VOL. XML AUGUSTA, GA., FEBEUAHY, 1855. % iNO. 2. 
□ DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO THE IMPROVEMENT OF SOUT1HERH AGEICULTURE. 
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WILLIAM S. JONES, Publisher. 
DANIEL LEE, M. D., and D. REDMOND, Editors 
^lautatinE Ctnitarai} anil 
PROFITS AND WASTES OF AGRICULTURE. 
Agriculture has no principles nor practices that better 
deserve the most searching investigation than its profits 
and its wastes. It is not an easy task to measure the pre- 
cise profits svhich accrue from any given amount of capital 
and labor employed in tillage or husbandry, but with due 
preliminary care in keeping farm accounts, one may ap- 
proximate exactness in this business pursuit as in all 
others. The main difficulty lies in habits of carelessness 
and indifference in matters of debt and credit as they af- 
fect rural affairs. Where all the other elements of profit 
an'd loss are fuly estimated, there still remains an unset- 
tled account with the soil in point of loss or gain of the 
raw material of crops, which is most difficult of adjust- 
ment. Cultivated land often shows a temporary improve- 
ment from deeper plowing, or finer tilth, yielding larger 
harvests for afew years, to be followed by a more thorough 
exhaustion in the end, from constant neglect to make ad- 
equate restitution. Profits thus attained are exceedingly 
deceptive ; for they are realized in a large degree by the 
perhaps unconscious consumption of capital in the soil. 
The fact cannot be too often nor too earnestly pressed 
upon public attention, that the cultivator never produces 
a single plant of any kind from air and water alone. In 
the growth of plants there are elements of an earthy na- 
ture consumed and wasted away, which must be restored 
again, to perpetuate Nature’s even balance between soil 
and its fruits. If such were not the fact, then all manur- 
ing would, obviously, be unnecessary, and the gradual 
impoverishment of tilled land an impossibility. When a 
railroad company or a bank m.akes large dividends and 
apparent profits, either by borrowing money or infringing 
in any other way upon its Cicpital, the transaction is 
deemed disreputable, and sometimes punished as a fraud 
upon creditors and innocent stockholders. It would be 
wise to extend this high moral principle, so important to 
.the rights of property and the good of the community, to 
all our dealings with mother Earth. All her accountable 
children have equal rights from generation to generation, 
in and to her natural fertility. To deny this is to cancel 
all obligations of man to his offspring — all chums of pos- 
terity to plow, plant, and reap as fruitful fields as their 
fathers did. If it be the order of Providence and a law' of 
our race, to multiply and increase its numbers, then there 
is a corresponding obligation to augi.ient the fertility of 
land . that it may both feed and clothe this providential in- 
crease of human beings. To diminish the fertility of 
land, and at the same time augment the number of men, 
women and children to subsist on its products, is amoral 
defect as obvio^ as it is prevalent. We do not like, in 
our editorial capacity, to pronounce any common practice 
sinful ; but our convictions on this point are so clear, and 
our sense of its injustice so deep, that we hope to be par- 
doned, if it be a little out of place to urge the wickedness 
of seeking wealth by seizing and selling the natural ca- 
pacity of the soil to support mankind. Where a man 
creates fertility, he may rightfully sell it again as the le- 
gitimate fruits of his industry. But the natural resources 
of arable lands cannot be innocently dried up, simply be- 
cause the act is at wmr with the best and the highest inter- 
ests of society. Profits thus attained are both ephemeral 
and partial — sometimes shining, but always empty bub- 
bles that float awhile upon the stream of time, and are gone 
forever. 
To prove beyond cavil that Providence 'punishes this 
great wrong done to mankind, attention is invited to a 
few statistics drawn from the practice of agriculture in 
Massachusetts. In an address delivered before the 
Housatonic Agricultural Society, by ex-Governor Bout- 
well, last autumn, and published at length in the Decem- 
ber number of Hunt's Merchant's Magazine , in w'hich 
the statistics, profits and wastes of tillage and husbandry 
in that State are discussed with uncommon talent, accura- 
cy and power, he says, “Massachusetts is now more than 
two hundred years old ; in all her history, she has been 
blest by an enterprising, industrious population ; yet the 
aggregate accumulation of these tw'o centuries of labor 
and economy is only six hundred dollars for each person. 
Three years of non-production would make her poorer 
than she was the day the May Flower first gave herself 
to the icy gales of our coast.” 
That the surplus eai-nings of a most ingenious, intelli- 
gent, money-saving people, drawing largely from their 
fishing and commercial resources, as well as from manu- 
factures and agriculture, should only be equal to three 
years’ support after two hundred years’ labor and econo- 
my, is a curious and pregnant fict. According to the 
census of 1850, there were 55,0S'J farmers in that State, 
who had an average of38 3--1 acres each in tillage, mead- 
ows and pasturage. It would occupy more room than vve 
I can well spare, to enter at length into a critical analysis 
of the official returns by which Gov. E. proves that the 
profits of capital ar.d labor employed in agriculture in the 
old Bay State :lo not exceed two per cent, per annum. His 
“conclusion” is thus stated; “The conclusion from these 
facts is, that Pie net income on the agricultural capital of 
the S'ate docs not exceed two per cent. This is an un- 
saiisfactory rcsuli, and if it is a necessary one, the so .ner 
our young fanners emigrate, the better for them.” 
