1881 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
315 
The New South. 
BY PROP. J. D. WARFIELD, MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGE, COLLEGE STATION, ID. 
A Marylander may profitably discuss, 
through your Journal of national circula¬ 
tion, the possibilities and needs of this histor¬ 
ic part of the Nation. Within an area of 650 
millions of acres, traversed and bounded by an 
unsurpassed water communication, stretch¬ 
ing all along the South Atlantic Coast, ex¬ 
panding with the Gulf, and following the 
Mississippi to the fertile Blue-grass region of 
the Northwest, there is to-day a New South 
rising from the ashes of the Old. Upon every 
hill-top, in every valley, monuments of past 
historic struggles, endeared or regretted, ap¬ 
peal to us for recognition. The Old South, 
with its slavery, is dead. A New one, with 
new interests, is now claiming our attention. 
Already have political economists been figur¬ 
ing upon its probable future. Within a de¬ 
cade and a half, a considerable part of our 
national debt has been paid by its agricultural 
productions. Within this period, an excess 
of $800,000,000 over the production of any 
previous similar period, from the exportation 
of cotton, has been put to its credit. Its year¬ 
ly yield of 6,000,000 bales of cotton, 200,000,000 
pounds of Louisiana sugar, 1,000,000 tons 
of Georgia iron, 200,000 half-barrels of Flori¬ 
da oranges, added to its proportional interests 
in Texas cattle, and Maryland, Virginia, and 
Kentucky tobacco exports, amounting to a 
total of nearly $27,000,000, crowned with 
its whole claim to $173,629,000 for the last 
year’s exports in cotton, give the hope of a 
future, compared to which its past will be a 
blank. Railroad stocks are already advanc¬ 
ing one-third in value, whilst new consolida¬ 
tions and extensions are spanning its terri¬ 
tory, thus reducing freights at least one-half. 
The 774,000 spindles, including those of Mary¬ 
land, are now engaged in manufacturing cot¬ 
ton goods at a reduction of 20 per cent. 
Nearly 50 mills are now utilizing cotton-seed 
oil and cake, thus giving an impetus to wool¬ 
growing interests, which must soon put 
Southern wool in competition with that 
of Australia. Green manuring, aided by 
50,000,000 sheep, must soon double its present 
area of 13,000,000 acres employed in cotton 
production. 
In thus considering the possibilities of this 
great productive field, there are many needs 
to be urged. The first is to be freed from pe¬ 
riodical political agitators. The jjolitician’s 
panacea is a curse. Repudiating her agita¬ 
tors, free labor and quick transit will work 
the anvil, the loom, and the plow. Hitherto 
isolated by a system of labor kindred to feu¬ 
dalism, immigrants from Southern Europe 
have had no knowledge of this climate and 
soil so nearly like their own. Forced by a 
natural expansion at home to seek broader 
fields, they long for agricultural pursuits, as 
the best means of individual independence, 
and are the needed wealth of our undeveloped 
South. A systematic, responsible immigra¬ 
tion agency, urged by agricultural and com¬ 
mercial interests, is a crying necessity. A 
second need is small farms. High culture, in 
its economy of expenditure, has been tested 
by peasant proprietors of Europe. In many 
parts of Belgium, Switzerland, France, and 
Italy, where peasant farming has been the 
surest means to national advancement and in¬ 
dividual contentment, there are sturdy men, 
with capital, able to make gardens out of 
desert wastes. Independent proprietors, 
whether from the North, or across the ocean, 
are the “stalwarts” needed. Southern 
“half-breeds,” as tenants or proprietors, are 
giving up politics for production. In the in¬ 
terests of millions of illiterate children, it is 
to be regretted that Congress could find no 
time to complete the educational bill, grant¬ 
ing the sale of public lands to an endowment 
fund. Whether it be better policy to keep 
said fund as a Governmental or State reserve, 
is immaterial to the masses. Universal edu¬ 
cation is the reconstruction needed. Not con¬ 
tent with home reformation, it is now leav¬ 
ening the masses of Europe. 
American competition, and American free¬ 
holds, are revolutionizing the privileges of 
England and Russia. The 52,000,000 acres of 
entailed English land, owned by 7,000 per¬ 
sons, from which 525 dukes enjoy an income 
of $60,000,000, in the face of superior Amer¬ 
ican production, fail to remunerate tenants 
under former and present exacting leases. 
