1T476 2 , 477, 478, 479] exhaustive cultivation. 239 



witliout trouble, they might regenerate their soil and raise a bale of cotton per 

 acre, as of old. And when they discovered that instead, it would be necessary 

 to haul to their fields and scatter over them, a marl occurring in a bluff outside of 

 their fence, or to apply to them manures thus far carelessly thrown aside : would 

 turn up their noses in contempt of such old-fashioned, commonplace advice, and 

 perhaps remark that whenever their cultivated land gave out there was plenty 

 more to be had ; an 1 as for m inuring, itwistoo troublesome and would never pay. 

 47 6 a While I am far from attributing sentiment S like these to the majority, or 

 even to any large part of the planters of Mississippi, I have not so rarely met 

 with opinions like the alove, but that I might hope to do some good by assuring 

 and if possible, convincing persons holding them, that to entertain the hope of any 

 soil remaining productive forever, or even for any considerable length of time, 

 without manure, is utterly futile; that we cannot anywhere in physical nature 

 produce a useful ett'ect without a corresponding waste of power and material, 

 which must at some time be recruited or replaced, i; the effect is to continue ; 

 and that, if their land happens to be of such a quality that it can do without 

 manure in their lifetime, their children surely will have to resort to that expediei.t, 

 and will be taxed the more severely by the task of renovating the soil, the m< re 

 recklessly it has been drafted upon by the parents. And be it remembered, that 

 the burden thus imposed upon posterity (and not a far distant one either) is quite 

 out of proportion with the temporary advantage the present generation may 

 derive from it ; that in practicing a system of robbing the soil, we wantonly keep 

 them from the enjoyment of what does not afford us any corresponding advantage, 

 and what would have been theirs, had we not shirked the burden, and declined 

 bearing our just share of the sentence imposed upon all mankind — that they 

 sha 1 eat their bread in the sweat of their face. 



477. Imminence of Exhaustion. — It is not necessary, however, in all, or even 

 in the majority of cases, to take this high moral stand-point, respecting the 

 necessity of economizing the powers of the soil. So far from this, even the 

 present generation is rife with complaints about the exhaustion of soils — in a 

 region which, thirty years ago, had but just received the first scratch of t he 

 pi ..w-share ! In some parts of the State, the deserted homesteads and fields of 

 Broom-sedge, lone groves of Peach and China trees by the roadside, amid a 

 young growth of forest trees, might well remind the traveler of the descriptions 

 given of the aspect of Europe after the Thirty Years War. And true enough, 

 here, too, there has been melancholy waste of precious resources ; the soil has 

 been effectu lily stripped of all that was readily accessible ; its hidden treasures, 

 which a little judicious management would readily have coaxed out of it, have 

 been allowed to run to waste. Even now, the rich prairies, the garden-spots of 

 Mississippi, are giving out under the opnration of the same pernicious system ; 

 lands which, six yeais ago, could not have been bought at thirty dollars per acre, 

 are now ottered at ten. It is a peculiarity of the calcareous prairie soil, that it 

 gives out all at once, with little warning ; and whenever it does give out, it is 

 among the most difficult to renovate. 



478. I do not mean to say, that the early settlers could or should, under the 

 circumstances which surrounded them, have pursued a different course, and 

 commenced, at once, a regular system of agriculture. But for the roving dispo- 

 sition of these hardy pioneers of civilization, who will not stay to take any 

 trouble with a "tired" soil, the " Far West" would still be a wilderness. But 

 what was justifiable in them, is no longer so with their successors. As mem- 

 bers of a christian commonwealth, it is their right to use, but not to abuse, the 

 inheritance which is theirs, and to hand it down to their children as a blessing, 

 not as a barren, inert incubus, wherewith to drudge through life, as a penalty for 

 their fathers' wastefulness. 



479. Exhaustive Culture Irrational. — Whm we see a capitalist expending 

 every year, not only the interest on his money, but a part of the capital also, we 

 can calculate with certainty how long it will be before that man becomes a beg- 



