take advantage of the opportunities offered them to raise
the necessaries of life. They idle away all the time not
actually necessary to make and gather their corn and cotton,
and improvidently spend what balance may remain after paying
for the advances made to them.

Q. 5. When you rent, what division is made?
--A. Where the laborer owns his own teams, gears, and
implements necessary for making a crop, he gets two-thirds
or three-fourths of the crop, according to the quality and
location of the land.

Under the rental system proper, where a laborer is
responsible and owns his team, &c., first-class land is
rented to him for $8 or $10 per acre. With the land go
certain privileges, such as those heretofore enumerated.

Q. 6. How many hours do the laborers work?
--A. This is an extremely difficult question to answer.
Under the wages system, from sunrise to sunset, with a rest
for dinner of from one and one-half to three hours,
according to the season of the year.

Under the share or rental system there is much time lost;
for instance, they seldom work on Saturday at all, and as
the land is fertile, and a living can be made on a much
smaller acreage than a hand can cultivate, they generally
choose one-third less than they should, and it is safe to
say that one third of the time which could and would be
utilized by an industrious laborer is wasted in fishing, and
hunting, and idleness.

Q. 7. Under what system do you work?
--A. We are forced to adopt all systems heretofore stated.
We prefer, however, the tenant system. We wish to make small
farmers our laborers, and bring them up as nearly as
possible to the standard of the small white farmers. But
this can only be done gradually, because the larger portion
of the negroes are without any personal property. We could
not afford to sell the mules, implements, &c., where a
laborer has nothing. Therefore the first year we contract to
work with him on the half-share system, and require him to
plant a portion of the land he cultivates in corn, hay,
potatoes, &c. For this portion we charge him a reasonable
rent, to be paid out of his part of the cotton raised on the
remainder. In this way all of the supplies raised belong to
him, and at the end of the first year he will,