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itor can find sale for the land to the amount of the mortgage he will sell at once 
and leave the farmer and his family homeless. This discourages the farmer from mak- 
ing improvements that he would otherwise make, and these old debts will never be 
settled because there never will be purchasers enough for so much surplus land. If 
Congress in making a bankrupt law had included deeds of trust or mortgages, as they 
did executions and judgments, giving the farmer a small homestead, and let the balance 
go to his creditors, agriculture would then prosper in Virginia. We have a soil easily 
improved and a climate unsurpassed. ’ 
_ Franklin, Ala.—The Southern farmer will anticipate his crop, that is, he will spend 
it before he makes it. This almost universal habit is a blight upon all our industry. 
It affects both white and black, and keeps us all trudging with despondent feet the 
path of poverty. 
Greene, Mo.—Scarcity of money, caused by buying four dollars’ worth of goods for 
every three dollars produced. Money was plenty here during the war, large amounts 
being paid out for supplies at enormous prices. Then followed a large immigration, 
which kept the prices of produce up and brought a great deal of money into the county ; 
these sourees finally failed. But we had got into bad habits and lived as though there 
was no end to the supply. The only remedy I can suggest is for people to live within 
their means; come down to the fact that to have a dollar it must first be earned. That 
system alone pays in farming, and when we come to that we are all right, having a 
good country, fine climate, healthy, well watered, rich soil, ete. 
Harris, Ga.—Another reason why the farmers do not succeed is because they buy 
supplies, implements, and fertilizerson a credit and give an exorbitant rate of interest. 
For example, in July or August a planter wants 1,000 pounds of bacon and 50 bushels 
of corn; the bacon sells for cash at 11 cents and the corn at $1. He buys on a credit 
till the 15th of October or Ist of November, and gives 18 cents for bacon and $1.75 for 
corn, and then gives a lien on the crop and on everything else he has, binding himself 
to pay all lawyers’ fees and the expenses of selling him out. What an enormous per- 
centage for only afew weeks, or months at most; about 300 per cent. per annum. The 
remedy is to abolish liens, and go on the cashsystem ; do away with middle-men ; let 
every neighborhood have a well-organized society and have an agent of their own to 
buy and sell, or each one do it for himself. 
Our correspondent at Barnwell, South Carolina, says that ‘ where 
there is a reasonable amount of industry and diligence, though a small 
proportion of science and skill, the results are satisfactory ;” and state- 
ments of a similar tenor are frequent from thatregion. In Pitt, North 
Carolina, our correspondent expresses the hope that farmers will become 
independent enough to resist the temptation to cultivate cotton exclu- 
sively, and adopt a system of rotation, and secure higher ultimate profits. 
He says they need examples ; that “ there is a powerful sight of preach- 
ing, but little practice; but the revolution is progressing, and the wel- 
come and restorative system comes apace.” In the younger States the 
curse of pioneer farming prevails. “‘ The farmers are shiftless pioneers, 
found on all frontiers,” says our correspondent for McDowell, Missouri ; 
and this county does not appear to be worse in. this respect than many 
others. ‘Laziness and unscientific farming” are twin evils in Butler, 
Kentucky, but they are not found there alone. In Obion, Tennessee, 
“laziness and ignorance” are the only causes of discouragements in a 
region where “nature has been kind,” providing “a rich soil and salu- 
brious climate.” To “ignorance” and want of industry is charged the 
shiftlessness of many neighborhoods; and the remark of the Orange 
(Florida) correspondent is repeated with variations in all sections of the 
country: “The great difficulty is that our farmers as a class are not a 
reading people, and are prone to follow in the footsteps of their fathers.” 
There are localities, in different sections of the country, in which the 
“unsystematic and unprofitable methods employed in agriculture are 
partially realized, and in which aspirations for improvement begin to 
be felt, while the lethargy produced by comparative poverty prevents 
any general effort toward amelioration. The following case is an ex- 
ample: 
Perry, Ind.—Our farming-lands in this section are completely worn out, our im- 
provements upon them going to decay; our farmers are without resources; diseases 
