THE SOUTHERN PLANTE 



197 



of slavery for the blacks, license is shut out, 

 and liberty is introduced. It is introduced for 

 the slaves themselves. For they have a natural 

 right to that government, to that supervision and 

 control, which, on the whole, is best for them ; 

 and such is slavery. Hence, slavery secures 

 them in the enjoyment of their natural right ; 

 and,' according to the measure of their capacity 

 to receive it, bestows upon them real liberty. 

 Let this institution be abolished, and they will 

 mo longer enjoy their natural rights. In the 

 strong language of Mr. R., they would "moulder 

 away as if by a consuming pestilence, their 

 morals, their minds, and their bodies rotting 

 down in one universal ruin." 



Though there are some points of difference be- 

 tween Mr. R. and myself ; yet these, I am highly 

 gratified to believe, are insignificant and trifling 

 when compared with the great fundamental 

 conceptions in which we agree. A laudable 

 desire on his part, to defend the doctrine of the 

 Declaration of 'Independence, that all men are 

 endowed by their Creator with an inalienable 

 right to life and liberty, is perhaps the chief 

 source of our differences. But though his 

 veneration for that noble and time-honored in- 

 strument is great, it is by no means blind or 

 undiscriminating. He defends the language, 

 and shows that it admits of a high and glorious 

 sense ; but yet he does not insist that such was 

 the sense of its illustrious author. In his own 

 way, and according to his own independent 

 views, he maintains that slavery is consistent 

 with the Declaration of Independence, and with 

 the natural right of the slave. But, he adds, 

 "we shall be told that such was not the view 

 taken of slavery by the authors of the Declara- 

 tion of Independence and the Virginia Bill of 

 Rights. That in their opinion it violated those 

 great organic laws. We grant it to the fullest 

 extent, But.our departure from their opinion 

 is neither disrespect to them nor arrogance in 

 us." We should be happy to quote the whole of 

 this striking passage ; but the readers of the 

 Southern Planter may easily turn to it for thein- 

 elves, and read the admirable reflections with 

 which it concludes. 



With sentiments of the highest consideration 

 and esteem, I have, Sir, the honor to remain 

 your friend and servant. 



A. T. BLEDSOE. 



USE OF THE SCRAPER IN CLEANING 



DITCHES MILL-RACES AND CREEKS. 

 Mr. Sam. P. Ryland : 



Tours of the 23d of April has just been re- 

 ceived, which finds me confined to my home 

 after an indisposition of more than a week. 

 Supposing* an immediate reply necessary for 

 your work, I will at once give you my mode 

 of using the scraper. More than two years 

 ago I purchased an iron scraper of Mr. Palmer 

 (Seedsman of Richmond, Va.) at a cost of seven 

 dollars all ready for hitching the horses. This 

 I esteem the very best scraper I have ever used, 



or seen. It is an implement no farmer should 

 be without, as it is a great labour-saving article 

 of but small cost and great last. I find it use- 

 ful not only in cleaning out my mill race, 

 cleaning out and straightening my creeks, but 

 very useful in scraping up my farm pens and 

 wood piles and in making roads. Now in the ar- 

 ticle alluded to by you, in which I say it will do 

 the work of fifteen or twSnty hands, I certainly 

 did not mean to say it could always, and every- 

 whre accomplish so much ; for the scraper, nor 

 no other machine can do this; for instance, if I 

 had only a few bushels of wheat* to get out, it 

 would hardly be thought a saving of time to fix 

 up an improved threshing machine to do what 

 in less time I could accomplish with a flail or 

 even over a barrel ; so with the scraper, where 

 the banks are low and the mud had merely to 

 be spaded and raised a foot or two upon the 

 bank, then the fifteen hands could and would 

 accomplish more than the scraper. I will now 

 show you where I meant the scraper could and 

 would accomplish more than fifteen or twenty 

 field hands. My mill race, from the point at 

 which the water is taken from the creek and 

 that point at which it re-enters the creek below 

 the mill is about one thousand yards and varies 

 in depth from four to fifteen feet ; in the deep cuts 

 the channel was so narrow, it could not convey 

 water enough for my grist mill, threshing ma- 

 chine and a saw mill then but lately attached ; 

 nor could could the hands work at these points 

 in cleaning it out. One set of hands had to throw 

 the dirt a part of the way, and another set had 

 re-throw it out, and this half way work- 

 ing was at a great loss of time and labour : and, 

 more than all, the work was not half done. I at 

 once determined to cut the canal seven feet 

 wide. I did so : it answered all I expected of 

 it ; but I soon found it filling up very fast, owing 

 to my having no dam. And the washings of the 

 mountain farms were rapidly accumulating in 

 my race, which required more time than I 

 could spare to keep it cleaned out — especially at 

 these deep cuts the labour was vastly heavy, 

 and progress very slow. I now do this work 

 with a man and two horses, a coulter or plough 

 and scraper in the following way : on each side of 

 these deep cuts, say fifty 3 r ards, it fulls to four or 

 five feet rise, at which low points I cut a graded 

 outlet parallel with the race, just wide enough 

 for the horses to pull out the loaded scraper. If 

 the horses enter above, they drag the scraper 

 midway between the two outlets, where the 

 scraper is set to load itself, (which it does very 

 rapidly if there are no tussocks, turf, roots, or 

 sticks to impede its wedge-like shape), it is then 

 dragged to the outlet, and carried to some low or 

 weak place of the embankment and deposited 

 there by a mere tilt of the handle towards the 

 horses, and returned in place, all without stop- 

 ping the horse at at all; they then re-enter where 

 they came out — go up to the midway point, re- 

 load and go out above in the same manner, 

 which saves the expense of cutting the race 



I 



