1C4 COTTON CULTURE. 



for common, unskilled labor, with returns so certain and 

 so generous as the cotton States of the North American 

 Republic. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO VARIOUS CLASSES OF PER- 

 SONS WHO PROPOSE TO ENGAGE IN COTTON GROWING. 



With such attractions and natural advantages as the 

 cotton States possess, and with commercial reasons so 

 cogent as those presented in the last chapter for believing 

 in a future for cotton growers in America more brilliant 

 than anything in the past, it is not to be presumed that 

 political disorder will, for any great length of time, seri- 

 ously embarrass the cotton interest. For a while it must 

 be supposed that the cotton growing interest will be 

 greatly deranged. There has been and will continue to 

 be considerable difficulty every spring in obtaining good 

 seed ; the caterpillar and the army-worm are more likely 

 to commit their depredations in seasons when the breadth 

 of lands in cotton is smaller than usual, and the culture 

 has been languid and imperfect. With cotton at an 

 average of ten cents per pound, the South for thirty years 

 before the war was rapidly increasing in wealth, and the 

 law of increment appeared to be such that the crop doub- 

 led itself evjery twenty years. Now, with cotton at two 

 or three times that price, and a larger amount of labor 

 seeking employment throughout the country than ever be- 

 fore, it is not credible that political differences and uncer- 

 tainties can long arrest the march of the great laws of 

 political economy. It requires little sagacity to predict 

 that this transition state cannot last long, since society is 

 so rigidly controlled by its material interests as not to 



