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past summer, though severely felt in all portions of the State, was much more fatal to the crops on the thin lands in the poorer and mountainous districts.
The great body of those fed by the Government, during the past year, have made no crops.  The most of them being incapable of performing labor or without the means to plant and cultivate crops, having neither horses or cattle do draw their plows, nor the  provisions necessary to subsist themselves, while laboring to make crops.  Mothers, who might under ordinary circumstances have been able to earn something by their labor, have been compelled, to walk long distances in search of food, to prevent their children from perishing.  Many having to walk twenty five or thirty miles, to reach depots where rations were issued, and when not thus occupied, could find no compensating employment.  Driven by hunger and pressing want, many of these women and children have left their cabins in the hills and crowded into miserable hovels about the towns and villages, where from starvation and filth they become a prey for diseases which sweep them away.  These crowded haunts of poverty, frequently become schools of vice and immorality, and will soon make fearful inroads upon the good order and well being of society.
The great pressing present want is food, to prevent starvation and check crime, next to this, the establishment of some system for furnishing employment to the thousands of unprotected women and children in the State.  The great change in the labor system in the State, the wreck of fortunes, the destitution of property, and above all, the great loss of able bodies men, whose lives were sacrificed in the recent unfortunate and lamentable conflict, renders it almost