SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
cheap lands of the South-West from the South — in the 
former case the emigrant’s expenses are sometimes paid, 
and a Sharp’s rifle added added by way of gratuity. The 
cheap lands of the West cannot be a material cause in 
producing the low price of land at the South. If it did, it 
must produce the same effect on the land of the old States 
at the North. Cheap Western lands have been so gener- 
ally considered to be the cause of our depreciated landed 
estate, that inquiry has hardly gone beyond it. The con- 
cise reason which has been given will show that this 
general impression is erroneous. 
The Abolitionist will tell us that it is slave labor which 
depreciates our lands. This is abolitionist nonsense. A 
single fact will show this. Where slave labor is most 
abundant, land possesses the greatest value, in all the 
South rn States. On the rice lands and sea islands, where 
the negro population is most numerous, land is worth 
fifty times as much as where there are scarcely any ne- 
groes, yet a heavy white population. The Cooper River 
and Waccamaw lands are worth fron S200 to S250 per 
acre, while lands in the interior are not worth per 
acre. 
So many of us have been educated at the North and in 
various other ways have been so acted upon by anti- 
slavery sentiment, that our views, though unconsciously, 
have been modified by it. Thirty years ago, religious 
slaveholders were afraid to look the subject of slavery in 
the face — their consciences were ill at ease in regard to it. 
Thanks to Abolitionists who compelled us to examine the 
social, moral and religious relations of the slavery ques- 
tion, our minds are at rest in the belief that we are doing 
right, and not wrong, in holding slaves. 
While this is true in the moral aspect of the question, 
we are not yet wholly removed from the effects of anti- 
slavery sentiment as to its economic relations. There is, 
in the minds of many persons, still, a latent idea that 
slavery has something, somehow, to do with ihe low 
price of our lands — they imagine it would be different if 
these lands were worked by free white labor. We have 
an experience of ten years in the use of this labor, and on 
a large scale. If planters were compelled to use the 
cheapest white labor that Europe affords in their present 
system of cultivating cotton and corn, they would soon 
find it to their interest to make a present of their lands to 
the first person who would be sufficiently foolish to accept 
the costly gift. 
If slave labor is unproductive, there must be a cause for 
this unproductiveness. 
Is it less constant than free labor I The slave has no 
Courthouse— no muster to attend. He has no provision 
to buy, and no anxiety or loss of time on this account — 
food lor himself and family is provided. If his funily are 
sick, he loses no time on this account, as careful nurses 
are procured for them. Slave labor is the most constant 
form of labor. The details of cotton and rice culture could 
not be carried on with one less constant. 
Is slave labor less vigorous than free labor 1 He who 
thinks so. has never fairly made the cowiparison between 
tue two. In all the forms of out door bodily and severe 
labor, to be continued for a length of tin.e, where mere 
animal force and endurance are concerned, and in a cli- 
mate suited to him, the well fed negro is more^ capable 
than the white man. The exceptions to his being well 
fed are perhaps fewer than can be found in any other ag- 
ricultural population. 
Is slave labor less cheerful and willing than free labor 7 
Slave labor is indeed compulsory. But what hired labor 
is not compulsory 7 Who steadily works for another be- 
cause he loves to do it 7 Which is the sterner compulsnm 
for the negro with the negro’s nature to see the overseer in 
the field with his whip in his hand, (a sign rather of au 
tbority than an instrument of punishment) or for the 
white man with the white man’s nature to toil for his land- 
lord and remember that if he relaxes, he will be met with 
the cry for bread at night from his wife and children, 
when perhaps there is no bread to give them 7 We have 
often stood by and observed large gangs of men, women 
and children in other, countries, come to the roll call, and 
under a gang master pursue their labor in the field. We 
have observed in order to compare with things at home. 
As a result of this comparison, we firmly believe, as a 
general rule, that there is no form of agricultural labor 
done by inferior for superior, by the employed for the em- 
ployer, which is more cheerfully and willingly rendered 
than the work performed by our negroes for their own- 
ers. 
Is slave labor less intelligent than free labor? It is less 
intelligent than free labor at the North, and in Scotland, 
and some parts of England, but not less intelligent than 
the mass of Irish, French, or Belgian agricultural labor. 
The most perfect agricultureof Europe is found in Belgium 
— there, also, land possesses a very high value, averaging 
perhaps, $500 per acre. The mass of the Belgian agricul- 
tural peasantry are not more intelligent than the mass of 
our negroes. A striking illustration of this fact has re- 
cently occurred in our own State. A colony of Belgians 
established themselves in Floyd county. Its leaders were 
gentlemen of high intelligence and worth. They soon 
found it to their interest to exchange the stolid Belgian 
peasants, whom they had brought with them, for the more 
intelligent negro. 
Want of intelligence in our negroes can, therefore, have 
nothing to do with the low price of our lands, as other 
lands are of great value where the labor employed is not 
more intelligent than that of our negroes. It is not sn 
much intelligence in the operative, as in the directing 
and controlling mind, which is of moment in Agricul- 
ture. 
Is slave labor less economical than free labor! This 
question is sufficiently answered by directing attention to 
the fact, that the increase of negro property is considered 
to yield an interest of from 5 to 10 per cent on the capi- 
tal invested in it, apart from the products sold from the 
farm. It is certain that multitudes of men have accumu- 
lated largely, merely by the increase of their slaves. If 
we take imo the account, their increase, no form of labor, 
in a suitable climate, is so economical as slave labor. 
If slave labor is not less constant, vigorous, cheerful, in- 
telligent and economical than free labor, in countries 
where land bears a high price, then, in no sense, can the 
low price of land at the South be chargeable to slavery. 
Can the Soutuern climate be charged with the depreci- 
ation of Southern land 7 Certainly not. Otherwise lands 
of those portions of the South which are most sickly would 
not command the highest price. We refer to the Sea Island, 
Rice, and Sugar Cane lands. It is impossible to find a 
climate better suited to .Agricultural pursuits than that of i 
thfi great body of the Southern States. Shall we contrast 
it with the climate of the North, where the winters arc j 
almost wholly lost to agriculture! Or with England, i 
where rain and fog are the rule, and sunshine the excep- I 
tion 7 The climate of France is considered to be the bert i 
in Europe for Agricultural pursuits, and it is that climate, j 
in its variations fiom the Mediterranean to the English j 
channel, with which the climate of the Southern States i 
most closely assimilates. That climate must be eminent- 
ly favorable to agriculture, which enabled Dr. Parker, of | 
Columbia, S C , to accomplish his agricultural feat upoi : 
‘a sand hill flat,” viz:— to raise 200 bushels and 12 quarts 
. )f corn from one acie of land, and on an adjoining acre 
t > raise S9 bushels of oats, and afterwards from the same 
ucie, and during the same year, to raise 82 bushels of 
corn. 
In connection with the kind of labor we employ, the 
mildness of our winters more than compensates ftw Ike 
