SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 149 



for new implements, bagging, rope, &c., and half a pound 

 of pork to fill every negro's mouth, every day he lives, 

 besides the immense clothing bill and family expenses to 

 be paid out of the proceeds of the annual crops. It may 

 be argued that while cotton is so low, at least, the full 

 supply of meat ought to be raised on the place. So it had 

 if it can. But with all the studied economy and fore- 

 thought of such men as Dr. Philips, it cannot always be 

 done, and with men of far less calculation, the matter 

 presents a host of difficulties unknown to northern farm- 

 ers. "Well, if you can't raise pork, why not feed your 

 negroes on beef," exclaims the northerner. Simply be- 

 cause it would raise a revolt, sooner than all the whip 

 lashes ever braided in Massachusetts. Fat pork and corn 

 bread is the natural aliment of a negro. Deprive him of 

 these and he is miserable. Give him his regular allow- 

 ance, (31/2 lbs. clear pork, and IV2 pecks corn meal per 

 week,) and the negro enjoys more of "heaven on earth," 

 than falls to the lot of any other class of human beings 

 within my knowledge. 



On the day I left General McAustin's, I dined with 

 Wm. G. Johnson,^ whom many of my readers will recog- 

 nize as an old and very intelligent cotton planter. Find- 

 ing he could not continue to clothe and feed a large num- 

 ber of negroes, many of whom had grown old with their 

 master, he has abandoned cotton altogether and suffered 

 a large and once fine plantation to fall to decay, and wear 

 the weeds of desolation; using it only as a stock farm, 

 and home for himself and old servants, while he has put 

 all the able hands upon a sugar plantation, ovnied in com- 

 pany with his son-in-law, Wm. B. Walker,^ at Bayou 



' William Garret Johnson, resident near Jackson, Louisiana. One 

 of the original Board of Trustees of the College of Louisiana, es- 

 tablished at Jackson in 1825, and an incorporator of the Baptist 

 Congregation of St. Francisville in 1823, and of the West Felici- 

 ana Asylum (a charitable institution for care of the poor), in 

 1835. Laws of Louisiana, 6 legislature, 1 session, 1823, p. 32; 7 

 legislature, 1 session, 1824-1825, p. 152; 12 legislature, 1 session, 

 1835, p. 239; St. Francisville Louisiana Journal, May 5, 1825. 



° William B. Walker, operator of one of the largest improved 



