142 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
halls once vocal with the sound of mirth and 
prosperity'] No more are heard the woodman’s 
axe and plowman’s song among the hills, once 
presenting the appearance of abundant vegeta- 
tion, but now of red clay. The true causes I 
think, may be attributed to the over-anxiety of 
the farmer to become rich, and to ignorance of 
the principles of agriculture as they may be ap- 
plied to the soil of Georgia. 
Almost every farmer uses powerful exertions 
to acquire wealth. No sooner is the return in 
money received for one crop than he makes his 
calculations for another. He is always straining, 
and always in want of more. And as cotton 
has hitherto commanded a high price, he has 
cleared his land and made a continued succes- 
sion of crops until it was impoverished and use- 
less. Again the axe and the grubbing hoe have 
been heard in the woods, and the darkness of 
night been chased away by the burning of brush 
heaps — again the fields have become white with 
cotton, and the proceeds of it invested in the pur- 
chase of more hands or more rich land. Thus 
he goes on from year to year, without regard to 
the future condition of his farm, buying his hogs 
and horses from Kentucky, and his flour from 
the North, often using inferior implements of 
husbandry, until he disposes of that plantation, 
for which he paid thousands, for a few hundred 
dollars, and drags his family away from an abode 
always comfortable, often elegant, and endear- 
ed by all the associations of home and early days, 
and hastens to a western wild in order to plant 
more cotton. Many evils grow out of this prac ■ 
tice ; hence you find an unstable, fluctuating po- 
pulation, and the State in a few years loses its 
identity. The early habits of our youth may be 
corrupted in a strange and irregular state of soci- 
ety ; that stability ot character which all ought to 
possess maybe lost, and the principal element of 
patriotism, the love o^ home, may be destroyed. 
Of what use are internal improvements — of the 
construction of railroads and canals, and the buld- 
ing of manufactories, if the soil, which is the foun- 
dation of all prosperity, is impoverished and ren- 
dered valueless. 
We are ignorant, too, of the principles that lie 
at the foundation of agriculture. VVe are apt to 
imagine that it requires but little scientific skill 
to make a farmer. We follow in the footsteps of 
our fathers in farming, when w-e do not follow 
them in anything else. We traverse the land and 
navigate the ocean by steam. Did they do it 
Improvements are daily being made in every de- 
partment of science which they never dreamed of. 
But we have adopted the same routine in the 
practice of farming which they pursued. 
Itis a fact that corn, cotton and wheatare com- 
posed of substances essentially difleren t from each 
other, and each of these should be planted in that 
soil which contains substances most favorable to 
their growth. And every practical farmer knows 
that it is improper to plant the same crop always 
in the same field. Air, sun and rain will not 
make good produce unless there be good ground. 
Whenever, therefore, the soil becomes defective 
towards the production of a certain crop, ma- 
nures ought to be employed to supply the defi- 
ciency. Aswe l might we expect cows to give 
milk and horses to be in good condition for work, 
without the food necessary for them, as the land 
to produce well without manure. This is the 
point to which the farmer’s attention should be 
directed ; and hence the necessity of a knowledge 
of the properties of the different soils — in short, 
of chemistry as applied to agriculture. I believe 
the farmer ought to be educated for his profession 
as well as the doctor or lawyer for theirs. Our 
teacher has proposed to introduce into his school 
the study of agricultural chemistry, and we 
ought to embrace the opportunity afforded. — 
There is an agricultural paper, edited by one of 
the m St scientific and practical farmers in Geor- 
gia, which ought to be in the house of every 
farmer, and from vrhich we may acquire much 
knowledge. Our county has honored the cause 
of agriculture by the establishment of an Agri- 
cultural Society, whose benefits I hope will be 
felt far and wide; and it is to be hoped that ere 
long the farmer will take that elevated position in 
society for intelligence, industry and skill in his 
profession, to which he is justly entitled. 
Electricity. — A lemon tree has been made 
to produce several crops of perfect fruit in quick 
succession by the uss of the galvanic battery. 
Census of Hancock. 
Mr. Editor: — The Legislature of Georgia, 
at its last session, in making provisions for the 
taking of the census, negleoled to require those 
to whom that duty might be assigned, to take 
also, atthe same time, the Agricultural statistics 
of the country. Believing that such informa- 
tion would be valuable to our people generally, 
and desirous that it should be furnished, at least 
for Hancock, I sought and obtained from the 
Inferior Court the appointment, that the citi- 
zens of my own and native county might be in- 
formed, not only what they grew lor consump- 
tion and for market, but also what they bought 
which they could have raised, and what they 
paid for it. 
It has been the custom in Georgia to make 
cotton to purchase horses, mules, poik and flour, 
and from a people too that did not barter for any 
of our products. Nothing but our money would 
pay for their articles. That money never re- 
turned to us through any other channel, and of 
course such a trade has kept uo a continual 
drain upon the country. The opinion has been 
prevalent among us that it was cheaper for cot- 
ton growers to purchase their supplies than to 
raise them. A single view of the case would 
satisfy any one that the policy is bad, even when 
cotton hears a fair price. When cotton is 
bringing a fair price everything else brings a 
corresponding fair price, or when cotton sud- 
denly rises to a good price the rise of other ar- 
ticles IS simultaneous with it. But when cotton 
falls, it lakes a year or more, and sometimes two, 
for other articles to fall in the same ratio, and the 
farmer who has neglected to raise his own sup- 
plies, not only suffers by the reduced price of 
his cotton, but in having to pay the former or the 
same price for his supplies as when his cotton 
bore a high price. The result of my observa- 
tion is, that the farmers who made a little corn, 
wheat, oats, pork or bacon, wool, potatoes, and 
occasionally a horse to sell, and not more than 
three bags of cotton to the hand, was usually 
the money loaner, while he who raised eight 
bales to the hand and bought his pork, horses, 
mules and flour complained most of the hard 
times, and not unfrequently was the money bor- 
rower to the tune of sixteen per cent. 
