server.

All the world sees, or ought to see, that in a commercial, mechanical, manufactural, financial, and literary point of view, we are as helpless as babes; that, in comparison with the Free States, our agricultural resources have been greatly exaggerated, misunderstood and mismanaged; and that, instead of cultivating among ourselves a wise policy of mutual assistance and co-operation with respect to individuals, and of self-reliance with respect to the South at large, instead of giving countenance and encouragement to the industrial enterprises projected in our midst, and instead of building up, aggrandizing and beautifying our own States, cities and towns, we have been spending our substance at the North and are daily augmenting and strengthening the very power which now has us so completely under its thumb. . .

...

II. SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE

An Unfavorable View, 18601

The way in which agriculture was carried on in all parts of the country robbed the soil of much of its fertility; but it was more especially in the south, where the heavy crops of cotton, tobacco and sugar cane were grown, that the "mining" of the soil progressed most rapidly. An authority on southern agriculture called attention in 1860 to the defective system of agriculture in that section as follows:

In no part of Christendom, enjoying a good government, and settled by an intelligent population, does land sell at so contemptible a price as in the Plantation States. In Georgia, for instance, land does not command an average price of five dollars per acre. Various causes have been assigned for this low value. It will be instructive to examine them.

The reason generally assigned at the South is the proximity of an abundance of cheap fertile lands at the West. If this be a sound reason at the South, it should also be true at the North, as it is as easy to reach new lands from New York as it is from Georgia. But land is steadily rising in value in New York and other northern States. The proximity of new lands cannot, therefore, be the cause of the low price of land at the South, as it does not produce this result at the North.

It is said, again, that the supply of land is greater than the demand, in consequence of the sparseness of our population; capital seeks its

1 Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1860. Agriculture (Washington, 1861), 225-7. Article by Rev. C. W. Howard, Associate Editor of the Southern Cultivator, Kingston, Georgia.

most profitable investment. There is money enough in the Southern States to have given a much higher value to our land. But the truth is that prudent men have found that, under our present system, land will not pay an interest on more than its present price.

Hence this capital, instead of being invested in land, is appropriated to the building of railroads, factories, &c. It will also be found that in the Southern States where the white population is least dense the lands are highest in price, and the reverse.

This

Many persons suppose that it is the form of labor prevalent at the South which diminishes the value of Southern lands. supposition is worthy of a brief consideration.

The remarks made upon it will not touch the moral or political aspect of Negro Slavery; it will be considered merely as a matter of agricultural interest.

If Negro Slavery diminishes the value of Southern lands, it must produce this result in some one of the following forms.

Before noticing these forms it may be proper to make the general remark that at the South where the negroes are the most numerous the lands bear the highest price, as the rice, Sea Island cotton, and sugar-cane lands. Some of our best rice lands now command from two hundred to three hundred dollars an acre. The reason of this high price will be given hereafter.

Does slave labor affect injuriously the value of Southern lands from its want of constancy? It is the most constant form of labor. The negro has no court-house, no jury, no musters, no mill to attend. He has no provision to buy, and no anxiety or loss of time on this account; food for himself and family is provided. If his family are sick, careful nurses are provided for them. The details of cotton and rice culture could not be conducted with a form of labor less constant.

Is there a deficiency of vigor in slave labor? In all forms of outof-door bodily and severe labor, to be continued for a length of time, the well-fed negro is more capable than the white man. The regular and almost universal allowance of food upon plantations shows that, as a general rule, the negroes have a sufficiency of hearty and nutritious food.

Is there a deficiency of intelligence in Slave labor? There is less intelligence than among white laborers at the North, in Scotland, and some parts of England; but not less intelligence than exists among the mass of French, Irish, and Belgian laborers. Yet land rates as high in Belgium as in any other part of Europe. The cultivation

is also as perfect as can be found elsewhere. It is not so much the intelligence of the laborers as of the controlling and directing mind, which is of the greatest moment in agriculture.

Is there a deficiency of economy in slave labor? The entire expense of a negro laborer on a plantation cannot be put down at more than fifty cents a day. Can any other labor in this country be obtained as cheaply as this? Beyond this, multitudes of men have largely increased their fortunes by the natural increase of their laboring force.

If there be no deficiency in the constancy, vigor, intelligence, or economy of slave labor, it cannot be supposed, with justice, to affect the value unfavorably of Southern land.

In the present excited state of the public mind it is proper to repeat the remark that this brief inquiry is made, not with a view to exciting discussion of a vexed topic, but solely of arriving at the true cause of the low price of Southern land, and of suggesting a remedy. This inquiry could not be conducted without an examination of the character of the labor employed upon the land.

