since work upon it is found to be remunerative, and connected with
the proprietorship of land. House-servants, who were at first
particularly set against it, now generally prefer it. The laborers have
collected the pieces of the gins which they destroyed on the flight of
their masters, the ginning being obnoxious work, repaired them, and
ginned the cotton on the promise of wages. Except upon plantations in
the vicinity of camps, where other labor is more immediately
remunerative, and an unhealthy excitement prevails, there is a general
disposition to cultivate it. The culture of the cotton is voluntary, the
only penalty for not engaging in it being the imposition of a rent for
the tenement and land adjacent thereto occupied by the negro, not
exceeding two dollars per month. Both the Government and private
individuals, who have become owners of one-fourth of the land by the
recent tax-sales, pay twenty-five cents for a standard day's-work, which
may, by beginning early, be performed by a healthy and active hand by
noon; and the same was the case with the tasks under the slave-system on
very many of the plantations. As I was riding through one of Mr.
Philbrick's fields one morning, I counted fifty persons at work who
belonged to one plantation. This gentleman, who went out with the first
delegation, and at the same time gave largely to the benevolent
contributions for the enterprise, was the leading purchaser at the
tax-sales, and combining a fine humanity with honest sagacity and close
calculation, no man is so well fitted to try the experiment. He bought
thirteen plantations, and on these has had planted and cultivated eight
hundred and sixteen acres of cotton where four hundred and ninety-nine
and one twelve-hundredth acres were cultivated last year,--a larger
increase, however, than will generally be found in other districts, due
mainly to prompter payments. The general superintendent of Port Royal
Wand said to me,--"We have to restrain rather than to encourage the
negroes to take land for cotton." The general superintendent of Hilton
Head Island said, that on that island the negroes had, besides adequate
corn, taken two, three, and in a few cases four acres of cotton to a
hand, and there was a general disposition to cultivate it, except near
the camps. A superintendent on St. Helena Island said, that, if he were
going to carry on any work, he should not want bettor laborers. He had
charge of the refugees from Edisto, w