^iii: FOGY DAYS AisrD isrow ; l5l 



eveiy turn, the longated visage, the downcast eye, and the 

 pendant under-jaw. Ask for the trouble and they will tell 

 you the old and too familiar story — had an attack of cotton 

 on the brain. The awful epidemic had seized them, like some 

 thousand-legged nightmare, stagnated their blood and, like 

 grim death, pinned them down, and the future offered no 

 hope. But occasionally you meet a contented face. Ask how 

 so — how have you escaped the general ruins — and he will 

 answer: "Well, sir, I raise my home supplies; I never go in 

 debt; every year I make a little above my own needs, and 

 to these fellows who raise all cotton, why I sell them some- 

 thing to eat. sir." And hereby hangs a tale. 



Let the farmer give his first attention to home supplies, fill 

 his home with comforts and contentment, then let the chords 

 that support the Wall street rigging snap asunder. Let the 

 main masts and money kings topple and tumble; let financial 

 panics and crises come. Amidst the crash, the self-sustain- 

 ing farmer will float serene ; with barn and store-house well 

 filled, he can snap his fingers and whistle Dixie. 



There is a terrible hydra-headed monster on the rampage 

 throughout our land. A merciless dragon of consumption, 

 his trail is marked with wan despair, and like a besom of 

 destruction, he sweeps the country. His name is debt. The 

 people know him, fear and tremble in his presence, yet madly 

 rush into his very track. Loans and liens are his daily diet. 

 ■ The ever insatiate beast, with hungry jaws crammed with cot- 

 ton bags, still cries for more and more; and his infatuated vic- 

 tims hurl the overburdened commodity into his throat — and 

 are frequently swallowed u}> themselves. Is there no deliver- 

 ance? Yes, thank God, a few wise men have seen a star. A 

 saviour has been found; an angelic song has been heard, pro- 



