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of seed, proper cultivation, and especially a careful pre- 

 paration for the market. Now, while there are other 

 planters who are intelligently guided in these requisites, 

 the productions of both classes meet in the same market, 

 and should command a discrimination as to quality and 

 price, which, it is complained, they do not get. On the 

 contrary, the conclusion is that dirty cotton is most 

 profitable, because it brings more money per acre than 

 that which is sold by the careful planter. 



" This seems to be an evil which time and circumstances 

 must cure ; and it is therefore an injudicious conclusion 

 that it would be better to adopt the example of the planter 

 who sells dirty cotton. It cannot be that the merchant or 

 the manufacturer will long fail to discriminate between the 

 good and the bad, when they are marked by such distinc- 

 tive qualities as clean and dirty. This, then, may be 

 looked upon as a temporary evil. And we may hope that 

 its cure will necessarily work a corresponding change in 

 the careless class of planters to which we have alluded ; 

 for if they have to pay for hauling dirt, for which they get 

 no price, and which decreases the value and price of their 

 cotton, their losses will teach them to separate the former 

 from the latter. It is assuming too much to suppose that 

 both the merchant and the manufacturer will continue 

 insensible to the advantages which arise from a choice 

 between good and bad. The evil complained of may last 

 for a time, but detection and change are certain. 



" We cannot doubt for a moment that the spirit of im- 

 provement in agriculture actuates the planter of the South 

 as well as the farmers of the North ; and that the fact that 

 better seed will produce better products, is greatly 

 appreciated and acted upon everywhere. But if the 

 merchant and manufacturer fail to appreciate the value of 



