412 



SOUTlIERiN INDUSTRY. 



The ratural resources of the Soutli have never been developed. A small 

 portion of the soil, and much of that portion actually among the poorer lands, 

 has been brought under the plough, depleted by a wasteful system of culture, 

 and either left to broom-sedge or pines, or cropped still at a great expenditure of 

 labor for small returns. Some of it is too rich to be exhausted by surface 

 working, and is still very productive. Even that which is abandoned is not ex- 

 hausted ; the culture received never went deep enough for that. But by far the 

 greater portion of the richest and best lands that the South ever possessed is yet 

 in primitive forest, awailiiig the axe and the plough. 



The mineral resources of this region are comparatively unknown. The wliole 

 Alleghany range is rich in ii-on, coal, gold, silver, lead, and many other min- 

 erals, with a great variety of earths valuable in the ur^eful arts, petroleum, and 

 the richest saline waters. These mines of wealtii will not long remain hidden. 

 What is true of a section of the original " Old Dominion," in the following ex- 

 tract, is becoming true of the entire mountain region of the south : 



" The capitalist has discovered, with keen vision, the abundant coal, iron, 

 petroleum, and other wealth thus hidden, and the central location of the lands 

 containing them; he has planted his money in these hills, and has determined to 

 reap a golden harvest. Present facilities for developing these resources will be 

 improved and new ones created. New lines of railroads are already projected, 

 and will be built, and the navigation of all rivers that are at any time navigable 

 will be perfected." — ( Dodge s West Virginia.) 



The manufaituring facilities of the South are scarcely to be surpassed any- 

 where. Already it is understood that this interest, next to agriculture, is to 

 become the most important in that section, and enterprises numerous, extensive, 

 and various in character, are initiated and in progress. 



It is beginning to be seen that a subdivision of farms and the better cultivation 

 of improved lands, and a laiger expenditure of capital in labor-saving implements, 

 will result in greater personal and general wealth, and a higher degree of in- 

 telligence and culture. 



The following paragraphs of the repoit of the Commissioner of Agriculture 

 to the President, for the current year, are in point : 



"In the reorganization of industry in these States it is believed that the great 

 mistake of the past, the concentration of labor mainly upon a single branch of 

 a single grand division of productive industry, will be avoided. This mistake 

 has cost that section one-half the wealth it might have attained, and may have 

 led to the sacrifice in war of a portion of the remainder. Excessive increase 

 of a single product, tending to over-sup[ily and reduction of price, and attended 

 with heavy expenses for outward freights, and the purchase of all farm and 

 family siipplies burdened v/ith cost of carriage and a long line of consuming 

 commissions, points unerringly the way to national poverty and' individual 

 bankruptcy. A proper equilibrium of the products of industry, saving untold 

 burdens of freightage, excessive profits and extortions of middle men, insur- 

 ance, breakage, and manifold losses, prevents reduction of prices from burdened 

 markets, lightens damages from failures of single products, gives employment 

 to all classes, conditions, and capacities of labor, insures remunerative wages 

 for the wot-kmeu, renders possible necessary rotations and the production of 

 farm maniires, and increases the wealth, intelligence, and power of a State. In 

 political economy the smaller products of a diversified industry are far more 

 than an equivalent for a single result of organized labor, however absorbing or 

 important. The cotton crop, for example, of the empire State of the South, in 

 1860, was 701,840 bales, yielding little more than $30,000,000, while the butter 

 of New York in 1865, one of several products of the diary, was estimated at 



