SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
107 
manufactures. And, finally, profitable to us because the 
exchange of products is made in our own ships. 
Should the Union be dissolved, there can be little doubt 
that, finally, all the Western and Middle States would go 
with the South. The West would follow the Mississippi. 
The Middle States would follow their commercial inter- 
j ests. New England would stand alone. Even without 
I the Middle States, however, the South would have im- 
mense advantages over the North. Euerything which she 
produces is wanted in England ; and in return for her pro- 
ducts Old England could send her, at lower rates than 
she is now paying, everything which is now sent her 
, from New England, She could thus at once “make 
terms” with England — while New England, producing 
nothing for export which Old England does not also pro- 
duce for export, would be left to trade with herself. 
Let the Union be dissolved to-morrow, and in thirty 
days every|manufacturer in New England would be bank- 
rupt — three-fourths of all the banks would have to wind 
up their affairs — nearly all the railroads would be with- 
j out the power of declaring a dividend in the next twenty 
years— a hundred thousand mechanics would be thrown 
I out of employment — and a full half of our shipping would 
! be rotting at the wharves. 
1 This is one view— a very fair view, of the first conse- 
quences the North of a dissolution of the Union. Let 
us now ask what would be the consequences of the imme- 
diate abolition of slavery at the South, admitting no harm 
to the Union, politically, to result from it 7 
There are, we will say, four millions of slaves at the 
South. Would these remain in the States where they are, 
if slavery should be abolished 7 x4.ll intelligent Southern- 
ers assure us that they would not. The fact that they 
could not be profitably employed as freemen— at least for 
the next thirty years— is plainly apparent. Even allow- 
ing that they would remain peaceable, and could he safely- 
entrusted with the privileges of citizenship, it is very cer- 
tain from the moment they became their own masters they 
would produce much less than they do at present. They 
would become burdens to the communities in which they 
resided, and thousands upon thousands of them would be 
driven North. In exchange for them, the South being 
forced to depend less upon cotton growing, and finding it 
necessary to manu.facture to a greater extent the articles 
now purchased at the xMorth, would import Northern la- 
borers, mechanics and manufactures. In twenty years, 
if we are not deceived, the South would manufacture her 
own shoes, hats, clothing, furniture, stoves, machinery,' 
&c., and millions of dollars, which now annually flow 
North, would be kept at home. The moment the cotton 
plantations of South Carolina and Georgia felt the depres- 
sion which inevitably result from universal emancipation, 
that moment would the shoe-makers of Massachusetts and 
the weavers of Rhode Island feel it also. The justice and 
reasonableness of this inference is admitted in the follow- 
ing which we find in the New York Eoening Post : 
“Suppose,” says our New York namesake, “that the 
Southern States could once rid thernselvds of slavery ; the 
effect would be that the North would almost immediately 
standstill. The fertile soils of the South; its more at- 
tractive climate ; its noble harbors and navigable waters, 
its vast uncultivated fields, would invite a rush of people 
from the free States, and turn the course of the emigration 
from Europe to the region below the Potomac. The growth 
of the free- States of the West, now so rapid, would be 
checked at once; its rising villages would cease to augment 
in population, or augment but slowly, and that rise in the 
value of land, on which the settlers now count so confi- 
dently and with so much exactness, would not happen.” 
The purpose of the Evening Post, here is to convince 
the South that she would add to her wealth by abolishing 
slavery ; but but who does not at once perceive that, even 
could this result be realized after many years of confusion, 
it would cost the North in wealth, all that the South could 
possibly gain 1 
We are not contending that slavery should continue to 
exist, or cease to exist as it is found profitable or unprofit- 
able to the North. We only throw the right and wrong 
of the institution out of the argument for the purpose of 
showing the falacy of four-fifths of the arguments which 
are offered to Northern men by abolition demagogues. 
These demagogues tell us that the North is wealthier than 
the South ; that our merchants and manufacturers and 
mechanics have grown rich while the South has stood 
still. We do not deny the fact. We only ask, from 
whence came this wealth, and how long could it be re- 
tained if slavery were abolished 1 
“Slavery may be a great outrage against humanity. We 
look upon it in this light, and haye no defence to offer for 
it. But we remind Northern men, not only that the North 
clung to while it promised to be profitable and kept up 
the traffic in human flesh long afler a cold climate and un- 
productive soil had sealed its doom in its own section, 
but that Northern merchants and Northern mechanics 
and Northern manufacturers are dependent on it to-day 
for their stately ships, their immense store-houses, their 
splendid dwellings, their paying railroads and their repu- 
tation for thrift.” 
CHxlRRED CLAY AS A FERTILIZEK. 
Messrs. Editors .—Know that a large number of the 
most intelligent landholdei’s and farmers in all parts of 
our extended country read the National Intelligencer, I 
should be pleased if you can find room for a few practi- 
cal suggestions addressed to them pointing out the value 
of Charred Clay for the improvement of impoverished 
farming lands. 
In all districts where the great staples, cotton, corn, 
wheat, and tobacco, are cultivated, experience proves that 
it is exceedingly difficult to prevent the deterioration of 
the soil. Extensive areas being ever under the plow, til- 
lage soon consumes the vegetable mould, heavy rains 
wash and leach the stirred earth, and the crops being uni- 
formly sent to distant markets, it is easy to understand 
how all these operations remove fertility from all culti- 
vated farms, and diminish, from year to year, the re- 
sources of the cultivator to prevent the final exhaustion 
and abandonment of his long arated fields. To make 
stable manure enough to meet the wants of our Southern 
plantation economy is out of the question, and to pur- 
chase guano, bone dust, or other commercial fertilizers is 
equally impracticable for the million. The mass of man- 
kind must ever look to the earth where it is cultivated for 
the food of agricultural plants; and as good clay contains 
more of this food than any other part of earthy matter, its 
economical development is a point in husbandry of the 
greatest importance. 
Heat, wisely employed, is unquestionably the most ef- 
fective and powerful agent known either to science or art 
for eliminating the insoluble elements of fruitfulness in any 
soil or rock where they exist. The ancients, who built 
and peopled cities of such dimensions and splendor as to 
be a marvel to all after ages, understood the utility of arti- 
ficial heat in agriculture far better than we do in the mid- 
dle of the nineteenth century. Virgil alludes to an old 
and well-known practice in the first book of his Georgies, 
where he says : 
“Soepe etiam steriles incendere profuit agros.” 
“Often it is advantageous to burn sterile fields.” 
Southern Planters shou’d bear in mind the fact that this 
maxim had its orgin in districts contiguous to the Medi- 
terranean, where the climate matures the olive, orange, 
and pine apple; and therefore where solar heat is by no 
means a feeble power in all tillage processes. It was pro- 
bably by slow degrees that man learned to roo.sl his cof- 
