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planters haA'e abandoned their farms and embarked in other pursuits. A stranger passunj:; 

 through our section would be wonder-struck at the desolation and waste he would see all 

 along the highways. Our labor system amounts to no system at all. Where proprietors 

 have remained upon their fiirms, and have had the patience and fortitude to superintend 

 in person, they have done well ; but where they have been left to the control of tenants, 

 (white or colored,) loss rather than profit has resulted. The negro is not yet capable 

 of taking charge of a farm and conducting operations to a success. In almost every 

 case, even where he owns the land and stock, he has failed of success. It has now 

 become plain that, to succeed, we must diversify our crops: grow our own supplies of 

 corn, meat, flour, and manures. Then we shall be sure not to over-stock or glut the 

 cotton-market, and, consequently, always to realize remunerative prices for the crops. 

 Such a diversified system would advance the interests of the freedmeu and all laborers, 

 as well as proprietors. 



Clayton, Ga. — Ourpeople are not yet done gathering their cotton. A great many have 

 not commenced sowing their wheat, and they will not, probably, get through before 

 Christmas. If our farmers would plant only half the amount they do in cotton, and 

 put double the amount in corn, wheat, and oats, it would, undoubtedly, be much better 

 for U.S. We can raise in this county 30 bushels of wheat and 50 bushels of corn per 

 acre, and if the same interest taken in raising cotton were taken in raising grain, we 

 should raise our own supplies, aiul cojtton-money would be a surjilus. But, as it is, it 

 takes all our cotton-money to buy our corn, bacon, and guano, and, so, at the end of 

 the year, we are generally as poor as we were in the beginning, and some of us poorer. 

 Lowndes, Miss. — Profiting, I hope, by the sad experience of the, present and past years, 

 we are starting to prepare for another crop, with a determination to curtail expenses 

 and diversify crops. 



Page, Va. — We have a great lack of fixrm-labor. Our boys and young Jiien, with few 

 exceptions, desert the labor of the farm and turn their attention to otlier pursuits less 

 useful and much more demoralizing. 



King and Queen, Va. — I hope the steady decline of our Virginia tide- water lands has 

 reached the bottom. Good lands, worth since the war $10 to$l.") per acre, are now sell- 

 ing at $5 to 16. Want of reliable labor, and the abandonment of the farm for almost 

 any other kind of work, are the causes of the low state of agriculture. 



Iberia, La. — Not ten planters in the parish have raised a sufficient quantity of corn 

 to winter their stock, and not one-fourth of the remainder have made a sufficiency for 

 bread for their families. Notwithstanding these facts, the negroes who have been work- 

 ing on shares, and who change about almost every year, are bringing in their propor- 

 tion of the crop and selling it at $1 per barrel, the average price in more prosperous 

 times. Like his more assuming and pretentious employer, even the negro has saddled 

 himself with debts, to pay which he must rob bis family of bread. The immediate 

 future of our parish and State is most disheartening. 



Farm-stock. — SuIUran, Tenn. — Many fattening hogs are sick with the so-called 

 cholera. Considerable numbers have died. The kidneys, so far as examined, 

 appear to be the seat of the disease, being of a bruised, bloody mass, the leaf-fat sur- 

 rounding them show ing an unhealthy condition. Give us a remedy if you can. 



Livingston, Ey. — There have been a good many deaths among hogs from a disease like 

 cholera, though it presents itself in various forms. Some have lost nearly all their 

 pork. A strange disease has occurred also among horses. One of my neighbors lost 

 four, all he had ; but he believes the first three died from eating green sorghum 

 He turned them into it in the green state, and he thinks that killed them. 



Spencer, Ey. — Tlie hog-cholera still exists sporadically, no other disease prevailing 

 among stock. 



Montgomery, Md. — The hog-disease is still raging in portions of this county. Many 

 young hogs have died from it. 



Nueces, Tex. — It is becoming more evident every year that cattle-raisers will have to 

 purchase and confine their stock instead of letting them run loose and stray where they 

 will. Wherever land has been inclosed and not overstocked, the grass is magnificent, 

 and the owners are pasturing beef-cattle for parties who have no pastures at about 25 

 cents, gold, per head per month. A few days since Mr. Kennedy, of the Laurells 

 ranche, who has a pasture of about 14.5,000 acres fenced in, imported a number of Dur- 

 ham bulls to cross with our native stock. This is a step in the right direction. The 

 first cross is a great improvement ; other parties will have to do the same or pay the 

 penalty for their lack of enterprise with heavy losses in winter and lower prices for 

 their poorer stock. Our people seem to be awakening to the idea of more farming and 

 fewer cattle-ranches. If they would but study the climate, and plant more in the fall 

 and winter, they would sircced better. Kipe tomatoes, fresh from the garden, and cucum- 

 bers from the vine, also green pease, were served in Corpus Christi Christmas-day. 

 Two crops of Irish potatoes, also two crops of corn and beans, can be grown in one 

 season, and all we want is skilled and enterprising labor to make this a farming as 

 well as a stock and wool growing region. 



Putnam, Mo. — A disease called " quivering" is prevailing among hogs, and in some 

 localities they are dying quite rapidly. No remedy has yet been discovered. 



