If articles of this character are purchased for cash they are 

 cheap. If the farmer will purchase on credit he must pay for 

 it as he does for other articles purchased in the same way. 

 How many of them give $1.65 to $2 per bushel for corn on 

 credit about fifty per cent, over the cash value, and yet, with 

 hat in hand, thank the merchant that is so kind as to credit them 

 with it. 



The writer of this article constantly hears the hue and cry, 

 that the country is ruinod. The farmer^ are all bankrupt, &c 

 He contends that such is not the case The terrible results of 

 our late revolution, the sudden emancipation of our slaves, and 

 the upheaval and other confusion consequent upon the same, 

 produced great confusion and much trouble, and in many cases 

 utter bankruptcy. Even in this- terrible state the farmer and 

 planter has stood firm, and defying all difficulties and annoy- 

 ances, and made his bread, fed and clothed his wife and chil- 

 dren, aptly demonstrating the fact that the handfull of men 

 who struggled against the combined world for liberty and self- 

 government for the long period of five years, are, and will be, 

 no ordinary race of men. 



It was much to be regretted that immediately after the close 

 of the war, the free negro labor of the country was so disagree- 

 able to work with, that our most active-minded and energetic 

 men rushed at once to other lines of business, when such 

 offered, thinking it either impossible to make a living farming 

 or too unpleasant a way of living. Yet many, who were un- 

 willing, and some from choice, tied to the plow handles, have 

 succeeded, and when we remember that we were en masse 

 insolvent in April, 1865, and our country desolated by war, we 

 may look around with ustonishment and see many of our num- 

 ber "comfortably to do" in the world, well off, and many the 

 base and under-pinning of solid wealth in hand. 



The energetic planter of to-day is, in a measure, educated to 

 the new order of things, and he has been through the chaos 

 and confusion resulting from our conquered situation. Armed 

 with ten years' experience, he will succeed, and there are those 

 now living who will accumulate boundless wealth dug from the 

 soil. 



Our downfall was so sudden, the ills we were called on to 

 bear so many, that it is not to be wondered at that we have 

 almost become a race of grumblers and croakers. The farmers 

 may now cheer up ; a brighter day is rapidly dawning, and, 

 with a profound state of peace for twenty years, the Southern 

 staple crops of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, will generate 

 boundless and untold wealth. In 1865 and 1866, our staple 

 crops were planted and worked with capital borrowed, at 2J 

 per cent, per month, by parties north of Mason and Dixon's 

 line. Now they are made by either the planter's own capital, 

 or by that advanced to him by the Southern factors or mer- 



