448 
4. The profit per hand during the ten years preceding 1860 varied from 
$50 to $300, but since 1865 the farmers‘have generally sunk money by their 
farming operations; owing partly to the inefficiency of the recently freed labor, 
together with the long drought of 1866 and the excessive rains of 1867. 
5. The price paid for the labor of men in 1860 was $125 per annum, with 
food and clothes furnished by employer ; for that of women, $80; for that of 
youths, $50. The price sof same classes in 1867 were, formen, $100, with fuel, 
but no clothes furnished—that is, the laborer furnishing his own clothing; women, 
$60; youths, $30. For the present year, same classes, men, $60 to $70; women, 
$40 to $50; youths, $20 to $30. A large portion of the hands this year have 
contracted for a part of the crop. Some get one-half of the net profits after de- 
ducting all expenses, some one-third, gross products, the laborer feeding himself 
and the employer bearing all other expenses ; others get one-fourth of the gross 
mee, the employer feeding the laborer and paying all the expenses of the 
arm. 
6. There has been no material change in the mode of culture since 1860. The 
size of plantations has been considerably diminished in the last two years. 
Planters find that they must only cultivate their best lands with freed labor; 
and that, too, at a decreased ratio of profits. 
7. As before stated, Mr. David Dickson is the most scientific and also the 
most successful planter in this State; he uses No. 1 Peruvian guano, dissolved 
bones, salt and gypsum, 100 pounds of each per acre, manipulated or mixed 
together, which, according to his published statements, pays him one hundred 
per cent. on his investment. Mr. James Davison, of Greene county, Georgia, ex- 
perimented quite extensively last year with stable manure, and several of the 
commercial fertilizers. 'Theexperiments with Peruvian guano increased the yield 
140 per cent. when compared with the yield from same kind or quantity of land 
without fertilizers; some other of his fertilizers increased the yield to over 200 
per cent.; this was done with common wood-ashes and salt. 
8. The cost of the production of cotton in 1867 was about 15 cents per 
pound; and as most of our planters sold their crops for less than that figure, 
cotton-planting was a losing business last season. 
9. But very few colored men have planted much cotton entirely free from the 
control of white men, so far as my knowledge extends ; but the few instances 
show that they have succeeded about as well as the whites. 
10. The principal circumstance that affects the comparative profits of large 
and small plantations is, the labor not being well trained under the new system, 
renders it necessary for the planter to give close personal attention to all the 
minutiz of his planting operations; and this he cannot well do with more than 
10 or 12 hands. 
#211. There is little or no improvement in the use of farming implements in this 
State. 
12. There is no crop cultivated in this State that will pay as well as cotton. 
13. Thereis notsufficient attention paid to the improvement of the breeds and 
raising of stock in our State. First, stock can be raised with very little ex- 
pense ; the winters being short, but little gathered food is needed to winter 
stock. .In some sections of the State, stock winter well on the cane-brakes, 
and on the native grasses that flourish during the winter seasons without any 
gathered food at all. Second, by increasing the number of stock on a farm, 
you greatly augment your means of enriching your lands by manuring. ‘Third, 
the beef and mutton from your flocks being an excellent substitute for bacon, 
should be another incentive for raising more and better stock. 
14. Our State is gradually sinking lower and lower in poverty and general 
demoralization under the new state of things with which we find ourselves sur- 
rounded. A confusion almost equal to the confusion of tongues at the Tower 
of Babel compasses us about, and threatens to overwhelm us in general ruin, 
