ch were the results of the first year's experiment. Early in the
present year several of the plantations passed into the possession of
private individuals, and thus an important change has been effected in
the aspect of the free-labor problem. On the Government plantations,
which are under the care of salaried superintendents as last year, a
uniform system of labor has been adopted, embodying the results of
previous experience. Under this system, the laborers agree as to the
amount of cotton land which they will cultivate, and are then paid
twenty-five cents a day for their work. At the end of the year they are
to receive a bonus of two cents per pound of unginned cotton for
picking. This additional reward at once stimulates them to exertion, and
teaches them that steady and continued labor brings the best return. In
addition to raising the amount of cotton agreed upon, each freedman is
responsible for cultivating corn and potatoes enough for his own
subsistence, and land is allotted for this purpose. The laborers are
also required to produce corn enough for the subsistence of the
plantation mules and horses, for the use of the superintendents, and for
the subsistence of all the old and disabled persons for whom provision
is not otherwise made. As regards payments, the Government theory is
most excellent, inasmuch as it provides for partial payments while the
work is going on, so as to furnish the freedman enough money for his
immediate wants, and then, by the bonus which is paid at the end of the
year, supplies him with an amount greater than his wages, to be laid up
or put out at interest. Unfortunately the practice of the Government has
been most injurious. The delay in the monthly payments during the past
year, sometimes for as long a period as six months, caused the laborers
to become discouraged, discontented, and suspicious. Unlike the soldier,
the freedman is not clothed or fed by Government (except in the case of
those who are utterly destitute), nor can he, like other laborers,
obtain credit to the extent of the wages due him. Under these
circumstances, the delay on the part of the Government in paying the
freedman has been not only unjust to the laborers but disastrous to the
workings of the free-labor system.

On the purchased plantations we find a wholly different state of things,
and, as might be expected, a great variety of systems of labor. Some of
the best managers keep up the Government scale of prices,