showers may relieve the general absence of rain. The wet bottoms do not require the same seasons as the thirsty uplands. The early crops do not demand the same supply of rain and sunshine as the late plantings. While thus from numerous localities the rumors of ruin and destruction may be true, they may not be general or universal. Those who meet with calamities make the loudest noise, for it affects them deeply. Those who do not suffer say but little, for they obtain only their wishes or expectations, and there is nothing in this to call particular attention to their condition. The losses affect not only the planter, but the factor, the merchant, and others, and thus many join in the cry of disasters. The good fortune of others has no one to herald it, because few have any particular interest in the result.

But though these false reports may always be expected, and do not of themselves imply fraud and deception, they do nothing but harm to all concerned. Sometimes they appear to help the planter, but this is fully balanced at another time by a loss equal to his former gain. As the profit and loss are thus sure at last to be fairly balanced, the unnecessary fluctuations in price caused by these false reports are a serious and important injury to both parties. It would be a great advantage to all, if greater steadiness could be given to prices. When the planter makes his purchases and expenditures, expecting to receive fifteen cents for his cotton, and sells at last for nine, the loss and inconvenience are greater than the gain and gratification that attend an advance from nine to fifteen. So it is with the manufacturer. If he contracts to deliver his cloth or his yarn, when cotton is low, a rise in the raw material forces him to ruinous sacrifices, perhaps to pay extraordinary interest to the money lender, or close his business in bankruptcy. Goods wil lnot rise immediately with an advance in cotton. They fall sooner with a decline than they rise with an advance. The loss is thus more than the gain. As greater regularity and uniformity would be promoted by correct and accurate knowledge of the crops and markets, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, would be of advantage to all.

It is a common opinion among the planters and factors of the South, that a short crop not only brings a higher price, but actually produces a larger amount of money than a large or an average crop. It would be strange if this were true. Fine seasons, instead of being the kind gifts of a bountiful Providence, would then be an injury and a curse. The destructive drought and early frosts would be a positive advantage to the agriculturist. The planter would be acting wisely for his own interests if he should destroy a large portion of what he had produced. These seem like strange propositions, and, at first sight, are very improbable. Let us examine them by the history of prices for twenty-five years past.

The receipts for our cotton are constantly changing: they rise

and fall like a wave of the sea. At times they go up for several years, and then decline suddenly. At other times the rise is rapid and the fall gradual. In twenty-five years the value of our cotton exports, according to the official reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, has six times reached the highest point, and five times the lowest. Of these six years of large receipts, three of them were large crops, two an average, and one small. Of the five years of small receipts, four of them were small crops, and one an average. In these eleven years, the rule therefore was true but once.

Perhaps, however, the rule deserves a fuller examination. We have supposed above that the crop and its proceeds were large when they exceeded the amounts of the year after, and small when they were less than both. It would be fairer, perhaps, to take the average of every five years, both of the crop and of the money it was sold for, and to call that an average crop which was near-say within 5 per cent of this average. Thus, for the year 1847 the number of bales delivered at the seaports was 1,779,000; the average of 1845, '46, 47, 48, and '49 was 2,270,000 bales, so that the receipts were less than the average by 471,000 bales, or 21 per cent below. This would, therefore, be regarded as a very short crop, because more than 5 per cent from the average. So with the amounts for which the cotton was sold. In 1848 the value of our cotton exports was $62,000,000. For 1846, 47, 48, 49, and '50 the average of the values was $57,300,000. The real receipts were therefore large, being $4,700,000, or 8 per cent above the average of the five years of which 1848 was the middle one.

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If, now, we compare the rule with the facts of the last twentyfive years, the crops were large, according to this definition, in 1827, 30, 31, '40, '43, '45, '48, and '49, and short in 1828, '32, 37, 41, 42, '47, and '50. Of these fifteen years no short crop brought a large value, and only one large one-that of 1831 -brought a small value. If we had taken the exports in pounds instead of the crop in bales, there would not have heen a single year that the rule would have been found true; so that the only case where the rule appears to hold, in the twenty-five years, occurred when a large crop brought a small price because a great deal of it was retained at home and unsold. In table I., at the end of this article, may be seen all the crops, values, and exports for the twenty-five years, with the average for each, and every one may examine the facts for himself. In 1827 the exports were 5 per cent above the average, and the money received for them 32 per cent above. In 1828 the exports were 15 per cent below, and the value 17 per cent below. In 1829 the crop was an average one, and so was the cash received for it. In 1830 both were large, and in 1831 both were small. For the six years, from 1832 to 1837, the exports were about an average, but the values were sometimes large and sometimes small. In 1838 and 1839 the amount ex

ported was first large and then small, and both years brought average values. In 1840 it was large, and the money was large. In 1841 and 1842 we had two very short crops succeeding each other, yet the sales of the second year were 12 per cent lower than the average. In 1843 the exports were large, and the proceeds were within the average limit. From 1844 to 1851 we have had three large crops 1845, '48, and '49-and each of them brought average values. In the same time we had three short crops-1846, '47, and '50; the first brought a small return-the other two were about the average. And thus, for every year in the whole twentyfive, the rule entirely fails, and cannot therefore be regarded as true.

No doubt it sometimes happens that a small crop brings more money than a large one. Thus, in 1847, 1,779,000 bales brought more money than 2,395,000 bales in 1845. But neither year brought large returns-both were an average. The large crop of 1848 brought more money than either, and the very large one of 1849, although it succeeded a large crop, brought still more. The small exports of 1850 were sold for a large amount, but the money received will not exceed the average sales for 1849, 1850, and 1851.

