238 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



Now I have seen such statements as his before, and sometimes to my sorrow. 

 I long agitated in my own mind — as who here has not? — the question of emi- 

 grating to his golden region. I ardently sought, and sometimes bought, informa- 

 tion, and the result has been the conviction that no nian has gained by it. If any 

 who removed hence have done Avell in the West, they Avould have done well, 

 perhaps better, here. And I would cheerfully abide the issue, if this opinion of 

 mine could be put to vote among the emigranls. With due deference to X. Y. Z. 

 I must say I do not put full faith in averages of 25 and 35 bushels of corn per 

 acre, and 2,400 to 3,200 lbs. cotton per hand, in Louisiana. On the best lands, 

 tn favorable seasons, such results have, I do not doubt, been realized. But as a 

 general average for a series of years — the past ten for insl^ince — he is a fortunate 

 planter who has, even in Louisiana, made an average of 20 bushels of corn and 

 2,000 lbs. cotton. Here is an issue of fact which, of course, cannot easily be de- 

 cided. But I state an opinion which I have taken much pains to form, and which 

 is, I think, at all events, entitled to full as much credit as my previous statement 

 that our average production here is 10 bushels of corn and 1,200 lbs. of cotton. — 

 When the difference in the prices of land in Louisiana and this region — our supe- 

 rior healthfulness — the greater increase of our negroes, and the advantage of At- 

 lantic markets, &c. &c. are considered, I do not think a great deal more dear 

 money can be realized there from 20 bushels of corn and 2,000 lbs. cotton, than 

 from 10 bushels of corn and 1,200 lbs. of cotton here. Of this I feel sure — that 

 if the cost of moving hence to that country — the innumerable small losses incur- 

 red — the sacrifice of lands and fixtures here — the far greater cost of them there — 

 and the immense disadvantage of planting soil one is not acquainted with, and 

 very often losing several years before a full crop can be made — if all these things 

 could be estimated and reduced to a cash value, and that amount expended here 

 in improving our homesteads, I am perfectly confident that we should, in any se- 

 ries of years, make more money per hand, if not per acre, than the emigrants to 

 Louisiana have made heretofore or will make hereafter. 



IMothing is so easy as to point to fine crops or fine plantations and draw general 

 conclusions so brilliant as to carry away the imagination and defy all sober rea- 

 soning. It could be done here, also, if this were not an old country and every 

 body did not hnoiv that it is no El Dorado. People will not look at " sunny 

 sketches " if the scene is in South Carolina or Eastern Georgia. Place it any 

 where beyond Flint River, however, and nothing is too highly colored for their 

 credulous imaginations. Now, in this region we make on our bottom lands from 

 30 to 60 bushels of corn, lohen freshes do not interfere. I have myself made 83 

 bushels per acre on a field of 25 acres. These crops were more frequent before 

 our country was cut down. Now they occur once in six or seven years only ; 

 but they do occur. One of my neighbors made, last year, an average of 2,000 

 lbs. seed cotton on a ten-acre field, unmanured, fresh swamp land ; one selected 

 acre made over 2,700 lbs. On a few acres I averaged, myself, 2,600 lbs. and I 

 have this day (15th Sept.) picked 564 lbs. from a single acre, selected as the 

 best of 100 acres of fresh swamp, planted this year for the first time. It will, no 

 doubt, produce considerably over 2,000 lbs. Permit me to say, that such of us 

 as have resolved to stay here and improve our lands with the money we know it 

 would cost us to move West, are opening virgin swamps far above higli-water 

 mark, which, though expensive to bring into culture, promise to be of vast and 

 exhaustless fertility. When the same is done generally, tliis region will com- 

 pare with any in the world. Permit me also to state an opinion which I well 

 know will be met by an universal smile of incredulity, and perhaps diminisli any 

 confidence that may be placed in my previous statements: Georgia and South 

 Carolnia are, after all, the Cotton Stales, and time in/t jirovc it. We have the 

 cotton climate ; and our lands are susceptible of improvement to any extent ; our 

 best lands remain yet untouched. Time, energy and loiv tares will bring them 

 out. With tiie present race of planters and system of management tiie rich bot- 

 toms of the south-west may go beyond us ; but when to their extreme seasons — 

 becoming more uncertain ; to their innumerable insects — becoming more numer- 

 ous ; to their sickliness — becoming more so — shall be added a war/n soil, the im- 

 proved lands and culture, and, above all, the genuine cotton climate of these 

 States will prevail over them. 



One word more to X. Y. Z. : Is he sure that the reduction of the Tarifl' will 



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