plantation.

On specially moist days from January to the middle of April all hands were
called to the tobacco houses to strip and prize the cured crop; when the
ground was frozen they split and hauled firewood and rails, built fences,
hauled stone to line the ditches or build walls and culverts, hauled
wheat to the mill, tobacco and flour to the boat landing, and guano, land
plaster, barnyard manure and straw to the fields intended for the coming
tobacco crop; and in milder dry weather they spread and plowed in these
fertilizers, prepared the tobacco seed bed by heaping and burning brush
thereon and spading it mellow, and also sowed clover and oats in their
appointed fields. In April also the potato patch and the corn fields were
prepared, and the corn planted; and the tobacco bed was seeded at the
middle of the month. In early May the corn began to be plowed, and the soil
of the tobacco fields drawn by hoes into hills with additional manure in
their centers. From the end of May until as late as need be in July the
occurrence of every rain sent all hands to setting the tobacco seedlings in
their hills at top speed as long as the ground stayed wet enough to give
prospect of success in the process. In the interims the corn cultivation
was continued, hay was harvested in the clover fields and the meadows, and
the tobacco fields first planted began to be scraped with hoe and plow. The
latter half of June was devoted mainly to the harvesting of small grain
with the two reaping machines and the twelve cradles; and for the following
two months the main labor force was divided between threshing the wheat and
plowing, hoeing, worming and suckering the tobacco, while the expert Daniel
was day after day steadily topping the plants. In late August the plows
began breaking the fallow fields for wheat. Early in September the cutting
and housing of tobacco began, and continued at intervals in good weather
until the middle of October. Then the corn was harvested and the sowing of
wheat was the chief concern until the end of November when winter plowing
was begun for the next year's tobacco. Two days in December were devoted to
the housing of ice; and Christmas week, as well as Easter Monday and a
day or two in summer and fall, brought leisure. Throughout the year the
overseer inspected the negroes' houses and yards every Sunday morning and
regularly reported them in good order.

The greatest of the tobacco planters in this period was Sa