Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/385

Rh massacre, millions of sheep could be pastured in these bosky meadows, wanting only a shepherd.

In the adjacent and interspersed marls, shell-banks, beds of limestone, peat bogs, and "trembling prairies," are abundant materials for the regeneration of these sandy lands. But, as they are, they will produce, with a very small amount of labor, groundnuts, sweet potatoes, and castor beans in the greatest abundance; and when will the world get enough of such staples as peanuts, castor, and lubricating oil, and soap-grease? True, such men as Peter Cooper think it no disgrace to collect all the cow-tails, hoofs, and horns they can get to manufacture gelatine. But the Southern planter would hesitate long before making the fearful descent from cotton to castor oil and soap-grease, even should it enable him to establish a "Union of Science and Art" in every schoolless and churchless district in the South.

Doubtless, the destitution, the want of food in the Southern States, is somewhat exaggerated for political effect; but it is a shame, an insult to the bounty ot nature, a terrible commentary upon the agricultural system of the South, that it should exist at all. While the most ignorant and the worst governed communities in Europe have at least plenty to eat, it speaks well for neither our knowledge of political economy, our practical common sense, nor our capacity, that large numbers of our population should be destitute of bread and meat.

The Government will, of course, have to feed the starving; but to expect any permanent and substantial relief from making advances to cotton planters, either in the old way of individual loans, or, as been suggested, in some form of Governmental aid, would be a snare and a delusion, so long as Southern planters remain "planters," and do not become, in every sense of the word, "farmers." He is the real benefactor in the South, who, turning his back forever on Southern follies and traditions, goes to work with his own hands to produce grain, meat and vegetables, and persuades his neighbor to sell his surplus acres and do likewise. He is also a benefactor, who, coming from the North, buys this cheap land which must soon quadruple in value, teaches his neighbors, by example, how to become thrifty farmers, and brings with him schools, churches, newspapers, sobriety and respect for the laws. That multitudes of such have not already come from the free States, filled this poor land with plenty, and forever settled the vexed question of negro supremacy by the mere force of numbers, is due to the false system of political economy which continues to rule in the South.