One million acres, out of four, have already 
been withdrawn from the production of 
wheat in England. It is the systematic 
farming of French peasants, in a territory no 
larger than the State of Texas, rivaling even 
American grain and beef exports, that is 
needed in the South. 
National pride ought to urge a development 
of unbounded resources in many Southern 
fields. A judicious expendi¬ 
ture of one-half the sum that 
goes out yearly to foreign gov¬ 
ernments for imports, would 
restore fertile bottom lands, 
the production of which would 
pay back our $70,000,000 for 
sugar and molasses. We pay 
for wool, tobacco, and wines, 
all of which can be made in 
the South, a total of nearly 
$211,000,000, the duties alone 
amounting to $50,000,000. As 
productive industries build up our national 
wealth, a people in whose hands are commit¬ 
ted the great problem of civilization, must see 
that this progress of wealth is not crippled. 
The Agricultural Department at Washing¬ 
ton, though limited by a discriminating par¬ 
simony, under an able head, may yet guide 
the progress of agricultural thought toward 
its development. As a question of economy, 
aside from the needs of the future, the ques¬ 
tion of forestry is, for the South, a vital one. 
The cost of fencing large estates, the annual 
cost of repairs, the demands for railroad ties, 
telegraph poles, and the hundred demands 
for agricultural implements, tools, etc,, the 
value of the latter alone amounting to over 
$100,000,000, all these are questions of econo¬ 
my that coming legislators must discuss and 
remedy. 
The South intends to pay its debts. North¬ 
ern capital can here find safe investment. 
There is to be a future of prosperity, the 
grandeur of which we can only imagine. 
ing vigorously, they should be thinned so that 
they shall have a space between them in the 
rows equal to their own diameter, and no 
more. It is better for the roots to be ten than 
fourteen inches apart in the rows. If the 
thinning be carried beyond this, they grow 
large and coarse, and will be much less 
valuable as food than the smaller ones. 
A California Gate, Latch, and Fence. 
“ G. H. B.,” Santa Clara Co., Cal., writes : 
—“ While on a visit in Santa Cruz Co., where 
there are many dairy farms, I noticed a gate 
in use for pastures that may be new to some 
of your readers. Two high posts are set in 
the ground about 20 feet apart, and a scant¬ 
ling is put on, which extends from the top of 
one post to that of the other. A two-inch 
hole is bored in the center of this scantling, 
and a similar hole in a block of wood that is 
planted firmly in the ground in the center of 
of the gateway. The middle post of the gate 
frame is made round at each end to fit 
these holes, and this post is the pivot on- 
which the gate turns. The sketch I send 
(figure 1) shows the gate open, and gives the 
arrangement better than can be done by 
words. Those who have driven a number of 
cows (say a hundred) through a gate, know 
that it is a task that takes a good deal of 
time. With this gate one cow cannot block 
the passage, besides there is no sagging of 
TlHiiniiiff Roots.— One can form but 
an imperfect estimate of the value of a field 
of roots by knowing the weight of the largest 
one grown. Very large roots do not mean 
very large returns ; medium-sized roots and 
more of them is a more paying crop. Other 
things remaining the same, the size of the 
roots depends upon the thinning. At this 
season of the year, when the roots are grow- 
A CALIFORNIA DOUBLE HINGELESS GATE. 
gate posts, as the weight of the gate is wholly 
upon the block in the center. To make the 
latch, a bar of iron iy 2 inch wide and 18 
inches long is bolted to one of the end posts 
of the gate, and a similar bar to one of the 
posts of the gateway. To make the catch, a 
rod of 3 / 8 -inch iron passes through a y a -inch 
hole near the end of the bar upon the gate¬ 
way. This rod is bent in the form shown in 
figure 2, and welded.” It will be seen that 
the lifting of this bent rod will allow the 
two bars to come together, and when dropped 
it will hold them firmly. Mr. B. states that a 
very common fence 
inCalifornia is made 
of split Redwood 
pickets or stakes, 
2‘/ 3 inchessquare, 6 
feet long, and driven 
15 inches into the 
ground. A 1 by 
4-inch strip is nailed 
to the top of the 
stakes. These 
pickets, which are Fig- 2.—tile gate latch. 
driven a foot apart make a good fence 
against cattle. If a 4-foot picket is driven in 
each space between two others, and another 
strip is nailed on, it makes a first-rate fence 
against hogs and sheep. Six-foot pickets 
cost $12 a thousand in the woods where they 
are split out. This is the best and cheapest 
fence we have, and I think will prove to be 
