80 ' SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



ritory, of 14,000,000 of acres, to be appropriated ? Are we forever to be supplied with stock 

 from the West, bread-stuffs from the Middle States, and manufactures from the North ? Is 

 all that we can realize from our labor to be expended abroad ? Nothing to be left for our 

 own improvements or our luxury ? As one means of correcting this evil, your Committee 

 propose an Agricultural Survey of the Slate, to determine our natural advantages, develop 

 our facilities of improvement, exhibit our profits and expenditures, and awaken our citizens 

 to the importance of vying with, the rest of the human family in all the improvements of 

 which our location is susceptible 



" The exposition which your Committee has given, showing the great competition of for- 

 eign rice with our own, and that South Carolina cannot compete with the West in the cheap 

 production of cotton, and that she must, ere long, be driven from the market, demonstrates 

 the necessity of looking abroad and around us for other sources of advancement and projitt 

 than those we possess. 



" VVe cannot expect that accident is continually to supply new staples suited to our soil 

 and climate, and place us beyond the reach of contingent circumstances. We must resort 

 to science to improve our Agriculture, and to machinery to enlarge and prepare present arti- 

 cles of culture, or transplant and acclimate new products, which will again, like those wo 

 have lost and will lose, lead off' for a period in the employment of capital, amassing of wealth 

 and diffusion of human happiness." 



The House and Senate agreed with the Report, the same day, and its 

 principal recommendation, an Agricultural Survey of the State, was 

 adopted. 



The Committee appointed by the South Carolina State Agricultural So- 

 ciety to consider the scheme of Col. Davie to reduce the quantity of cotton 

 grown, made a Report, through their Chairman, Judge Seabrook, at the 

 winter meeting of the Society, 1845-6, from which the following are ex- 

 tracts :* 



''Another cause of our distress is that; in a large portion of the southern country, cotton is 

 cultivated, when its production does not now, and never can, at all compensate the planter 

 for the labor bestowed. There it is desirable for every one that other branches of industry 

 ehould be pursued. . . . We do not intend to encourage the cultivation of cotton to the 

 neglect of the other products necessaty to support or comfort. Every planter should prompt- 

 ly render himself independent in reference to those articles which could be produced on his 

 plantation. In this way he would profitably curtail the quantity of land devoted to the cot- 

 tcu crop. An abandonment of the present extremely defective mode of culture, and the sub- 

 stitution of a better, would insure a larger quantity of cotton than would be lost by diversify- 

 ing the products of industry. In other words, his cotton crop would be larger ; his corn, 

 wheat, rice, oats, barley, horses, mules, hogs, cattle, sheep, butter and vegetables, would be 

 the produce of his farm. 



" If, however, the cotton crop is to be given up one-half, after all the reductions of it which 

 we have sanctioned, to what else can the planter of the South so profitably turn his attention ? 

 To grain ? He already, in ordinary years, produces twice as much as the Middle States, and 

 about one-eighth more than the West. In Indian corn alone, the produce of the South, by 

 her last census, was 300 million bushels. If the planter of cotton is engaged in an unprofit 

 able business, much more is the grain raised. . . . Millions of acres in South Carolina, 

 including the lower country, are admirably adapted to the raising of rich grasses. This 

 might be added as another branch of industry, from which reasonable profits might be real 

 ized, and might very well be added to the cotton planter's income. The business of tanning 

 and the manufactures of leather might be and ought to be enlarged. In this State, all the 

 means of a successful pursuit of this branch of industry are at hand and within the reach of 

 every one. Hides, lime, bark and mechanics (slaves) are abundant." 



The remarks in both of the above extracts, though made exclusively in 

 reference to South Carolina, will apply equally well, in many obvious par- 

 ticulars, to all the old cotton and tobacco growing States. 



To a Northern man, accustomed from his childhood to see sheep hus- 

 bandry blended, to a greater or less extent, in the operations of nearly 

 every farm, and to live among farmers who regard it just as indispensable, 

 and as much a matter of course, as the production of bread-stuffs, it seems 

 singular enough that neither of the above able Committees, in looking for 



* As has been before stated, the other members of the Committee were Judge O'Neall and W. J. Ailston, 

 Esq. Mr. A. did not concur with his colleagues in the proposition that there was not already an absolute 

 over-production of cotton. He believed there was. In all otlier particulars, and consequently in all era- 

 braced in the extracts given, he concurred in the Report. 