Does the Southern climate affect injuriously the price of Southern lands? It does not; because the lands are of the greatest value (greater than anywhere else in the Union) in those parts of the South which are not sickly, as the rice lands. As a general remark, the climate of the middle belt of the Southern States, including rolling oak and hickory lands, very closely resembles the climate of France, which is considered to be the best climate of Europe for agricultural purposes. In most of this region there are but few days in winter in which the plough need be stopped on account of the frozen state of the earth.

Is there a deficiency in the natural fertility of the Southern soil? No one will pretend to say that the original fertility of the great body of the Southern States was inferior to that of the Middle and Northern States, where land has attained a great comparative value.

Is there a deficiency in the salable value of Southern products of i the soil? These products generally command a better price at the South than the North. The most valuable products of the South, cotton and rice, are peculiar to it.

If the low value of landed estate at the South is to be attributed neither to the proximity of cheap Western lands, to slave labor, to defective climate, to sparseness of population, or deficiency in the value of its products, to what is this low value attributable?

The answer is, to the Defective System of Southern Agriculture. That system is defective, among others, in the following particulars:

Ist. This system is such that the planter scarcely considers his land as a part of his permanent investment. It is rather a part of his current expenses. He buys a wagon and uses it until it is worn out, and then throws it away. He buys a plough or hoe, and treats both in the same way. He buys land, uses it until it is exhausted, and then sells it, as he sells scrap iron, for whatever it will bring. It is with him a perishable or movable property. It is something to be worn out, not improved. The period of its endurance is therefore estimated in the original purchase, and the price is regulated accordingly. If it be very rich level land, that will last a number of years, the purchaser will pay a fair price for it. But if it be rolling land, as is the great bulk of the interior of the Southern States, he considers how much of the tract is washed or worn out, how long the fresh land will last, how much is too broken for cultivation, and in view of these points determines the value of the property. Of course he places a low estimate upon it.

2d. The system of Southern agriculture is such that a very large proportion of the landed estate yields no annual income. A considerable amount is in woodland, yielding nothing but a supply of rails. and fuel. This is to a great degree dead capital. A large number of acres on almost every farm in the older parts of the cotton States is worn out and at rest of course paying no interest. The only paying part of the tract is that which is under the plough. The interest on the land which the planter does not cultivate must be charged to that which he does cultivate, and this brings down the value of the whole property to a very low figure.

3d. The Southern system of agriculture allows to land no value independent of the labor put upon it. The negro is the investment rather than the land. The value of the negro is instantly affected by a change in the price of cotton, while the value of the land which grows the cotton is comparatively unaffected. It is an extraordinary anomaly that perishable labor should take precedence of imperishable land. It is not uncommon to hear young men at the South giving it as a reason for their entering a profession, that while they owned a large body of land they owned but twenty or thirty negroes, and that it would be impossible to make a support with so small a force. When asked how the rest of the world managed who have no negroes, the reply is "our system differs from theirs, ours requires a large amount of labor."

Precisely, and therein it is defective, and until that defect be remedied, land will continue to be comparatively a drug in the market. It is the design of this Essay to show that it is possible to give land a value independent of any costly or complicated annual labor be stowed upon it.

4th. The Southern system of agriculture includes a succession of crops of a most exhausting or otherwise injurious character. These crops are cotton and corn, varied only by small grain. This succession is continued until the land is worn out and turned out to rest.

5th. These crops are not only exhausting and hurtful in consequence of the clean culture they require, but they also require an amount of labor not known elsewhere. If we consider the amount of productive land, that is, the number of acres yielding an annual income, we shall find the amount of labor used on an ordinary Southern plantation to be greater per productive acre than the amount of labor use in the most perfectly cultivated portions of Europe. In the latter every acre produces something, whether in pasture, meadow, or cultivated crops. At the South nothing but the cotton or grain pays. The rest of the plantation is idle.

III. PLANTATION MANAGEMENT

A. Instructions of a Mississippi Planter to his Overseer, 18571

Many of the planters laid down definite rules for the management of their plantations and took care to see that their overseers faithfully carried out these rules as far as possible. The following instructions show the management of the slaves on a Mississippi plantation:

State of Mississippi, Coahoma County, near Friars Point, A. D. 1857.

The health, happiness, good discipline and obedience; good, sufficient and comfortable clothing, a sufficiency of good wholesome and nutritious food for both man and beast being indispensably necessary to successful planting, as well as for reasonable dividends for the amount of capital invested, without saying anything about the Master's duty to his dependants, to himself and his God - I do hereby establish the following rules and regulations for the management of my Prairie Plantation, and require an observance of the same by

1 Documentary History of American Industrial Society. Edited by Ulrich B. Phillips and others (Cleveland, 1910), I, 112–5. Printed by permission of the publishers, The Arthur H. Clark Company.