The conclusion then is just, that it the farmers 
of Georgia had raised their own pork, horses, 
mules and flour, tanned their own leather, made 
the ir negroes’ shoes, clothes and blankets, they 
would be vastly better off than they are, and 
many would have been saved the mortification 
they have felt at seeing their property brought 
to the block, under the sheriff’s hammer. 
My object in laying the Agricultural statistics 
of Hancock before the public, is to arrest their 
attention on this subject; for what is true of 
Hancock, is true of the balance of the State, 
and the cotton growing region generally. The 
extent of this rule varies in the different sections 
of the cotton growing region, but everywhere its 
bad consequences are to be strictly measured by 
the extent, great or limited, to which the system 
is carried of raising cotton to purchase supplies, 
lam happy to believe that Hancock, in this par- 
ticular, has materially changed her course. Her 
expenditures are scarcely the fourth of what 
they were a few years ago. Now, the principle 
part of the pork bought is by the inhabitants of 
Sparta^ Mt. Zion and Pow'elton, and a portion 
of that supply is lurnished by the farmers of 
the county, the source from which the towns 
should be entirely furnished; for thus the money 
w'hich must necessarily be paid out by those 
whose occupations will not permit them to raise 
it, would be kept in the country. 
I am happy also to find that our farmers are 
supplying our towm with an excellent article of 
flour, and many of them are raising their own 
horses and mules. This I attribute to two 
causes : first, the very low price of cotton, 
and secondly, the influence oux Planters' Club, 
which has done much to improve the Agricul- 
ture of our county, and caused our citizens to 
think more correctly upon the subject of wear- 
ing out their lands to make cotton to purchase 
that which they could more easily make. I pro- 
ceed to lay before you the census of Hancock, 
the quantity ot crops and the amount of money 
laid out for supplies : 
Number of free white persons 3,642. 
Slaves and free persons of color, 6,407. 
Free white males between 6 and 16 years, 605. 
Free white females between 6 and 15, 504. 
Slaves, 6,348. Free persons of color, 59. 
Deaf and dumb, 8. Lunatics, 5. 
No, of bushels Corn raised in 1844, 362,856. 
Bushels of Wheat do., 17,683. 
Bushels of Oats do., 31,880. 
Pounds of Ginned Cotton do., 3,826,892. 
Pounds of Pork raised do., 1,491,460. 
Pounds of Pork bought, not raised in the 
State do., 228,749. 
Pounds ot Flour bought, not raised in the 
State, 13,750. 
Horses and mules bought, not raised in the 
Stale, from the 1st of April, 1844, to the 1st of 
April, 1845, 82. 
Amount paid out for horses and mules, pork 
and flour, not raised in the State, for the year 
1844, S 13, 205. 
This statement approximatesas near the truth 
as it IS possible, unless every man had kept a 
strict account of what he had made. 
From the foregoing statements it appears 
that Hancock raised by the last crop 3,826,892 
pounds of cotton, which at five cents, about the 
average price received for it, brought into the 
hands of the farmers, S191, 344.50. Deduct 
the expense of freight, storage, care, &c., at S4. 
25 per bale on 9,567 bags, the number it 
would take to pack the crop, and we have the 
total necessary expense amounting to $40,657, 
W'hich deducted from the amount received would 
leave in the hands of the farmers $150,685 of 
net profits. From this take $13,205, the amount 
expended last year for necessaries, and you 
have the amount ot money left in the hands of 
the farmers in the county $137,480. It will be 
seen by this calculation that the amount expen- 
ded for supplies is a little over 8 per cent, upon 
the net profits received on the crop. By apply- 
ing this to the State, and taking only sixty-five 
out of the seventy-five counties in the State that 
grow cotton for market, and taking Hancock as 
the average, it will be seen that the net receipts 
of the State is $9,794,525, and the expenditure 
of the State for necessaries that she could make 
herself would be $858,325. What an amount 
for such an injury, as I think I can prove it to be ! 
Is there any one who will doubt for one mo- 
ment that Georgia could raise $858,228 in pork, 
horses, mules and flour cheaper than to raise the 
money, by growing cotton to pay for it, to say 
nothing of the advantage accruing to our lands 
in the raising of those necessary supplies, and 
the actual independence of the people. But 
again, let us apply this calcula'ion to the whole 
cotton growing region, and as the per cent, paid 
out by Hancock is perhaps below the average 
paid out by the whole, I will assume twenty per 
cent, as the average, and 2,400,000 bales as the 
number of the last crop; from which deduct 
tw'enty per cent., and you have left 1,920,000 
bales. The question is, what increase ot price 
would decrease of quantity give ? There is no 
rule. by which this question could be correctly 
answered, but supposing that 2,400,000 bales to 
be only a full and plentiful supply, and knowing 
that there is a daily increase in Manufactories, 
and a continually increasing demand for the 
manufactured articles, it is sate to say that the 
price w'ould increase, at least in the same pro- 
portion as the reduction in quantity, an I thus 
we would have the same amount of money in 
the country for 1,920,000 bags as we now have 
for 2,400,000. And it is probable that the in- 
creased price would in a year or two go to fifty 
if not one hundred per cent. It is easy to pre- 
sume that a country would be more prosperous 
and happy to raise her supplies within herself 
than to purchase them from another, especially 
when it is remembered that the former course 
will keep an equal, if not a greater, amount of 
money among them at home, and atthe same time 
