one, and which
exhausts the land ten times faster than the fibre--is mostly wasted; in
the words of a Southern paper, 'The seed is left to rot about the
gin-house, producing foul odors, and a constant cause of sickness.' The
land is cropped until it is literally skinned, and then the planter
migrates to some new region, again to drive out the poor whites,
monopolize the soil, and leave it once more to grow up to 'piney woods.'

Note again the warning words of Dr. Cloud: 'With a climate and soil
peculiarly adapted to the production of cotton, our country is equally
favorable to the production of all the necessary cereals, and as
remarkably favorable to the perfect development of the animal economy,
in fine horses, good milch cows, sheep and hogs; and for fruit of every
variety, _not tropical_, it is eminently superior. Why is it, then, that
we find so many _wealthy cotton planters_, whose riches consist entirely
of their slaves and worn-out plantations?'

No crop would be more remunerative to a small farmer, with a moderate
family to assist in the picking season, than cotton.

Upon the fertile lands of Texas, which produce one to two bales of
cotton to the acre, ten acres of cotton is the usual allotment to each
hand, with also sufficient land in corn and vegetables to furnish food
for the laborer and his proportion of the idle force upon the
plantation, which are two to one, without reckoning the planter and
overseer and their families. Now, upon the absurd supposition that a
free man, with a will in his work, would do no more work than a slave,
what would be the result of his labor? 1st, food for his family; 2d, 10
acres of cotton, at 500 pounds to the acre, 5000 pounds, at 10 cents per
pound, or $500. But the result would be much greater, for, as a Southern
man has well said, 'the maximum of slave labor would be the minimum of
free labor;' and the writer can bring proof of many instances where each
field hand has produced 13, 15, and even 18 bales of cotton in a year.
With the denser population which would follow the emancipation of the
slaves and the breaking up of the plantation system, a harvest force for
the picking season would be available, and one man would as easily
cultivate 20 to 25 acres of cotton, with assistance in the picking
season, as he could thirty acres of corn, the usual allotment to each
hand upon the corn land of Texas.

The very expense of slave labor is a proof of the profit which must be
d