If it be, then, true that short crops are an injury to the planter on account of the diminished amount of money he receives for them, there are other reasons which render the calamity still greater. They stimulate prices to such a high limit that they encourage the production of cotton in India and other places, and thus endanger the monopoly which we now possess of the European market. They discourage the use of cotton in the place of hemp, flax, wool, and silk, and thus put down still further the price of the raw material when favorable seasons have enlarged the supplies. They raise the price of many articles that planters are compelled to buy, and thus lessen the net amount of his income. They increase the price of all kinds of property, so that the gains of the planter with high prices, when invested in anything but money, seldom obtain a larger amount than with low or inordinate prices. They disturb the regular operation of business, tempt the producer to increase his expenditures, to contract debts, to purchase land and negroes on credit, and when the decline comes, as it is sure to do, he is forced to pay for property purchased at high prices, with the sales of his crop at low prices. They lead to the neglect of other products, so that hay is carried from Massachusetts, flour from NewYork, corn from Baltimore, bacon from Cincinnati, not only to the seaports of the South, but far into the interior; and when cotton falls the planter cannot begin at once to supply all his own wants, because he is out of stock from which to raise his hogs, horses, or mules, and some time must elapse before he can obtain them.

These, and many other evils that might be mentioned, show that

the interest of the producer is not diverse and opposite to that of the consumer that the blast and mildew, the drought and the flood, the caterpillar and the boll worm, which reduce the supply and raise the price to the manufacturer, are also an injury to the planter-that favorable seasons a proper succession of rain and sunshine, are twice-told blessings, both to him that buys, and to him that sells.

While thus short crops are the source of serious evils to the planter, overproduction and ruinously low prices are a still greater injury. How can these be prevented? Not by the combination of half a million of planters scattered over a wide extent of country; not by State conventions and paper resolutions; not by monster schemes of monopoly and governmental interference; not by banks or corporations, or factors or brokers forestalling the markets of New Orleans, New York, and Liverpool; not by false rumors-by retaining the crop in the country till the season is far advancedby publishing in the newspapers every disaster from frost or flood, and withholding the reports of abundance and plenty. These plans are all either useless or injurious. Free trade, unshackled industry, is the motto of the South, not only in Commerce and manufactures, but in agriculture. Capital is best employed when let alone. The keen-sightedness of self-interest will discern the proper remedy for over-production, and no one need be concerned lest trade should not regulate itself better than he would do it, if he had full power to manage and control it. God is wiser than man, and the laws he has imposed require no aid from us to adjust and adapt them to the circumstances around us. The proper course for the planter, and the one he is sure to pursue, is to make as much cotton as he can, while the price is fair and remunerative. As soon as it falls below this, he should apply both his capital and labor to other pursuits. By the home-manufacture of cotton, wool, paper, iron, and machinery; by producing at the South his flour, corn, bacon, mules, and horses; by the increased planting of the sugar-cane and tobacco; by the introduction of new agricultural products; by devoting his capital to the construction of railways and plank roads; by building ships and steamers to carry on our own trade with the North and with Europe; by importing directly from abroad our foreign supplies, and by sending our cotton directly to European ports, without the trans-shipment at New York; by these, and many other means, his capital and labor can be diversified and rendered profitable, when the price of cotton will no longer bring fair returns. It is the duty of the intelligent and public-spirited men of the South not to attempt to reverse the laws of trade by forcing up prices to some arbitrary level at which the planter can afford to produce cotton, but to seek out new modes of profitable investment; to undertake new schemes, not yet tried and proved, which promise fair profits to capital; to encourage by words

and actions, by legislative enactments, by public and private commendation, every new enterprise calculated to diversify our labor, develop our resources, and divert capital and labor from our great staple.

The prospects of the planter for the present year are by no means gloomy. Though not so bright as last season, they are still cheering and encouraging. Prices have fallen below their average rate, but with our present moderate crop, with low stocks in Europe and America, with food cheap, money abundant, and labor well employed, a low range cannot be maintained. From 1840 to 1851 there have been exported 7,763,000,000 lbs. of cotton (Table I.), and the value of this has been $617,300,000. If to these we add, as an estimate for the past year, an export of 800,000,000 lbs., at a value of $88,000,000, we shall have 8,563,000,000 lbs., and $705,000,000, which gives an average of about 84 cents a pound. The price in Charleston for good middling is quoted, October 23d, at 74 to 73, but so low a rate cannot be maintained the present paospect of the supply and the demand.

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In South Carolina and Georgia the severe and long-continued drought has cut short the crop very considerably. The rich bottom lands have not indeed suffered. On many plantations partial showers have relieved the general want of rain. The planting has been large; a great many new hands have been employed on the crop; but these favorable circumstances will not make up for the damage by the drought in June and July, by the severe storm on the 24th of August, and by the frost on the 23d of October. The receipts, however, at Charleston and Savannah, will not be much diminished, as the deficiency will be made up in part by the extension of the Georgia railroads farther towards the Gulf. The decline will not be, probably, far from 10 per cent.

From Florida a slight falling off may be expected. The promise of the crop was very good up to the time of the storm, but the injury caused by it was serious. The early frost was also injurious: but these causes will both be balanced by the increased planting. A slight decline is anticipated in the receipts because of the diversion of 10,000 or 15,000 bales to Macon and Savannah, by the opening of the South-western Railroad.

From Alabama the promise is much better than last year. The drought was not so severe as in Georgia, and the falling off of the forms, when the late rain set in, was not so extensive. They have had no worm, no floods, no rust. Last year was disastrous, and if the new crop may be compared with that, an increase of 10 per cent may be looked for.

At New Orleans the receipts will increase very largely. Already 70,000 bales more have been received there than at the same dates last season. From every part of the immense region that sends its productions to that port, the promise of the crop is much better