400 



sliall possess the waste places aiul make them vocal with the hum of 

 busy iiulustry. The time is near at liaiid when all these eleiiients of 

 material greatness may be possessed by tlie South if it will but learn a 

 lesson from the example of those communities and nations Avhich have 

 become rich while it has become poor. 



Undoubtedly, the first of the new methods essential to the new life 

 of the South is a diversification of Industry. The example of Germany 

 conclusively shows that the nation which utilizes all its forces and 

 encourages the employment of every human faculty is the one which 

 takes deepest root and offers the greatest resistance to storms, while the 

 example of Persia and Turkey and Portugal shows that nations which 

 engage in one pursuit to the comparative neglect of all others do not 

 have a flourishing growth, and are not capable of resisting adversity. 

 The people of the South should so direct their future that success will 

 not be contingent upon a bountiful harvest from a single crop. They 

 should establish new manufactures and stimulate those already estab- 

 lished ; open new mines and develop thoi^e alreadj^ opened ; build rail- 

 roads and spread wider the wings of foreigu commerce ; and, most im- 

 j)ortant of all, divide their thousands of exhausted acres into small 

 farms and farm them well. 



The South has abundant water-povv-er, extensive coal-fields, and cheap 

 labor. If it will but put forth its hand it can successfully compete with 

 either New England or Old England in the manufacture of many articles 

 to procure which it now sends its money abroad.. Especially cau it man- 

 ufacture the coarser grades of cottou fabrics and shoes for its working 

 classes. In more thau half of the States lying south of the Ohio may 

 be found iron ore of the best qiiality, and other valuabte minerals. The 

 example of Pennsylvania shows how i^rosperous a people may become 

 who will manufacture iron. Tennessee may become another Pennsyl- 

 vania if it will. By employing its laboring population in manufactur- 

 ing enterprises, the South will not only retain within its own borders 

 the money of which it is now depleted, but it will have more to sell to 

 other countries. And the more it has to sell the more miles of railroad 

 will be built, the more certain and remunerative will be the home mar- 

 kets of its farmers, and the greater will be the ability of all its people 

 to possess themselves of comforts and luxuries drawn from every quar- 

 ter of the globe. 



But the South needs most to diversify its agriculture. By devoting 

 its capital and energies mainly to the cultivation of cotton, it has ])ro- 

 duced two disastrous results : its soil has been exhausted, and it has 

 been compelled to rely upon the West for its bread and meat. To remedy 

 the first error will require time and the exercise of the best brain of the 

 South ; but the. concentration upon small areas of the efforts now 

 bestowed upon large plantations will be a necessary accompaniment of 

 all remedial agencies. The second error of looking to the West for the 

 necessaries of life can easily be corrected by growing all those food- 

 producing crops suited to the South. There are few States in the South 

 in which wheat and corn will not do well ; fewer yef in which some of 

 the grasses and the various edible roots will not grow. Cattle and hogs 

 may be raised with profit where these conditions exist, and not the least 

 of the profit will be the fertilizing elements which they will return to 

 the soil if confined to close quarters. An improvement of the breeds 

 now in general use would increase the income from these sources. The 

 South also produces many kinds of fruit and a long list of the choicest 

 vegetables. Indeed, there is scarcely a limit to its food-producing capa- 

 bilities. A southern journal has recently stated that, with the exception 



