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NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



June 



the great West, yet we know that none of the sta- 

 ple crops, of corn, wheat or roots used for food, 

 are spontaneous, and therefore that the amount 

 raised the present year must fall vastly short of 

 the usual product. No doubt, the fiat of the re- 

 bel Congress and Governors, by which planters 

 have been forbidden to raise more than a limited 

 amount of cotton, will increase the product of corn 

 in some localities, yet this can by no means com- 

 pensate for the wide-spread desolation brought 

 upon their land by this wicked rebellion. 



We have daily accounts even now of the vast 

 quantities of wheat and corn in store at the West. 

 Only a few days ago, an article went the rounds 

 of the papers containing calculations as to the 

 comparative cheapness of coal and Indian corn as 

 fuel! and we have before us now, a paper in 

 which it is demonstrated by a Western farmer, 

 that it is cheaper to feed out corn to sheep, than to 

 sell it at ten cents a bushel, because it costs forty 

 cents a bushel to transport it from the far West 

 to New York, whereas forty cents worth of wood 

 can be sent there for half a cent. 



Such statements must seem to readers in the 

 Old World like fairy tales. Indeed, the stories of 

 Sindbad, the sailor, are hardly more wonderful 

 than these accounts of the wealth of our country 

 in corn ; and if we should add to this, a history 

 of a part of the country where it is almost unsafe 

 to dig a hole in the ground, lest oil should spout 

 up and drown you before you could get out of the 

 way, we ought hardly to expect to be believed ! 



With all allowance, however, for Nature's prod- 

 igality, we venture to predict in the course of 

 next winter much suffering for want of food in 

 this country. The North and West can feed 

 themselves, and will have a surplus for those who 

 can buy. The insane course of the South, in de- 

 stroying her cotton and tobacco, and the general 

 disorganization of all her business, will render it 

 impossible for her to buy. If we desired to humil- 

 iate the planters of the South, and render them 

 powerless for years, we could do it in no way so 

 effectually as to make them poor, for a man in 

 debt, a large family, white or black, dependent on 

 him for daily bread, with no means to supply their 

 wants, is a pitiable object, and none the less so, if 

 his own folly has brought his sufferings upon him. 



The cotton planters are always in debt to about 

 the amount of one crop. This rebellion found 

 them in that condition. The crop which should 

 have paid that debt is wasted and burned, and no 

 other crop is growing to replace it. Their sub- 

 stance is dissipated, their labor disorganized, their 

 currency ruined, their debts are overwhelming. A 

 national bankrupt act will, by and by, pay their 

 debts, and Northern men will lose the amount, but 

 then the planters will have neither money nor cred- 

 it, even if land and slaves remain. The question is 



not, now, however, as to the remote future, but 

 how is the South to be fed next winter ? We say 

 it in no spirit of boasting, but we believe that 

 Northern charity will be invoked to their aid. 

 There may be food enough in the South even, for 

 all. There was food enough in Ireland, when 

 millions were starving, to feed her whole popula- 

 tion, but it was sold to those who had money 

 wherewith to buy, and not distributed, with the 

 even hand of charity, to all. 



So must it be at the South. The half million 

 of men in arms or otherwise, concerned there in 

 this rebellion, discharged utterly destitute, from 

 the ranks of the army, and from labor on the pub- 

 lic works — how are they and their families to be 

 fed? 



With their farms well tilled by the boys who 

 have staid at home, and their purses well filled 

 with the wages so nobly earned in their country's 

 service, our soldiers will find their homes set in 

 order for their return, but desolation and poverty 

 must meet the returning rebels. 



It is idle to think of finding a market at the 

 South, as our Northern traders are finding at 

 Nashville, where everything is wanted, but there 

 is nothing to pay with but confederate scrip. We 

 should give them corn for cotton, but these fire- 

 worshippers have sacrificed their King to their 

 new Moloch, and wiU have little cotton to spare, 

 so that we can do little for them in the way of 

 trade. 



How much surplus food this country has here- 

 tofore produced, nobody will ever know. We 

 have supplied ourselves and our animals, and all 

 foreign demand, and the granaries of the West are 

 yet full. It is stated in a paper of May 10th that 

 "over 2,000,000 bushels of grain arrived at Buf- 

 falo between Friday night and Monday morning 

 last. It was the largest grain fleet that ever ar- 

 rived at that poi't." This quantity would supply 

 an army of half a million men with nearly a bar- 

 rel of flour each ! The accounts from England 

 thus far are not encouraging for their growing 

 crop of wheat, and they will probably draw on us 

 for a large amount. 



The prospect, on the whole, is, that somebody 

 will want all that we can raise upon our farms. If 

 the South are in want, they will look in vain across 

 the sea to their sympathizing friends for succor. 

 The charity of the British government, which 

 would gladly have seen this rebellion prosper till 

 it divided into two feeble rival nations the great 

 republic of the West, will grow cold towards de- 

 feated rebels, and we shall be sneeringly told to 

 feed our citizens, now that we have conquered 

 them. We believe that day will come, before an- 

 other year, when the North will respond as nobly 

 to the call of the South for bread, as she respond- 

 ed to the call of liberty and law, to arm in their 



