EXPENSE AND RESULTS OF SOUTHERN PLANTING. 139 



plantation producing, in Louisiana, 400 bales of cotton, worth a 6 cents per b. 

 $9,600, is taxed, for the benefit of the manufacturing interest, !b;1U9 20 annua ly. 



But, small as this item is, it cannot but be felt by those whose product is but 

 12 busliels of corn to the acre, and 1,200 weight of cotton to the hand ; be- 

 cause the expenses of producing in South Carolina and Georgia 3 bales of cot- 

 ton to the hand amount to as much per head as those of the Louisiana planter, 

 who makes 35 bushels of corn to the acre and 8 bales of cotton to 'be band. 



The truth is, the Carolina and Georgia planters, who make but 12 bushels ot 

 corn to the acre, must cultivate more land in corn in order to produce tb.-ir sup- 

 plies than the Louisiana planters, and consequently must cultivate less in cotton ; 

 and this may be one and a principal reason why cotton planting has ceased to be 

 BO protilable in those Slates as it once was. The average product per acre on 

 the lowlands in Louisiana being 450 lbs. while in Carolina and Georgia it is but 

 150 Ib^. it follows, that to produce S bales to the hand he must cultivate 7 

 acres to the hand, while to produce 1,200 lbs. or 3 bales to the hand, he 

 must, in Carolina and Georgia, cultivate 8 acres to the hand. But, for the 

 ereater distance given to the cotton in the rich lands of Louisiana, it is easier to 

 cultivate 10 acres to the hand than it would be to cultivate 7 on the poor 

 lands of Carolina and Georgia. . • r n i <• 



Besides, on the lowlands of Louisiana it is so easy to raise a full supply of 

 corn that most of our planters are enabled to raise more than half their supply 

 of meat, and thus diminish the plantation expenses very considerably, it is 

 pretty evident that the diminished i)rotits of cotton plantmg in Carolina and 

 Georgia are not so much the result of the policy of the (xovernment as of the 

 increased facilities of production in the more fertile valley of the Mississippi. 



It is alto'^ether probable that the recent change in the policy of the Govern- 

 ment in the' protective dutv on sugar, may tend still farther to diminish the prohts 

 of the cotton planter in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as in Carolina and 

 Georo-ia. It is very certain that the diversion of capital and labor txom cotton 

 to su"ar planting, which has been in such rapid progression for the last two or 

 three" years, will now be arrested, and, not improbably, that on many cotton 

 plantations where preparations Avere making for the culture of su^ar, the pro- 

 cess of change may be altogether abandoned. Whatever tends to increase the 

 culture of a product already superabundant, must tend to lessen the profits ot 

 that product. None will deny that, but for the disastrous season of last year, 

 the cotton crop would have reached 2,500,000 bales. Would not such a crop, 

 other things in Europe being the same, have reduced the price fully one cent a 



^°But if the cotton planters of all sections would devote more of their time, la- 

 bor and attention to the improving of the quality of their cotton and to the rais- 

 in'-, icithni themselves, of all they consume, use or ivear on their plantations, arid 

 leave to politicians the regulation of the policy of the Government, they would 

 do more and better for their own direct interests. X. Y. Z. 



Rapid,:, La. July 20, 1840. 



13^ ir a-i-iculmrists could break or ■' slip" the hUmi bridle!^ of parly, with which dema 

 gogues ride them for their own aggraiiilizenient, and, instead of " ]ea%-iiig to politicians" the 

 regulation of the policy of the Government, would have their sons so instructed tliat they 

 mi°ght be qualified to tlmik, and to understand and regulate the policy of the Goveniment for 

 themselvo^, with reference to the landed interest, which is the basis of aU other interests, it 

 would afford some ground to hope for the prosperity- and perpetuity of tl* Kepubhc. If 

 farmers would vote for good, well-instnicted, well-inform(;d landholders, or uivariably fijr 

 persons who have something to lose by vicious or ill-directed legislation, we should not have 

 witnessed tlie willingness or the ignorance with which the landholders of this country have 

 allowed themselves to be fleeced, for the last thirty years, of about three hundred mi/lions, 

 for the maintenance of the railitaiy, or man-killmg, machineiy of this Government !— money 

 enough to have overspread the land with a flood of useful knowledge, and to have carried 

 a canal or a railroad to almost every msui's door, and to have bound together all parts of thft 

 Union as with a chain of adamant. Instead, then, of having aU our young men, sons of 

 broken-down families, suj)pllants for clerkships, we should see them seeking contentment 

 (233) 



