Year: 1875

Su iuSHttliN pue l'of9iy

 respects his energy may be in creaseed. The farmers of Edge combe may rise and challenge comparison Tn indomitable ener- gy, but what availeth all this ener- gy when the crop is sold and no proceeds of the results left with the farmers? Uutil we learn to save money from our works, does not energy actually render the county, as whole, still poorer? Are we not actually using up the capital we have in the soil by sell ing it and living on it? Are not the apparent means of fertility be- ing used up? And is the county, as whole. growing richer? These are important questions. We may answer them wrong, but time will give them an unerring answer.

 In some future issue 1 may re- turn to these questions, however unpleasant, for they are practical questions; and it is of these 1 pro pose to write, for the tendency of

 

 the present development does not seem to indicate an improving fu- ture. The people of the South are not pains taking people; are not a book keeping people. They had rather continue their labor than to turn to their books and take the bearing of the present as developed by the past.

 The people of the South have too much faith in the sluggard's doctrine that things will wear right-that the manifest destiny of things will regulate them as they go-notwithstanding that all experience demonstrates the fact that things unregulated inyaria ply go wrong. And this means, in plain English, they are not willing to be bothered. even wlcn it pays.

 Now, unless our people become more pains taking-unless they have more industry about small matters, how can we become pros> porous? Let us illustrate the matter. It is our practice to sell everything in the rudest condition in whice we produce it. A farm CT makes wheat-he sells his wheat instead of selling his flour, thereby receiving the least possi- ble profit from bushel of wheat, and thus damaging his land as much as possible by the produc- tion of a bushel of wheat. Tho wheat is often sent out of the country, and some of the flour is sent back to pay for the wheat; freight is to be paid both ways, besides the expense of the barrel in which it is returned. Besides a portion of the -four, the grud- geons, seconds and brans are all retained in a distant country; and these constitute permanent loss. The brand is retained to feed milch COWS to make cheese to send back, and we here lose a food rich in valuable manures; and no coun- try can stand the incessent losses of the best ingredients of the soil. The seconds and grudgeons are consumed as food and in the arts. DCes not this show disposition to sell the wheat at as little trouble as possible without regard to the profit; Is this right? Can we al- ways sustain these loses without giving way? Nay, without final prostatation?

 Does this not go to prove that much of the difficulty lies in our people being unwilling to become pains-taking? Is not this build. ing up our fences around the field and refusing to close the same with gate or bars? What is the high fence worth, with the gate wide open or bars flat down? We are disposed to get clear of troub- le, even when it is profitable to encounter it. We sell at the first f production without attempting tc push the products to greater proit-for all men agree that tho :. first stage of production is tho least profitable. But in the sec l ond step, pains-taking and attend ing to little matters become abso lutely necessary for success , When this is necessary our peopl, , sell for they are unwilling to talk,