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one fourth are possessed of means to supply their own necessities - and it is safe to say that over one half of the remaining three fourths, have less than thirty days provisions, without the means of procuring more, the remainder living day by day, on the meager contributions form the slender supplies of their neighbors, and unless some speedy relief is offered them, great suffering must ensue, and will necessitate the consumption in its green state, the small crops of corn, now growing on the high places, thereby greatly promoting the ravages of disease incident to the climate and season leaving the county destitute of bread the coming winter and adding disease and cold to the horrors of famine.

They represent that being purely an agricultural people, when their resources from that quarter are destroyed, there is no other to give employment to labor, and in the present impoverished condition of the farmers the loss of two consecutive crops, and an almost entire absence of food, renders it impracticable for them to give employment even to that portion of laborers who might be kept at necessary and profitable work in the improvement of the lands for another year.  Since the recent heavy rains, the Farmers have been compelled to discharge their hands from inability to feed or pay them for their wages, and they are now with their families eking out a mere existence, on the inconvenient charities of others, and greatly increasing crime among us.

They further represent, that throughout the whole period of great scarcity which has prevailed throughout the entire south since the close of the war,