84 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
LABOR, NORTH AND SOUTH. 
An all-prevailing argument in favor of our reviled sys- 
tem of domestic servitude is to be found in the fact, that it 
has, thus far, been steadily and closely accompanied by 
thrift and prosperity in every department of home indus- 
try. In spite of the most oppressive injustice, in the form 
of unequal exactions, favoriteism in the disimbursement 
of revenue, &c., our half of the Union has gone on increas- 
ing in all the elements of wealth and greatness, until at 
length we stand, confessedly, a chosen people, upon whose 
exertions a benignant Providence has thought good to pour 
forth one continued stream of approval and remuneration. 
The blight and mildew which were to cover our “accursed 
section” as a pall, where now is it to be found 1 Let our 
agricultural advances, our factories, our institutions of 
learning, our churches and our railroads answer the ques- 
tion. Last, but not least, let the futile imputation, which 
that question would convey, be branded as it deserves by 
the notorious contrast, at this very time afforded, between 
the value and protection of labor North, and its value and 
protection South. From every Northern city of any con- 
sequence, we receive intelligence, almost daily, to the pur- 
port that the wages of labor are falling while provisions 
continue to rise. Such is also the case in many, if not all, 
of the manufacturing towns ; and we may reasonably sup- 
pose these to be very fair exponents of the the rural dis- 
trists. In the city of New York, three thousand me- 
chanics were thrown out of employment a few tveeks 
since, all in a single Ward. Another statement is that 
there cannot be less than seventeen thousand able-bodied 
working men at this very time, in the great American 
Metropolis, as it is called, who neither have employment 
nor a prospect of it. The determination of employers to 
reduce the prices of compensation still lower, renders it 
next to impossible for those who have work to help those 
who have not. Rents, too, continue high, while the abil- 
ity to meet them is thus growing daily less. The end of 
this is melancholy to contemplate. Rags and wretched- 
ness, disease and crime, make up a fearful prospective 
for the unfortunate men and w'omen who have the severe 
ordeal to undergo. 
Now turn to the South. Go to New Orleans, Charles- 
ton, Savannah, Mobile, Richmond, Norfolk, Raleigh, 
Columbia, Augusta, Macon, Knoxville, Montgomery and 
Galveston. Go into every village within our borders. 
Search through the barrenest hills and ridges of our sec- 
tion. You will see nothing approximating to this con- 
dition of things anywhere. You will find a sleek, well- 
fed, wai'mly-clad, lightly-tasked negro population to do 
the bulk of our agricultural labor. That they are produc- 
tive of wealth to their owners is not for a moment contra- 
dicted. It is this that keeps all right. But, in return, they 
are protected, from youth to old age, as a part of one’s 
home and family. They are nursed in sickness, worked 
in health and preached to upon the Sabbath. The master’s 
right arm is ever ready to be up-lifted in defence of his 
mal-treated slave. The slave knows this and feels it. He 
has that best ingredient ot comfortable security, the assur- 
ance that he will ever be well cared for in life and decent- 
ly interred in death. Hence his characteristic mirthful- 
ness. 
“ From toil he wins his spirit light, 
From busy day the quiet night; 
Rich, from the very want of wealth, 
In Heaven’s best ti’easures, peace and health.” 
There is no class on earth, to whom these four lines of 
Gray are more correctly applicable, than to the Southern 
negro. But it is not alone in their own happy condition 
that we find much to congratulate ourselves upon here. 
The general prosperity of our section, based (as it unde- 
niably is) upon our institution of African slavery^ is al- 
ways directly conducive to the well-being of mechanics 
and tradesmen of every kind amongst us. Because we 
have in this way an occasional superfluity of wealth as it 
were. We are not continually pinched and pinching. 
Most Southern farmers have at some one season of the 
year (generally about the time their cotton-bags begin to 
roll to market) fully distended old pocket-books, a little 
greasy looking at times perhaps, but none the worse for 
that. Their contents, put to work by a prompt and cheer- 
ful payment of the various bills and accounts liberally con- 
tracted with our merchants, lawyers, printers, carpenters, 
brick-layers, &c , is what enables every citizen in any 
Southern community yet heard of, to thrive and even 
grow rich with ordinary care. 
From reflections like the foregoing we deduce a single 
proposition, which we hope to impress more fully upon 
our readers at another time, and it is this ; That the insti- 
tution of African slavery, as existent in the Southern States 
is blessed of Heaven to the well being of all who use it 
aright, and especially to the ease, comfort and security of 
the poor white laborers of our section . — Edfiefield Adver- 
tiser. 
SOMETHING FOR COTTON PLANTERS. 
We have had on our table for some weeks, but we have 
been prevented from using it sooner by the pressure of 
other matter, a description in the Nashville Farmer's Ban- 
ner anew invention, called the “Cotton Leaf Cleaner and 
■Boll Picker.” The inventor has obtained a patent for it. 
He is a cotton planter of Alabama, and is said to be a 
gentleman of fine education and general information. He 
is making alterations in the machine, and will soon have 
his models ready for examination and trial. The object 
aimed at by him is to bring into use an instrument for 
picking cotton, and to improve its value by removing the 
leaf and dirt, and thus send it clean to th^ gin. 
Speaking of this invention, a correspondent of the Ban- 
ner says : 
“It comes, a welcome ally, to aid the great army of cot- 
ton-pickers, whose labors ai*e tedious and severe. It 
brings iron fingers and mule muscles to do the work now 
done by human fingers, and thus accomplishes in three 
days what now requires six. It can be worked by any 
power that will work a gin, A portable horse-power set 
up in the field will be convenient, and can be extensively 
used in October and November, when the seasons are dry. 
The cotton bolls are to be gathered with as little care as 
you would corn, and taken to the machine, either in the 
field or under shelter, as the case may be. Then the ma- 
chine and the mules take out the bolls, leaf, dirt, and 
everything-, and the cotton comes through the gin as mid- 
dling to good middling in quality. 
“Such a machine, to the cotton growers of the United 
States, is worth millions, provided it can be made to do 
what is intended by the inventor. The object to be ac- 
complished is not without difficulties, and if the first ma- 
chine, which will soon be presented to the public for in- 
spection, makes an approach to the end aiVnedat, we may 
feel confident that the defects will soon be remedies by the- 
genius of American talent, and that cotton will be picked 
by iron fingers instead of human, which will be equal to 
doubling the field force during the gathering of the crop. 
“A planter who cultivates with fifty hands, may, by 
the aid of this machine, have what is equivalent to one 
hundred hands in gathering, and that without the expense 
of feeding them. He is thus enabled to save all that he 
can make, though he may cultivate the best bottom lands 
of Mississippi, Yazoo, Arkansas, or Old Caney. The 
hands can be kept out of the dew and their health pre- 
served. More lands may be opened, and larger quanti- 
ties cultivated, by driving two mules with sweeps and. 
