SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



The same system has prevailed on the rice, tobacco, and cotton lands of 

 the South, and has, for a variety of reasons not necessary here to be dis- 

 cussed, been, in the case of the two latter at least, more fatally persisted 

 in. I have already alluded to the exhaustion of your soils consequent on 

 this course of culture, but to show the wide extent of the evil its pecu- 

 niary consequences individually, and on whole States the now admitted 

 necessity of a rotation of crops the equally conceded necessity of intro- 

 ducing some new staple, or staples, to render the other crops in the rota- 

 tion, besides cotton, rice, and tobacco, remunerative and various other con 

 siderations having a strong bearing on this whole question I quote the 

 following statements from Southern, as well as highly authoritative sources. 



The Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives of South 

 Carolina, through their Chairman, Hon. R. W. Roper, made a Report to 

 that body, Dec. 14, 1842, from which the following are extracts : 



" Let us now turn our consideration to one other great staple, cotton, of which the statis 

 tics are so exact that we can ascertain by calculation what our prospects are as regards com- 

 petition in that article. The United States produce at present 578,012,473 Ibs. more than 

 one-half the crop of the whole world. South Carolina grows of this 43,927,171 Ibs., or 1-13 

 part of the quantity ; but from this source of profit her palmy days are past. Every yeai 

 opens new lands in the West, where congeniality of soil and climate to this commodity in 

 creases the product per acre far beyond what can be reared at home, and consequently re 

 Juces the value infinitely below the costly prices which formerly enriched Carolina. These 

 new lands produce, on an average, 2,500 Ibs. of cotton per hand, while the lands in Carolina 

 yield but 1,200 Ibs., and the expenses of a laborer being about equal in either place, reduces 

 the Carolina cotton to half its intrinsic value. We have also the declaration of Mr. Dixon H. 

 Lewis, in a recent speech in Congress, that cotton, divested of Government embarrassments, 

 might be grown in Alabama for three cents a pound. 



"Your Committee will avail itself of the lucid calculations of a distinguished and talented 

 tt-Iividual,* to present another view of the subject, startling in its details, and bearing strong 

 ?J 3n the propriety of summing up all our resources. The crop of the world amounts to 

 1,000,000,000 Ibs., which would require, at the rate of 250 Ibs. per acre, 4,000,000 of acres 

 to grow this quantity. Now, the four States bordering on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico 

 viz., Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida contain 130,000,000 of acres ; proving, 

 ihat, if only one acre in 32 were found capable of producing 250 Ibs. to the acre, these four 

 States could, alone, supply the demand of all the markets in the world. In this calculation, 

 the produce of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, with portions of other 

 States, besides 150,000,000 acres in Texas, are entirely excluded. The lands of the Gulf 

 States, therefore, and Texas, are sufficient to supply the demands of the world in all time to 

 como. Where, then, is the hope or prospect of South Carolina in the competition ? . . . 



" South Carolina comprises within .her borders 16,000,000 acres of land, of which only 

 1,300,000 are cultivated. Of this, cotton occupies 175,700 acres ; rice, 80,000; Indian com 

 500,000; potatoes, 22,612; wheat, 24,079 making an aggregate of about 800,000 acres; the 

 balance of 500,000 are taken up in oats, rye, barley, hay, tobacco, and a limited portion ot 

 other articles necessary to the supplies of life. To what use, then, is the balance of our ter 



returnee! quite as good or better profits, than on the wheat lands. He thought, taken as a whole, the graz- 

 ing farmers were doing better than the wheat farmers. The latter, though ostensibly making an equal and 

 frequently better per centage, were wasting their capital. The gracing laricls and the wheat lands wore rap- 

 idly approaching each other in market value, by the rise of the former and the deterioration of the latter. 

 May this not afford a parallel to what will one day be witnessed in the Southern States ? 



It is difficult for me to pass by the name of this accomplished writer this pure, upright and philanthropic 

 man without throwing one stone on the cairn of his well-merited fame. He felt himself, from his infancy, 

 cut " 



would have pr , 



temporaries. His range of reading and study was remarkable. In his beautiful and sparkling letters to 

 me, every subject and almost every science is touched upon by him in a manner that shows that he at least 

 had mastered their general principles ; and, in the abandon of private intercourse, they seem to have been 

 to him as the flowerets of a garden, among which his spirit could roam with that playful and joyous activ- 

 ity which was denied to his poor, frail body, among the objects of the outer and physical world. 



Freely, unassumingly, and without an aspiration but for the good of his fellow men, his mind poured out , 

 Its stores on a variety of topics in the publications of the day. Fortunately, he gave his principal attention 

 to the subject of Agriculture, and, if not a discoverer (which he never claimed to be), he investigated and 

 collated with an industriousness of research, discrimination and perspicacity, which brought the truth from 

 ail the different sources where discovery or experience had left its disjecta membra, into essays, so well com- 

 pacted, so clearly airanged, that men of the most ordinary parts could not only understand his separate sen- 

 tences and positions, but their connection tod aggregate bearing, and thus master the whole subject. Peace 

 to his ashes ! 



* Gov Hairuiond. 



