92 



THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



many bushels at seventy-five or even fifty cenis a 

 bushel, will certainly come to an errnrieout! conclu- 

 sion. But those ol" us who sysiernatically pur- 

 sue the business of raising live stocU, can testily 

 that the quantity of corn necessary to raise hn<:s, 

 horses or mules, is extremely inconsiderable. Oats, 

 whether harvested lor tlie work horses and mules, 

 or used as pasturaue lor stock hogs and stock 

 horses and mules, is an invaluable crop lor a cot- 

 ton |)lanier. 'J'liat which is used as pasturacre, 

 while it wii! cost only the labor of prepariu": 

 the jiround and seeding it, will keep all the slock 

 in fine order, from the middle of summer iiniil the 

 opening of the pea fields, and these, vvtiich cost 

 scarcely anv labor, will keep iheni in like order, 

 with very little aid Irom the corn crib, until De- 

 cember. Fro(u this time regular feeding Vi^ill be 

 required for about liiur muni lis, and a|"ier that, very 

 little will sutHce liil the oat pastures are again 

 ready. In this view of the sultjecl, I have omit- 

 ted many usel'ul auxiliaries, such as p'ltaloes, 

 pindars, peaches and afiples, the two latter ol' 

 which are ofien permitted to rot on the ground, 

 though excellent lood for hoijtj, and peihaps the 

 least ex[)ensive of all. Nor have I embraced in 

 it the artificial grasses, though I am quite san- 

 guine from the experiment 1 now have in pro- 

 gress, that it) most of the slrona soils of ihe coun- 

 try, blue grass and herds grass will succeed very 

 nearly as well as they do in Iventucky. Upon the 

 ■whole, then, it is my deliberate opmion, lounded 

 t:pon my own exp^rieiu-e and observation as a 

 •p'auter, that in S lu h Carolina, and particularly 

 the upp:M- couniry districts, it would be true econo- 

 my lor the planters to raise their own siock, even 

 if th^y could always buy Kentucky pnrk at three 

 dollars a head. But let it be remembered that to 

 accomplish this, they must devote themselves to 

 it as an essential branch of iheir business. A 

 regular system must be adopted and a compe- 

 tenl person be charged with its execution ; and 

 overseers must be made to know, that it is as 

 much their duty to superintend it, as the culliva- 

 lion of the coiton crop ; for hogs and horses can 

 no more thrive wiihout proper attention, than corn 

 and cotion can svow without attention. And it is 

 worihy of remark, that when hoas are fat or in a 

 growing order, it requires not half so much to keep 

 tliem ill that condition, as it would require to sus- 

 tain poor ho^rs and prevent them from growing 

 poorer. It is, therefore, a most obvious rule of 

 econo-tiy, never to permit slock hogs to sink be- 

 low what we denominate a growing condition. 

 The corn that will be required (o keep them in 

 that condition during four or five months in Ihe 

 year, will be less than that which would be re- 

 quired in extra feeding to prepare poor hogs for 

 the pjauirhter pen ; and at the same age, their 

 weiiiht will be fifty per cent, greater, and their flesh 

 wdl be much more firm, than that of hogs brought 

 up in poverty and suddenly fatlened. I am now 

 .speaking the actual result of my own experience, 

 and I have been astonished to perceive how litile 

 ■ corn is required to prevent fat hogs from getting 

 ,poor. 



As an important part of the branch of economy 

 •we are now considering, every planter should keep 

 as large a stock of neat cattle, and of sheep, as his 

 ■pasturage and the ofial of the plantation will sup- 

 :porf. To. this extent, there is no description of 

 i«tock 60 valuable in proportion to the exfienso of 



mainiainini? them. Their flesh is much cheaper 

 than that of hogs, and besides supplying the table 

 of the planter wi'h an abundance of good beef, 

 butler and mutton, the former will advantageously 

 supply one lialfof the plantation rations of meat 

 duriuir the autumnal mouths; and the latter, all 

 the woo! re(|uired lor clothing the negroes in win- 

 ter. In addition to all this, it is the opinion of the 

 most experienced planters, in which I fully concur, 

 that where cattle are penned every night on 

 irroiinds properly covered with litter, the manure 

 ihey will make in ihe course of the year, will very 

 nearly defray the expense of maintniuiug ihem. 



I have thus ai:empied to show that it is the true 

 interest of every [ilanier to raise all the live stock 

 required for his own use and for the use and con- 

 sumption of his own plantation, though no one 

 else should pursue the same policy. 



I now propose to consider the subject in a still 

 more interesting point of view. I propose to 

 inquire what would be the effect ol' this system 

 upon the general prosperity of the cotton planting 

 states, assuming that it should be universally 

 adopted. It is not extravagant to estimate the 

 annual ex[)ense which a planter would incur in 

 purchasing his supplies of stock, at one tenth of 

 the net proceeds of his coiton crop, as exhibited 

 on the books of his factor. Assumini;, then, that 

 the labor divertr-d from the production of' cotton, 

 in order to raise thes'^ sup[)lies, would diminish the 

 c^lloa crop in the same proportion, it would fol- 

 low that each individual planter would derive as 

 large a net income from his diminished cotton 

 crop, as he would have derived from one tenth 

 larger, if he purchased his stock, even supposing 

 that the diminished coiton crop, brought no hiaher 

 price than could have been obtained lor the larger 

 one. But here we realize the grand result of the 

 proposed relbrin in ouragricultural economy. 



It is a well established principle of political 

 economy, confirmed by the uniform ex|ierieuce of 

 the cotton planting states, that when the supply 

 of a commodity exceeds the eti'ective demand, the 

 price is diminished, not in proportion to the ex- 

 cess, but in a still greater proportion. If, then, 

 we assume that the proposed relbrm would reduce 

 the annual cotton crop from two millions of bales, 

 to one million eight hundred thousand, and that 

 the efT'eclive demand of the world would not ex- 

 ceed the latter number, it would clearly follow 

 from Ihe above stated principle that the smaller 

 crop of one million eight hundred thousand bales, 

 would yield a greater aggregate income than the 

 larger crop of two millions of bales. In the ha- 

 bitual state of our cotton trade, with a constant 

 tendency in the production to exceed the demand, 

 such vv'ould always be the result of diminished 

 produciion where no extraordinary causes existed 

 to check consumption. It results from this rea- 

 soning that the planting states would realize from 

 the universal adoption of the proposed reform, a 

 clear aggregate saving of the sum annually ex- 

 pended in purchasing live stock ; and that each 

 individual p'anter, besides greatly increasing the 

 comlbrts of his establishment, would add ten per 

 cent, to his annual income. Entirely satisfied, as 

 I am, of the soundness of this reasoning, and the 

 justness of the conclusion to which it leads, I am 

 aware that it is exposed to an apparent objection. 

 It may be naturally asked, how it happens that 

 the planters, a class of men sufficiently intelligent 



