SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 291 



Although there were many large estates in the slave-breeding 

 states and in the old cotton states South Carolina and Georgia, 

 the large cotton plantation was seen to its best advantage in the 

 alluvial lands of Mississippi and Louisiana. Here was the cotton 

 garden of the world, settled under the patronage of the state 

 banks in the '30's, and containing perhaps the richest soil in 

 the United States. The land was all taken up in large hold- 

 ings and worked by slaves. The owner seldom lived on the 

 plantation. Absenteeism was in fact one of the great evils of 

 grande culture in the South. " It may be computed from the 

 census of 1850 that about one-half of the slaves of Louisiana 

 and one-third those of Mississippi belong to estates of not less 

 than fifty slaves each ; and of these, I believe nine-tenths live 

 on plantations which their owners reside upon, if at all, but 

 transiently." The management of the estates was confided to 

 overseers. These, as we have seen, found their value rated 

 according to the crop which they made, and the plantation, the 

 slaves and other property suffered under their management of it. 

 " Having once had the sole management of a plantation and 

 imbibed the idea that the only test of good planting is to make 

 a large crop of cotton, an overseer becomes worthless. He will 

 no longer obey orders ; he will not stoop to details ; he scorns 

 all improvements, and will not adopt any other plan of planting 

 than simply to work lands, negroes and mules to the top of 

 their bent, which necessarily proves fatal to every employer who 

 will allow it." 



As the planters spent so little time upon their estates, they 

 concerned themselves little with the farm improvements, such as 

 buildings and fences. These were much inferior, not only to 

 those on corresponding estates at the North, but also to those 

 on the farms of Northern farmers of only moderate means. The 

 overseers were usually housed in frame houses of an inferior 

 sort ; large sheds sufficed for the storing of cotton until it was 

 hauled to market ; there was seldom much farm stock, and such 

 as was to be found, including work horses and mules, was poorly 

 housed and sometimes only half fed. The negroes lived in small 

 log houses about twenty feet square and containing usually only 



