8 



chants. The South has accumulated capital enough in ten years 

 to plant and cultivate its own staple crops. As soon as the farmer 

 can accumulate capital enough within himself to pay cash for 

 his labor, daily, weekly, or monthty, he can manage and ma- 

 nipulate the "hewers of wood and drawers of water," his em- 

 ployees ; and the men who have prospered, we may say, belong 

 exclusively to the Anglo-Saxon race, who must and will control 

 the real estate and money of this country in all time to come. 



If our croakers will look North they will find "all is not gold 

 that glitters," and that our conquerors and wealthy neighbors 

 have skeletons that dwell daily in their households. The terri- 

 ble struggle, the endless strife, and strikes that are daily taking 

 place between capital and its enchained slaves men of the 

 same race the soup-houses of Northern cities, the statistics of 

 crime all show plainly that the mighty North has its own in- 

 nate ills, most of which, thank God, we are free from. 



Your first accumulated capital is invested in lands, buildings, 

 and improvements; second, stock and tools to work the same ; 

 third, an investment in provisions and feed for one season; 

 fourth, capital in cash to pay for all needful supplies purchased 

 before you realize from the sale of crops, and wherewith to pay 

 your wages to laborers;* and with this much in hand, with in- 

 dustry and energy, you must and will succeed; if you follow the 

 farm for life, it will feed you and make you independent. 



One source of accumulated wealth is in the permanent im- 

 provement of land. The improved annual production is abso- 

 lutely necessary with hired labor to leave you margins for 

 profits. Both the annual increase of crops and permanent 

 improvement of lands may be made by the judicial use of 

 commercial fertilizers. Yet, as a general thing, your capitals 

 are so limited that you must purchase so that every dollar in- 

 vested will produce the greatest possible return in the shortest 

 possible time. To do this you must always buy the most highly 

 soluble manures, and those are cheapest to you in the most 



* The capital now required to operate a plantation is, first, that invested 

 in land ; second, the amount of money in shape of cash in hand equal to the 

 interest on the value of the slave property that formerly operated the same 

 plantation, and that interest may be put down at three to five per cent. 



Suppose, before the war, a plantation of five hundred acres had on it 

 thirty slaves, six mules, etc. Averaging the slaves at $600 we will have 

 $18,000; seven per cent, interest on this $1,260, at five per cent., $900, which 

 is ample to run a five hundred acre cotton place, operated with six mules. 

 Hence the farmer of to-day requires only the interest at five per cent, as 

 cash in hand to operate a plantation on which he once used the entire prin- 

 cipal. The man of the olden time replies, but the increase of the negro 

 property. We of the new school reply, but the loss by death ; rate the 

 clothing and doctor's bills, the feeding of young negroes, dead-heads, 

 superannuated, etc. Now you feed one ration for one day's work. The 

 young negro raising and the old dead-head falls on the laborer, and he will 

 find it will consume his as it once did all of your profits. 



