Page:Cotton and Immigration.djvu/18

12 climate. With an intelligent white immigration settling upon the 'uplands' of the Cotton States; with smaller farms and improved seeds; with deep ploughing, commercial manures, an enlightened system of cultivation—using all the appliances of improved husbandry, and employing every available means to render the soil increasingly productive—we could easily extend the average yield of the Southern cotton, crops again to five millions in place of two million five hundred thousand bales. It is estimated that Georgia alone in the present year has consumed upwards of twenty thousand tons of commercial manures—guanos and phosphates—in improving her cotton lands. The product is doubled by it, the cultivation of one-half the area is saved, and the laborer has time to devote to the cereals and fruits, making life on a cotton plantation more agreable to the habits and tastes of the white man. We commend this system to the attention of the 'Cotton Trade,' because they can safely advise immigrants to come to the healthy and well-watered 'uplands' of the South, with a fair prospect of growing cotton successfully without the constant drudgery which was once thought necessary for its production, and at the same time surrounding their little habitations with the luxuries and comforts which they have been accustomed to in their Northern and European homes. For although necessity may compel the introduction of labourers from the half-civilized pagan races of the earth, we confess we have a strong preference for those of a higher stamp, and who will ultimately make good citizens, merged into our population. Improved lands can now be had in any of the cotton States at prices varying from one to five pounds sterling—five to twenty-five dollars per acre—and farming utensils and work stock can be purchased at fair prices. The great aversion proprietors formerly had to the subdivision of their plantations is now rapidly giving way, and lands can now be purchased or leased in convenient lots of any size. With the many inducements now presented to purchase cheap healthful lands and comfortable homes in a country possessing natural advantages unequaled in any other portion of the cotton world, does it not behoove the 'Cotton Trade,' both of Europe and America, to direct public attention and immigration to us, and aid us in working our unoccupied cotton fields? By so doing they would indirectly benefit themselves, and very materially aid us. Every variety of climate and soil is presented in the cotton belt, stretching from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande, and from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico."

From a region, then, of such vast extent, what might we not expect, if there were union of effort amongst those interested, to stimulate a larger production? Practically there is no limit to the cotton production of these States.

The sun of Heaven shines not on a land more varied in soil, climate, and production, or better fitted for the habitation of man.

I would incidentally remark that, in less than six months after I wrote the above report, 50,000 freedmen left the uplands of Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, and went principally to the cotton fields of the Mississippi River Valley, and largely contributed to saving the last cotton crop, which amounts to over three millions of bales.

No portion of the world is more largely or regularly irrigated by rainfall, or supplied more periodically with aqueous vapour, than the Cotton States of America. The moist winds, so requisite to the life of the cotton plant, are borne by the "balmy south," from the warm bosom of the Gulf Stream, and diffused over the eastern and southern slopes of the ApalachianAppalachian [sic] and Osage ranges, and flow up the great valley of that mighty river—the Mississippi, whose source, though mid "eternal snows," has its outlet "mid eternal flowers."