nSTDUSTKY SHOULD BE DIVERSIFIED. 17 



putrefies. He who has Cotton to sell does not quake at the foot- 

 steps of the tax-gatherer, and can generally look the sheriff square 

 in the face. 



Admitting that the South has grown, and still grows, too much 

 Cotton — (and I judge that three millions of bales grown in 1870 

 would have netted her as large a sum as the four millions she 

 actually did grow) — I see no way to counteract this tendency but 

 by introducing new bi'anches of industry whereof the product will 

 also command money. In vain do you exhort the average planter 

 to grow more Corn and make more Pork : he is often in debt, and 

 chooses to produce what will surely sell for the money he sorely 

 needs. He is sure Cotton will do this ; he is not so sure as to Corn 

 or Pork. But plant one hundred Cotton and as many Woolen Fac- 

 tories on the soil of your State, making a steady cash market here 

 for Wool and Meat, for Grain and Vegetables, as well as Cotton, and 

 now your Agriculture will naturally and certainly divide its forces 

 and diversify its products. Farmers will grow diverse crops, if they 

 know that a sure cash market is at hand. A denser jiopulation, a 

 greater vaiiety and range of employments, these are pressing wants 

 of the entire Soiith. Every wheel set to turning on a Southern 

 water-fall, every manufactory of Edge-Tools or Farm Implements, 

 started in any of your cities or villages, is certain profitably to 

 divert labor from your Cotton-fields, as naked preaching never will. 

 There is hardly an acre of Southern land which would not be 

 doubled in value if Southern farms were mainly cultivated with 

 Southern-made implements. Southern backs clothed in Southern- 

 woven fabrics, and Southern dwellings filled with Southern-made 

 furniture and wares. And, now that Slavery has gone out, it 

 is high time that the useful arts were steadily and rapidly com- 

 ing in. 



Am I inculcating what would injure my own section ? Not at 

 all. The more you do for yourselves, the more you will require 

 from abroad. The State of Arkansas has more inhabitants than 

 the City of Boston ; yet the latter, while the focus of an immense 

 interchange and large consumption of domestic products, buys and 

 consumes far more of the productions of foreign lands. Our pur- 

 chases are limited, not by our needs, but by our means. A thousand 

 times it has been predicted that we should destroy our Foreign 

 Commerce by protecting Home Industry, and a thoiisand times this 



has been proved a fallacy by increased imports under high duties. 

 9, 



