ugh more, in his opinion to pay for the wearing out of
the land. If he was well paid for it, he did not know why he
should not wear out his land. His tobacco-fields were nearly
all in a distant and lower part of his plantation; land
which had been neglected before his time, in a great
measure, because it had been sometimes flooded, and was,
much of the year, too wet for cultivation. He was draining
and clearing it, and it now brought good crops. He had had
an Irish gang draining for him, by contract. He thought a
negro could do twice as much work in a day as an Irishman.
He had not stood over them and seen them at work, but judged
entirely from the amount they accomplished: he thought a
good gang of negroes would have got on twice as fast. He was
sure they must have 'trifled' a great deal, or they would
have accomplished more than they had. He complained much of
their sprees and quarrels. I asked why he should employ
Irishmen, in preference to doing the work with his own
hands. It's dangerous work, (unhealthy!) and a negro's life
is too valuable to be risked at it. If a negro dies it's a
considerable loss, you know.' He afterwards said that his
negroes never worked so hard as to tire themselves--always
were lively, and ready to go off on a frolic at night. He
did not think they ever did half a fair day's work. They
could not be made to work hard: they never would lay out
their strength freely, and it was impossible to make them do
it. This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves
at work--they seem to go through the motions of labor
without putting strength into them. They keep their powers
in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps.

"Mr. W. also said that he cultivated only the coarser and
lower-priced sorts of tobacco, because the finer sorts
required more pains-taking and discretion than it was
possible to make a large gang of negroes use. 'You can make
a nigger work,' be said, 'but you cannot make him think.'"

In speaking of the early tobacco culture of Virginia, he says:--

The light, rich mould resting on the sandy soil of Eastern
Virginia was exactly suited to the cultivation of tobacco,
and no better climate for this plant was to be found on the
globe. This had just been sufficiently proved, and a
suitab