514 



were possessed ofeqnivjilcTit foitimes, aiitl of plantations about equal in 

 size and jn-odnctiveness before the war. At its close, both were stripped 

 of everything' except their desolated lands. Oae of these planters fully 

 appreciated the necessity of adapting- hinis-clf to the new order of things. 

 Eecognizing it as his first duty to ])rovide for the immediate wants of 

 hisfaniiiy, and remembering that his neighbors wlio were exclusively occu- 

 pied in raising cotton must have food for their families and hands, he 

 gave his first attention to the raising of products for home consump- 

 tion — corn, potatoes, garden vegetables, orchard, and small fruits; clover 

 for stock and food for swine. Cotton and rice had a place in this diver- 

 sified agriculture, but they were made subordinate to those products 

 Avhich every family must have for the table.. Beginning in tii s way, 

 on a small scale, he could avoid a great debt, and its cousumin'g 

 canker of interest; get along with a small amount of hel[), and 

 have constant and remunerative employment for that ; secure bis family 

 a comfortable sup[)ort independently of prices in the market, and be 

 sure of a ready sale for whatever sur[)lus he raised. Year by year he 

 has made steady upward progress; his fruit trees have come nn^re and 

 more into bearing; his clover- fields have been extending; and his means 

 for increasing the' productiveness of his lands have been multiplying. 

 To-day, if he has not mor-e wealth, his family have more comforts and 

 luxuries, he has niore ready money, and is more independent tiian be- 

 fore the war. The other could not overcome his attachment to the old 

 system of exclusive cotton-planting, but has steadily adhered to it. "In 

 fact, he has taken uj) his vegetable-garden with the adored staple." This 

 pkm necessitate<l the contraction of a large debt, with its accumulating 

 interest, from the very lieginning. This has grown as steadily as his 

 neighbor's gains, and tlie ])roltability is that his now heavily mortgaged 

 plantation must pass out of his hands before another season. 



Need oe diversified industry. — Mr. H. D. ('lay ton, president of an 

 agricultural society at Clayton, Alabama, re])orts that in that section 

 cotton has hitherto been almost the only agricultural product. A few 

 "scrubby" cattle are raised, but of the stock, horses, shee}), and hogs, 

 possessed by the owners of the soil, 99 per cent, are bought elsewhere. 

 Convinced that greater profit, and much greater independence of the 

 ravages of insects, of the vicissitudes of the season, and of commerce, 

 would residt from raising a variety of agricultural products instead of 

 cotton alone, he is endeavoring to introduce a change to that effect. 



CoNDiTioiss OF SucrESS IN CoTTON CULTURE. — A correspondent 

 in Jeiferson County, Arkansas, who has been " a cotton-grower for thirty 

 years," furnishes some valuable hints respecting that branch of hus- 

 bandry. Having had, this season, an opi)ortunit3' to examine exten- 

 sively fields of growing cotton in Tennessee and Northern Alabama, as 

 well as in his own section, he reports ^^ fair crops tvhere the laiidwas well 

 cultivated, and indifferent ones where it was not." In the latter case the 

 long-continued drought and intense heat of the season greatl.N injured 

 the crop in two ways: liist, the root's did not strike down deej), but 

 grew near the surface; and, second, the slender growth occasioned by 

 shallow and poor cultivation left the surface more exposed to the heat 

 of the sun. The well-cultivated fields had deeper and more vigorous 

 roots, and the surface Wiis better shaded. There has been much defect- 

 is'e" cultivation, he rejn-esentvS, for the reason that the freedmen, who 

 have done the work, have been compelled to use poor teams and plows, 

 for the want of means to buy better ones. This is one among many 

 illustrations which s^iow, directly or indirectly, that every degree of im- 

 provement in the condition of tlie laboring class will result in advantage 



