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The configuration of the lower Apalachian and Osage ranges, both trending south-westwardly, and sloping to the Gulf and ocean—the close relations between mountain and sea, inviting the moist south winds, the heat and moisture generated by regular spring and summer rains, the comparatively dry autumn—all conduce to form the climate of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, South-Western Tennessee, South-Eastern Missouri, Arkansas, Northern Louisiana, and Eastern Texas, so genial to the life and health, growth and maturity of the cotton plant.
The sections of the South which raise stock are the most delightful of all others—Kentucky, Middle and East Tennessee—while in many others, where cotton grows well, a variety of products can be grown which is wonderful.
On the eminence in North Alabama, where I was born and reared, you may see its hill-sides clothed with flourishing vineyards and orchards of apples, peaches, pears, apricots, plums, and cherries. On a field which has been cultivated fifty years without fertilizers, you can see a heavy crop of clover grown without gypsum, fine fields of Indian corn, cotton, wheat, oats, and Chinese sugar-cane; while in the garden flourish a great variety of vegetables known to higher latitudes, with besides pea-nuts, sweet potatoes, and delicious melons and figs.
This is but one picture for many Southern homes, and thousands could be cultivated with the same variety of products, but for an anxious desire to become suddenly rich. In many parts of the South a rotation could be adopted having clover as a fertilizer, and cotton as the hoe (or cleaning crop) which once fully in operation on a farm would be attended with great profit to the owner and improvement to the land. In sandy soils, where clover will not succeed, the pea can be substituted, and the commercial manures used freely, as is now done extensively in Georgia and South Carolina.
Just now, when the improvement of lands has seized the public mind, immense deposits of phosphate of lime have been found along the banks of the South Carolina rivers, and are being worked very successfully, yielding untold thousands of tons of this valuable fertilizer.
Cotton Consumption of the World.
Permit me, in conclusion, to read an extract from a letter which I had the honor of addressing to the Manchester Cotton Supply Association, as delegate from the Memphis Commercial Convention:—"One of two things must take place—consumption must continue materially to diminish, or cotton supply must be increased in proportion to the wants of the world. After all, I can but think that the whole future 'Cotton Supply' question depends in the main on the production of the Southern States of America. That grown in East India, China, Brazil, Peru, West Indies, Egypt, Turkey, and the Levant, is required to be sent back to those countries, for they all import in the aggregate more cotton in the shape of goods and yarns than they export, thereby showing that they do not raise a sufficient collective supply for their own wants. It will be found that cotton growing will be followed steadily only in those countries where it can be made more profitable than other pursuits. Where indigo, coffee, tobacco, sugar, or breadstuffs will bring better prices, or suit the climate, soil, or conditions of a people better than cotton, cotton-culture may be forced for a few years by the power of high prices, and the necessities of a resolute, intelligent and persistent manufacturing people. But such culture will only be temporary, because in defiance of the laws of true economy. Other nations can and will produce cotton when stimulated by high prices; but what Great Britain and Continental Europe require is a regular and sufficient supply of cheap cotton. According to the census of the United States, in 1860, our popula-
