SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
251 
jeather and cloth shoes and boots worn by the twenty- j 
seven millions of people now in the United States. Keep- i 
ing this fact in mind, let us inquire how it happens that 
you cannot visit any city or village in the remotest parts 
of our extended confederacy that has not stores and shops 
at which one may purchase shoes for men, shoes for wo- 
men, and shoes for children, manufactured by the edu- 
cated laborers of the old Bay State 1 Congress gives no 
protection to the shoe business of Massachusetts ; yet it 
IS far in advance of that of any other State or nation. The 
official returns last year show it to atnount to the enor- 
mous amount, considering the population of the State, 
and its other great interests, of S37,48'J,9’23. Leather 
was manufactured to the amount of 312.206,358. Taking 
leather, shoes and boots as one department of industry 
and the two amount to 319,639,281. In the making of 
iron, steel, edge-tools, castings, furniture, wooden-ware, 
machinery of all kinds, and a thousand and one nam.eless 
Yankee notions, there is exhibited equal success. But 
the mind grasps the truth most firmly when it concen- 
trates its thoughts on a few prominent points, rather than 
upon an indefinite number. Hence, we will call atten- 
tion to the fiict that the manufacture of colon, woollen, 
linen and silk goods, of leather, boots and shoes alone, 
amount to more than one hundred million dollars a year. 
In a word, the people who were the first of all Christian 
communities to adopt the principle of universal education, 
now find themselves producing some fifty million dollars 
a year more than any other nation or people, according 
to population. With such annual returns, can it be rea- 
sonably doubted that a small annual tax for the education 
of all citizens is a wise measure for any State to adopt I ■ 
Perhaps some few of our readers may still doubt as to the 
wants of the South in the matter of common schools. If 
any such there be, we trust they will commend our hum- 
ble researches, in future numbers, into the facts of the 
case. At present, we invite attention to the favorite 
branch of Southern industry — the production of cotton. 
Estimating the annual crop at an average of three and 
a quarter million bales of 400 lbs. each, and the compen- 
sation to the growers at an average of seven and a half 
cents per pound, and it gives to all the capital in land, 
negroes, mules and farm implements a return ofS97,500,- 
000. We have not the presumption to attempt to say 
v/ha: is the amount of capital thus employed ; nor to inti- 
mate, at this time, the probable damage done to the soil 
by the unbalanced culture of a single staple for export. — 
Allowing that the injury done to the soil of the South is 
no greater than the cost of the raw cotton, leather and 
woo! worked up by the few manufacturers in hlassachu- 
seits, and the gains of the latter, including compensation 
for labor, exceed those of our entire cotton crop about five 
million dollars ! 
The cotton manufacturers of Massachusetts do not in- 
form us how much they pay for the raw material which 
they annually consume; but they tel! us that they receive 
for this kind of goods, m round numbers, thirty-seven and 
a half million dollars! 
Looking mainly to the maxims that money is power, 
and power is ever aggressive, is it not time to think seri- 
ously of developing the industrial capabilities of the poor 
white persons of the planting States I Why should their 
latent talents, and powers of production render so little 
service to the States in which they live I Why not give 
them a much higher standard of social and physical com- 
fort, of moral and intellectual culture, that they too may 
have wealth in servants, and a direct and increased pe- 
cuniary interest in maintaining all the rights of the 
South I 
To enact a law permitting a man to hold one or more 
servants exempt from execution, does not in the least cul- 
tivate his reasoning faculties, nor establish a school for j 
! the due education of his children ; it simply places a legal 
! shield between tliis kind of property, to a small extent, 
and the rights of honest creditors. It strikes us as being 
a quack remedy that promises more than it is possible 
for it to perform. True conservatism is developed in the 
heart and judgment of man by wisely improving both — 
not by treating him with cold neglect, and standing upcn 
the extreme rights and dignity of property. 
Within the memory of the writer, the slave holders of 
New York were urged to unite with other property hold- 
ers and found, a system of free schools ; they refused, and, 
in return, were first compelled to manumit their slaves, 
and then do their share in supporting common schools. 
All property has its dvlies as well as rights. L. 
lEISII POTATOES AKD STABLE MANURE. 
We planted last spring about half of our Irish potatoes 
in nearly new ground without manure, except wood 
ashes, and half with pretty good manure direct from horse 
stables, put into the hills with the seed. As they had no 
rain from the middle of May till near the first of July, 
both parcels suffered alike from drought; but those not 
manured are almost without tubers, while those grown in. 
contact with manure are dark colored, bitter, and nearly 
worthless. 
All roots and tubers grown in the earth are deterioated 
by coming in contact with unrotted manures. We knew 
this before applying recent excrements to our garden and 
small fields ; but there was no other manure on the fiirm, 
or to be had on such terms as we could afford to pay. 
Hence, potatoes, cabbages and beets begin to decay befoie 
they are ripe. ‘ 
Rapid growth and protracted hot weather doubtless 
promote their premature rottings. By subsoil irrigation; 
one may push garden vegetables forward to early ma- 
turity ; but whether they will be more liable to rot m 
consequence of this forcing process, we have yet to learn. 
It is, however, better to water all plants from six to twelve 
inches below the sur.tace, and about their roots, than on 
the surface, in the common way. In this subsoil watei- 
ing we escape the baking of the ground that fiequentlj' 
follows surface irrigation. We are not yet fuhy satisfiea 
as to the best plan of conveying water into the earth ; but 
will suggest, that while in the humid climate of England, 
thousands of miles of pipe tile are put down to carry off 
an excess of water in the sod, in our comparatively dry 
climate, thousands of miles of similar tiling may be used 
to convey water into the soil which has loo little of this 
element. Give water the proper head and it is obvious 
that it will flow thiough a thousand pipes into all the 
earth where they may be laid. Indeed, to water and ma- 
nure plants from below upwards (feeding their roots with 
their appropriate aliment.) have long been favorite notions 
with the writer. The earth is used by nature, and may 
be by man, to a very considerable depth as a magazine of 
food for the vegetable kingdom. Water, with all that it 
m.ay hold in solution, is destined to be stored up one\eiy 
plantation for agricultural purposes. Irish potatoes, in 
particular, need a good deal of water; and no plant can 
grow without it. Enough falls in the year, but it is badly 
j distributed for the farmer. ^ 
