ers to send them West, unless
the local system of industry should be successfully revolutionized.
The remedies he proposed were the fertilization of the soil, the
diversification of crops, the promotion of commerce, and the large
development of cotton manufacturing.[21]

[Footnote 16: Described in 1846 in the _American Agriculturist_, VI, 113,
114.]

[Footnote 17: MS. diary, April 13 to May 14, 1838, in Hammond papers,
Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 18: Letters of Hammond to William Gilmore Simms, Jan. 27 and Mch.
9, 1841. Hammond's MS. drafts are in the Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 19: Letter to Isaac W. Hayne, Jan. 21, 1841.]

[Footnote 20: MS. oration in the Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 21: James H. Hammond, _An Address delivered before the South
Carolina Institute, at the first annual Fair, on the 20th November, 1849_
(Charleston. 1849).]

Hammond found that not only the public but his own sons also, with the
exception of Harry, were cool toward his advice and example; and he himself
yielded to the temptation of the higher cotton prices in the 'fifties, and
while not losing interest in cattle and small grain made cotton and corn
his chief reliance. He appears to have salved his conscience in this
relapse by devoting part of his income to the reclamation of a great marsh
on his estate. He operated two plantations, the one at his home, "Silver
Bluff," the other, "Cathwood," near by. The field force on the former
comprised in 1850 sixteen plow hands, thirty-four full hoe hands, six
three-quarter hands, two half hands and a water boy, the whole rated at
fifty-five full hands. At Cathwood the force, similarly grouped, was rated
at seventy-one hands; but at either place the force was commonly subject to
a deduction of some ten per cent, of its rated strength, on the score of
the loss of time by the "breeders and suckers" among the women. In addition
to their field strength and the children, of whom no reckoning was made in
the schedule of employments, the two plantations together had five stable
men, two carpenters, a miller and job worker, a keeper of the boat landing,
three nurses and two overseers' cooks; and also thirty-five ditchers in the
reclamation work.

At Silver Bluff, the 385 acres in cotton were expected to yield 330 bales
of 400 pounds each; the 400 acres in corn had an expectation of 9850
bushels; and 10 acres of rice, 200 bushels. At Cathwood the plantings and
expectations were 370 acres