260 Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 
The past season has been a bad one for the cnltivation of cotton ; liigh water 
in the rivers, and the flooding of the plantations upon low lands, have been 
very damaging to the crop. In the State of Lonisiaua alone, seven or eight of 
the principal parishes were, during a considerable period, submerged, and their 
crop in consequence has been extremely small. The State of Mississippi has 
suffered severely also from this as well as other inflictions. The damage from 
heavy rain, and the ravages of the worm, have been very great ; not more than 
about thiee-fifths of the cotton lands which were in cultivation in the season of 
1859-60 have been under cotton this season. 
General Remarks. — As to the efficiency of negro labour under the free 
system as it now exists, the accounts received from the country would lead 
me to suppose that it is far moi'e effective than the Southern people supposed 
it would be. There are certain places where it has not been so, and where the 
negroes have not carried out the contracts made in the early part of the year ; 
but in many of such cases I think it is highly probable the negro has not been 
properly treated by those employing him, or has been enticed away from his 
work by parties interested in jirocuring labourers for other parts of the country. 
There has no doubt been a scarcity of negro labour in the country, as many 
negroes who have been accustomed to a plantation life have flocked to the 
towns ; but this is a matter that will soon correct itself, as those who find they 
cannot obtain work in the town will soon be obliged by their necessities to seek 
it on the plantation. 
The want of capital is severely felt in the Southern States, as from the 
imcertainty attending the cultivation of the cotton staple, planters find it 
extremely difficult, in fact nearly impossible, to obtain advances upon the 
growing crops ; but I still see no reason to change the opinion I expressed in 
my report of last year, that an energetic man, of moderate capital and free from 
debt, who will treat his labourers well, will ultimately realise a competent 
income from the cultivation of cotton in the Southern States. 
The system which has been lately inaugurated by the Freedmen's Bureau 
jof aflbrding gratuitous transportation to the needy of the coloured race 
wishing to emigrate from the North-Eastern States to South, is hkely to 
have a good result. It will bring the negro to those States where there 
is no dearth of employment, and where they will find planters waiting to 
engage them at a good rate of wages, and where they will be protected 
in their rights by the officers of the Bureau. We may ultimately expect 
to find cotton cultivated more generally on much smaller plantations than at 
present, and men with smaller capital than those now engaged in planting 
will find that, employing but a few hands, they will be able to realise a 
handsome return for the money invested in either buying or leasing a few 
acres of cotton-producing-land. The labourer will work better under the 
personal supervision of the owner of the land than he will under that of an 
overseer. 
Everything considered, I cannot believe in the gloomy views expressed by 
])lanters. A great change has no doubt taken effe'it as regards the system of 
labour, but I look forward to the period when Southern men will consider that 
change a blessing in many ways. 
SAVANNAH. Keport by Mr. Consttl Tasker Smith, on the Trade 
AND Navigation of the Port of Savannah, for the Year 18C6. — Upon 
instituting an examination into the extent and variety of the trade and naviga- 
tion which were carried on at Savannah during the past twelve months, it is 
evident that progress has been made towards that point of conmiercial im- 
portance which, prior to the recent internecine conflict, this city enjoyed, as the 
principal port of the State of Georgia, and as one of the four great shipping 
places for the cotton and rice productions of the South. 
