Climates of the South in Their Relation to White Labor [pp. 166-173]

CLIMATES OF THE SOUTH.
stitution than the black. A native of the middle temperate
zone, where there are considerable extremes of heat and cold,
he is by nature habituated and adapted to much wider range
of temperature than the negro. The negro is a native of the
tropic, one extreme of climate, and cannot go very far beyond
the tropic before he begins to deteriorate. While the white
man, the native of a land of cold winters and warm summers,
ci.n migrate to the verge of the arctic, and to many parts of the
tropic with impunity.
But the question next comes as to how far this pliability of
the white race extends? In plain English, Can white emigrants be broug(ht to our Southern States, and be made to live,
prosper and cultivate cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice? With
reg,ard to Piice I must enter a strong doubt, but with regard to
the other staples I feel no dou-bt. Even rice will be cultivated
by white labor at some future day, when the drainage of rice
lands becomes more perfect, and, 1 may add, when there comes
a struggle for bread in a crowded population.
I have already remarked that climate must be considered
under two heads-lst, that of simple temperature; 2d, temperature and malaria combined. They do not necessarily go
together-we have many localities where there is a hot climate
without malaria, or the causes of intermittent and bilious
fevers; but on the other hand we do not have marsh malaria,
except in warm climates, or at least where there are warm
summers.
The climate of our cotton region cannot properly be called
hot, though a wctarm climate. It is not the mere heat of
our region that makes it unfriendly to European constitutions,
but it is the diseases which the sun eliminates from the soil we
cultivate. The hilly pine lands, for example, of the Southern
States, formning an immense tract, extending from Virginia to
the Mississippi, and even far beyond, under the same temperature as other neighboring lanlds, are exeipt from the infauence
of mzarsh mnalaria, and are universally regarded as salubrious,
and resorted'to by the better class of society as summer residences with perfect safety.
Not so with really hot climates. In India, for example, the
Anglo-Saxon is killed outright by high temperature independently of atmospheric poisons. The frame is attenuated by the
exhausting effects of heat and profuse perspiration-the muscles are relaxed and debilitated, the nervous system is exhausted, the liver inflames and becomes corroded( with
abscesses, and the whole machine is worn out by the wear and
tear of heat, and the want of exercise which the climate does
not permit. All this, I say, may and does occur independently
of malaria, from high temperature alone.
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