Year: 1871

uucIAVAAs


To the wonderful theories that il


this country have made out that {


national debt is national blessing


and that industry may be fostered by


taxes, we now have added the theory


that large crop is an evil, and 6


small one blessing. This brilliant
theory is promulgated by the U. S.
Agricultural Bureau in its June res
port, in which the Commissioner has
ciphered out that decline of seven
cents a pound was caused in cotton


by the increased production. There
fore he assumes this conclusion:


"Thus the penalty for growing A.


100000 bales instead of 5000, 900,
was reduction of seven cents a
pound, equivalent to $130, 1000, ,OOO
on the crop"


The Commissioners figures and
ciphering are wild, both in the
amount of the crop, the average
prices, and the mode of calculating.
No such difference in the net result
can be made out by any kind of
arithmetic taught in our common
schools. The probability is that the
planters have received more for their
crop of probably four and half
million bales than they would have
received for any lesser quantity.
But we do not care to give the Com
missioner primary lessons in arithme-
tic; we are treating of this monstrous
and disgraceful display of incompe-
tence by an Agricultural Commis-
sioner of the United States, in put
ting forth in an official report the
abominable theory that restricted
production is blessing, and in actu-
ally trying to reduce the cotton pro-
duction, and thus derange all the in
dustries and the finances of the coun-
try.


This is one of Horace Greeley's
lunacies, put into a national docu-
ment, and disseminated at the public
expense, to destroy the wealth of the
country. We have before discussed
the relations of the cotton culture to
the whole industry and trade of the
country and to the public finances.
We then touched upon the subject of
diversified products, and showed that
the true diversity was according to
soil, climate, and the greatest pr oft.
We also touched upon the senseless
remains of jealousy of the cotton
product in the North, formed when
it vas the Southern fashion to say
"Cotton is King" which now sought
to diminish the cotton production,
and was continually advising the
planters to plant less cotton and
more corn and wheat, and other food
crops. But we did not conceive that
this destructive notion would be
cadght up by the National Agricul-
tural Commissioner, and dissemina-
ted as the official political economy


the country.


The North ern farming States can
not diversity their products by rails
ing cotton What are they to do
with their surplus of corn, wheat,
pork and other of their staples, when
the cotton section raises its own
It can only be added to the surplus
which has to seek a market four
thousand miles away, and must suffer
! consequent depression. Is it not a
b Don to the farmer of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois and the rest, that they have
an Agricultural Commissioner, crea-
ted especially to promote their inter-
ests, who makes himself national
and tries to destroy their
and to still further depress
the prices Of their staples? In the
cotton section it is more profitable to
raise cotton and buy their food.
Why should the Agricultural Com
missioner seek to destroy this bene-
fetal arrangement of nature?


There is no evidence that too much
cotton was raised. The European
war, which took Germany and
France out of the market for long
lime, and the feeling of uncertainty
which it made, was the principal
cause of the decline. But for this
ne world would have taken the
whole four and a half million bales
Without half as much decline. The
recent rise shows that. And now,
when the advance has proved this,
many planters find that they have
been led into folly by this abomina-
BILE advice to plant less cotton.


1t is necessary that American cot
ton should be produced at a moder-
ate price in order to recover its COM
mand of the market of the world.
Soma 7,oonoof