FERTILIZERS. 



545 



if there is no debt and no mortgage. There is no remedy in 

 improved science or higher skill ; none in more hours of toil 

 and fewer of rest and sleep. Improved prices only can save the 

 agriculture of that section. 



Is the case the same with the great planting area, whose 

 staples are cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice ? There is not upon 

 the face of the earth such another country as this planting area 

 of the United States. Here all natural resources, capable of 

 contributing to the greatness of a people, are concentrated as 

 nowhere else. With the great world-staple, cotton, alone, that 

 country ought to be rich. There can scarcely arrive a period 

 when this queen of crops will fail to pay those who pursue its 

 culture intelligently. But, in order to put disaster out of the 

 question, cotton-planters must free themselves of financial con- 

 ditions which no other producers under heaven could support 

 for a single season. They are between the upper and the 

 nether millstones, the factors and the banks. 



The world's supply of bright tobacco must also come mainly 

 from this same immensely favored country. The successful 

 handling of this article demands a thorough practical knowledge 

 and experience of a very highly skilled technique ; but those 

 who possess this knowledge and experience, with the necessary 

 patience and energy, hold in their hands a practical monopoly 

 of the highest grade of a staple which cannot fail to pay, until 

 the burdens imposed by government have already destroyed the 

 living of the great mass of producers. Is it too much to say, 

 that a people living in the full blaze of all the lights of civiliza- 

 tion, as it now exists, who shall permit such a fate to overtake 

 them, will deserve that fate ? 



From all the piedmont steps of this magnificent country flow 

 down, in all directions, to gulf and sea, unfreezing and unfailing 

 water-powers which will one day become prime perennial sources 

 of the mechanical forces of the great future ; to wit, electricity 

 and compressed air, which shall be distributed to every planta- 

 tion and farm-house everywhere. The mineral wealth of this 

 country is incalculable from present data. The potential bread 

 and meat producing power of the section under consideration, 

 under a skilled and scientific agriculture, is able to provide 

 abundantly for more than one hundred millions of people. The 



