iJb REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



Tkxxessee. — HendiTson : Raticns for year, 15 bushels corn, G baahels ANlieat, 300 

 pounds pork, coiiee, sugar, &(;. Lawrence: Rations worth at least $50 per annum. 

 Mauri/ : Rations per month, 20 pounds bacon, 1 bushel meal. Aladisoii : Rations, 200 

 pounds bacon, 12 bushels meal. 



WHITE LABOIi IN CGTTON-ailGWING. 



It was formerly an opinion that obtained quite generally, away from 

 the cotton-fields, that ihe climate was a bar to any extensive nse of 

 white labor in this industry. It is now as generally acknowledged that 

 labor in the open air is practicable in all i^ortions of the South, except, 

 perhaps, in the rice-lields and other malarious localities. At least nine- 

 tenths of the area of the cotton States consists of dry and salubrious 

 uplands. 



There has also been some cotton cultivated and gathered by white 

 labor. There is perhaps no accurate data to show the exact proportion. 

 It was always small, however. While labor was mainly compulsory 

 and servile, there could be no material increase in the proportion 

 accredited to the whites ; the incentives of high prices and accumulated 

 savings were apparently powerless in opposition to the pride of race and 

 the power of caste. Some writers have assumed, prior to the change of 

 the labor system, one-sixth as the proportion of white laborers in the 

 cotton -fields. 



The proportion has been increasing for the last ten years, until now 

 there are two States, according to the reports of our correspondents, in 

 which the larger imrt of the product is grown by whites. Keturns from 

 more than half the cotton area of Texas make the proportion of cotton 

 grov/n by white labor five-eighths ; and data representing three-eighths 

 of the Arkansas area establish the proportion of six-tenths. In every 

 State there is a large increase of white-labor iiroduction. "While the 

 percentage for each State might bo nearer to perfect accuracy if the 

 information covered every acre of the cotton area, the actual canvassing 

 of about half the field, ranging in each State from three-eighths to five- 

 eighths of its area, furnishes the best attainable means of estimating the 

 proportion of the cotton-crop grown by whites. On this basis the pro- 

 portions are, 60 per cent, by black labor, 40 per cent, by white. The 

 proportions, by States, are as follows : 



The proportion of v»'hiio cultivators will not decrease. As population 

 iucrea.ses, the white clement will be stronger in numbers ; and a larger 

 proportion of the cotton will be grown by small proprietors, while the 

 African element will drift into menial service in towns and in mannfact- 

 uring and mining enterprises, and many who aspire to occupancy of 

 land will earn only a precarious existence. Doubtless there will be 

 others of more stable and persistent character who will acquire a com- 

 fortable competency. However large the class may ultimately become, 



