself adds heavily to the
value OF the plant. Thousands of barrels of
seed oil are exported to Europe annually,
which come back to us, refined and favored,
'pure olive oil, and we use it without sus-
pecting the difference.
No better proof of the success Of the cotton
industry is needed than in the way English
companies have invested. The Englishman
is cautious as well as enterprising, and when
he sees guarantee for security he invests
heavily. All through the South corpora
tions with Northern capital are established,
which loan money on farm lands, the per-
centage in many cases being terrible; but
even with this tine South is establishing
good system Of credit.
A LONG LIFE OF CREDIT.
Cotton is the money crop Of the Southern
planter, and his life is one of long credit.
The farmer, unless he has been transported
from the enterprising land of Yankeedom,
relies almost entirely upon the merchant
for everything he eats. Melons and vege-
tables will grow by simply "tickling the
soil," vet the Southern farmer does not
seem to have the nerve or enterprise enough
to grow such supplies, and buys butter.
meal and vegetables from the town or city
markets.
There are Just three classes in the South
the gentleman born," the "plain people"
and the negro. The ignorant, superstitious
poor are known as the Cracker" in the
Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, and in
Mississippi the political bulldozer." They
are, in many instances, tenants on small
patches of land, paying heavy rental,
while they live on almost nothing-corn
bread and corn whisky-hunt, swap oxen
T. J., l. 81 III RoO
do the teamwork We find the old planta-
tions of hundreds of acres now divided into
small farms, worked on the tenant system.
and the question for the New South is yet
to be settled, "whether we shall have
peasantry like that of France or tenantry
like that of Ireland"
Cotton, like every other staple, has Its
enemies and the boil worm is perhaps the
worst The worms pass over the field as
confagration, sometimes destroying an en-
tire crop in few days. Then it is that the
whole cotton world is excited, and kilograms
pass under the sea. Manufacturers and
shipowners are advised, while In the mean
time
THE INsIDIoUs WRETCH,
like Shakespeare's worm i the bud, feeds
upon the interior of the cotton boil, and
CORNERS" and "trusts" become a mania; but
the danger passes, and still Cotton is King,
while hundreds of speculators have made
and lost.
The picking season has just passed, when
the true value of the American citizen OF
African descent, and his industrial affinity.
the mule, become conspicuously apparent.
No degree of heat affects either. The merry
negro melodies that are waited across the
cotton fields convince us that the negro, at
least, is not "saddest when he SINGS" but
make us realize plainly that the negro was
made for the South. The glory of sending
to market the first bale OF cotton is sought
by every large planter
And now, something more OF King Cotton.
1t is Southern paper, certainly, that sug-
gests the cotton flower for the national en-
blem, and says: