Richmond, the capital city of Virginia, is very picturesquely situated upon and among several hills, and viewed from the adjacent high ground, through the bituminous smoke it creates, reminds the traveler of Edinburgh. It [95] is generally well built, but, with the exception of a few modern mansions, entirely without elegance. The streets are unpaved, and but a few of them are provided with sidewalks other than of gravel. The city is well lighted with gas, and supplied with water by an aqueduct. The population is about 28,000. The Capitol, standing on elevated ground, so that as you approach the city you see it well above the surrounding roofs, has a very imposing appearance. It is modeled after the Maison Quarrée of Nismes, and like most public edifices copied from the ancients, is very inconvenient in its interior arrangements. There is a statue of Washington, by Houdon, a French sculptor, in the Rotunda, which was obtained by Mr. Jefferson in Paris. The grounds about the Capitol are naturally admirable, and have lately been improved with neatness and taste. A fine monument, to be surmounted by an equestrian statue of Washington, by Crawford, is now building in them. Their beauty and interest would be greatly increased if some of the fine native trees and shrubs of Virginia, particularly the holly and the evergreen magnolias, were planted in them. I noticed these, as well as the Irish and palmated ivy, showing great vigor and beauty, in the private gardens of the town. On some high, sterile lands, of which there are several thousand acres, uninclosed and uncultivated, near the city, I saw a group of exceedingly beautiful trees, having the lively green and all the lightness, gracefulness and beauty of foliage in the Winter of the finest deciduous trees. I could not believe, until I came near them, that they were what I found them to be, our common red cedar. I have before observed that the beauty of this tree was greatly affected by the soil it stood in; in certain localities, on the Hudson River for instance, and in the lower part of New-Jersey, it grows in a perfectly dense, conical, cypress-like form. These, on the other hand, were square-headed, dense, flattened at the top, like the cedar of Lebanon, and with a light, graceful, slightly drooping spray, wherever they cut the light. They stood in gravel; small quartz gravel, slightly bound with red clay. The red cedar is very much more beautiful here generally than I have often observed it at the North, and probably enjoys the climate more.

The Legislature was in session, and the city filled with a respectable representation of the whole State. The hotel that I stayed at was a very excellent one, hardly excelled in the country; the proprietor had served an apprenticeship at the North. I went to the theatre one night while those delightful pets, the “Bateman children,” were performing. Long before the curtain rose every seat was occupied. I have rarely seen a better looking assembly, or one in which there was so large a proportion of fine, tall, spirited men and beautiful, cultivated-looking women. The men, however, were greatly deficient in robustness, and the women in stateliness and grace, so that they had by no means an aristocratic or high-bred air. Everybody in Richmond seemed to be always in high dress. You would meet ladies early of a drizzly day, creeping along their muddy streets in light silk dresses and satin hats; and never a gentleman seemed to relieve himself of the close-fitting, shiny, black, full evening suit, and indulge in the luxury of a loose morning coat. Their manners, too, seemed [96] to me to partake of the same character. I acknowledge I found it otherwise in the country. The Virginia gentleman on his plantation drops town restraints, and enjoys a rough shooting-jacket life. Here you find him, for all the world like an English squire, independent, wayward, extravagant, truth-speaking, hearty and frank, though holding hard to some ceremony; sport-loving, and affecting roughness, but really courteous, simple minded, and hospitable to all men and all things that come well introduced or respectably connected.

There is probably no part of the world where great wealth confers so little rank, or is attended with so few advantages over a moderate competency; nevertheless wealth is much concentrated in Virginia, and while there is an immense poverty-stricken community, there are also many very great estates. One young gentleman was pointed out to me as having an annual income of $50,000, entirely from landed property. I remarked that I should think he would dispose of some of it and invest in other ways; as agricultural property, beyond what a man can personally superintend, is rarely profitable. “On the contrary he is constantly buying new plantations to stock with the natural increase of his niggers.” Another, I was told, was the owner of half a dozen parks, all stocked with deer, in different parts of the State.

Richmond is now rapidly increasing and greatly-prospering commercially. It is the market for a great wheat, tobacco and maize-producing country, which is fast being brought closer to it and much extending by the canals and railroads running west and southwest, and which will soon be pushed through the blue ridge to the valleys of the Ohio and the Tennessee, with the competing lines from Boston, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston and Savannah for the produce of the West. It is situated at the Falls of the James River, which give it great manufacturing capabilities, and at the head of navigation on that river for sea-going vessels drawing not over ten feet water. The river channel is narrow and crooked, however, and much injured by bars that a comparatively small sum would remove. Virginia, with an admirable spunk, has, until lately, refused, from laziness or from feebleness to act about this little job for herself, or from her peculiar political notions to ask, or allow the right of, the Federal Government to do it for the good of the nation. An appropriation of $40,000 was made by the last Congress for it, and operations are about commencing, which she shows no disposition at present to interrupt. The commerce of Richmond, by the sea, is trifling; principally with New-York, where nearly all the materials of her trade, whether of export or import, are transshipped. A line of steamers is now running regularly between the two ports.

The flouring mills of Richmond are among the largest in the world, perhaps the largest. Those of one house, I was told, are capable of turning out 1,000 barrels of flour a day. The whole amount of flour made here was, in 1850, 336,120 barrels. Very large new mills are now building.

Tobacco manufacturing is also a very large, extensive business. I am not able to give the amount of it, but it is a mere trifle compared with the [97] amount of tobacco manufactured elsewhere, at the North and in Europe, from the raw leaf that is collected and shipped at this market.

There are also extensive distilleries, one or two paper mills, &c.

There are several large Cotton manufactories. A stockholder in one of these told me, that although manufactories at the East were now paying well that had the same sort of machinery, made similar goods, and that paid about the same rates of wages, these were not. I asked him if he could explain the cause; he answered: “I suppose it must be want of good management.” The cotton used here is mainly produced in the State; some comes up by railroad from North Carolina. It must cost less than to the Eastern manufacturer.

In the Cotton factories the hands employed are white, mainly women; and are paid by the piece at the same rates as in New-England, or a little lower. In the tobacco factories, blacks, both slaves and free, are engaged. They are also paid according to their expertness and activity, earning from fifty cents to two dollars a day.

The water power is unlimited and most convenient.

Bituminous coal is plentifully supplied from mines near the city. It is the same coal that is used in all our Eastern cities for gas manufacture and is retailed at 12½ cents a bushel—a bushel weighing from 70 to 90 lbs. Anthracite comes by sea from Philadelphia. Pine and oak wood $2.50 per cord, or any amount of either, I suppose, for little more than the expense of cutting and hauling a dozen miles. Staple articles of food, the produce of the country, 16 per cent. cheaper than in New-England. Anything foreign, and most manufactured articles, 10 per cent. above Eastern prices. The climate is represented by Northern men and Europeans to be agreeable, but little if any greater extremes of heat than at New-York in Summer, and much milder in Winter. The mean temperature in July and August is about 80° Fahrenheit, and in January, 44°. The city is mainly built on elevated ground and has a porous and dry foundation. It is also well supplied with water. Its health statistics, as might be expected, compare favorably with those of other cities. The deaths are 1 in 70 of the population, while in Philadelphia they are 1 in 45; Boston, 1 in 40; Charleston, 1 in 36; Liverpool, 1 in 19.

Excepting at New-York, I do not know of a situation in the Northern States having natural advantages for manufacturing purposes and trade equal to these. There are, however, no advantages for foreign commerce. The citizens talk of it much as if there were, and they have proposed, by aid of Government, to establish a line of steamers to Europe; but in the present era of ocean conveyance, it is simply absurd. Glasgow is much better situated for foreign commerce, but has not, by most energetic and persevering attempts, succeeded in becoming a port of any consequence to the world beyond Great Britain. She has been obliged to give it up to Liverpool. She can build steamers and ships for other ports, but never can sail them profitably herself. But Richmond has a hundred times the advantages of New-York or of Glasgow, or of any Northern or European city for manufacturing, much greater than some of the largest in [98] the world for inland and domestic commerce. Glasgow has none to compare with her, and yet Glasgow is running neck and neck with New-York in population and wealth and beating her in the ratio of her increase.

Will you not stop quarreling with New-York for “stealing your legitimate trade” and give a moment’s thought to this, Virginians?

This morning I visited a farm, some account of which will give you a good idea of the more advanced style of agriculture in Eastern Virginia. It is situated on the bank of James’ River, and has ready access by water or land-carriage to the city of Richmond. The soil of the greater part, is a red, plastic clay—loam of a medium or low fertility, with a large intermixture of small quartz pebbles. On the river bank is a tract of low alluvial land, varying from an eighth to a quarter of a mile in breadth. The soil of this is a sandy loam of the very finest quality in every respect, and it has been discovered in some places to be over ten feet in thickness; at which depth the sound trunk of a white oak has been found, showing it to be a recent deposit. I was assured that good crops of corn, wheat and clover had been taken from it, without its giving any indications of “wearing out,” although no manure, except an occasional dressing of lime, had been returned to it; for forty years a corn-crop of 50 bushels an acre had been grown, without manure except the plowed-in clover upon it, this year.

The rotation, corn, wheat, and clover two years, is followed on both upland and lowland, herd’s grass (red-top of New-York) sometimes taking the place of the clover, or grown with it, and mowed for hay for a series of years.

Hay always brings a high price in Richmond, and is usually shipped to that market from the eastward. This year, however, it is but a trifle above New-York prices, and the whole supply is drawn from this vicinity.

Oats in the straw are brought in considerable quantity to Richmond for horse feed, from the surrounding country. It is often pressed in bales like hay, and sells for about the same price. Thus at present, Hay (Northern bale) is $1.25 to $1.50; Oats in straw the same; while Oats, clean, (threshed) are 40¢ to 50¢. Wheat straw, 75¢; Corn 56¢ to 70¢; “Shucks,” the sheaths of the ears of Maize, are also sold here for horse-feed, generally at half the price of Northern Hay, which is evidently below their comparative value.

Lime is used largely, being applied at the wheat-sowing, at the rate of 25 to 50 bushels the acre. The lime for this is stone-lime, bought at Haverstraw, New-York, costing, delivered here, 71¼¢ to 7½¢ a bushel.

Plaster (gypsum) has been tried with little or no profit.

Dung is largely accumulated from the farmstock, and is applied to the corn-crop.

Guano is largely used. After trying greater and less quantities, the proprietor arrived at the conclusion that 200 lbs. the acre was the most profitable. It is now applied at that rate to all the wheat, and is also used for turnips. For corn it was not thought of much value; the greatest advantage had been obtained by applying it to the poorest land of the farm, some of which was of so [99] small fertility and at such a distance from the cattle quarters and the river, that it could not be profitably cultivated, and had been at waste for many years. Two hundred weight of Peruvian Guano to the acre brought 15 bushels of wheat; and a good crop of clover was perfectly sure to follow, by which the permanent improvement of the soil could be secured. This the proprietor esteemed to be the greatest benefit he derived from Guano, and he was pushing a regular plan for bringing all his more sterile upland into the system of convertible husbandry by its aid.

This plan is, to prepare the ground by fallowing for wheat, spread 200 pounds Guano broadcast, on the harrowed surface, and turn it under as closely as possible after the sowers, with a two-shovel plow (a sort of large two-shared cultivator), the wheat either being sowed and covered with the guano or immediately afterwards drilled-in with a horse-machine. In the Spring clover is sown. After the wheat is harvested, the clover is allowed to grow, without being pastured or mown, for twelve months. The ground is then limed, clover plowed in, and in October again guanoed 200 cwt. to the acre, and wheat sowed, with clover to follow. The clover may be pastured the following year, but in the year succeeding that, it is allowed to grow unchecked until August, when it is plowed in, the ground again limed, guanoed, and wheat sowed with herd’s-grass (red-top) and clover, which is to remain for mowing and pasture as long as the ground will profitably sustain it. The lime is not allowed to come in contact with the guano.

A horse-drill was used for wheat-sowing, and Hussey’s reaper for harvesting it; the proprietor preferring it to McCormick’s, on account of its greater strength and durability. He had used both, and found McCormick’s often occasioned delays at harvest from getting out of order. I have heard a similar report from others, and found Hussey’s generally in use on the larger plantations. I will say here, that the Scotch claim of precedence in the invention of Horse Reapers is, without doubt, correct. I understand there is a Scotchman in Richmond, who states that he saw Bell’s Reaper in operation in that country many years ago. I myself saw a model of a Horse Reaper in Scotland the year before the Great Fair. It is nevertheless no doubt true, that both the inventions of Hussey and McCormick, were original, and that the credit of first bringing horse-power into extensive practical operation in cutting wheat, both in this country and in Great Britain, belongs to them.

The labor of this farm was entirely performed by slaves. Their “quarters” lined the approach road to the mansion, and were well-made, comfortable log cabins, about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and eight feet tall, with a high loft and shingle roof; each divided in the middle, and occupied by two families, having a brick chimney outside the wall at each end. There were square windows, closed by wooden ports, having a single pane of glass in the centre. The house servants were neatly dressed, but the field hands wore very coarse and ragged garments.

I was in company with the proprietor at least three hours, and I don’t [100] think there were ten consecutive minutes of that time uninterrupted by some of the slaves requiring his direction or assistance. He was obliged to leave the dinner-table three times. Truly remarked he, “A farmer’s life here is no sine-cure.”

He was a very generous-minded, good-hearted man, as was indicated, among other ways, by his interest in the efforts to introduce Christianity among the degraded poor of New-York. When there, he had visited the Five Points, and his admiration and respect for Mr. Pease, the missionary whose exceedingly sensible and noble labors have been frequently the subject of commendation in your paper, was almost unbounded.“I consider that man a hero,” said he, “worthy to rank among the great and brave men of the world.” With regard to Slavery, he said,“I only wish you philanthropists could contrive any way to relieve us of it. But what can we do? The free blacks are, almost all—there are some exceptions—here, and at the North, as well, miserable vagabonds, drunken, vicious, worse off, I candidly believe, than those in slavery. I am satisfied, too, that our slaves in Virginia are in a happier condition than most of the poor laborers of the North, certainly than those of England, or almost any other Christian country. I am not sure that free labor would not be more profitable; the slaves are wasteful, careless, and in various ways subject me to provoking losses.

“This is a hard life. You see how constantly I am called on, often at night as well as day. I did not sleep a wink last night till near morning; my health is failing and my wife is feeble, but I cannot rid myself of it. I cannot trust an overseer. I had one, and paid him four hundred dollars a year, and I had almost as much work and anxiety in looking after him as in overseeing for myself.”

I asked what was the general character of the overseers. “They are the curse of the country, the worst men in our community, Sir. But the other day, I had another sort of one offer, a fellow like a dancing master, with kid gloves and wristbands turned neatly over his sleeves, and all so nice that I almost was ashamed to talk to him in my old coat and slouch hat; half a bushel of recommendations, too, he had with him. Well, he was not the man for me; not half the gentleman, with all his airs, that Ned, here,” (a black boy) “is.”

Afterwards he said to me of the slaves: “Oh, they are interesting creatures, Sir, and, with all their faults, have many beautiful traits. I can’t help being attached to them, and I am sure they love us.” I did not doubt it; his manner towards them was parental—familiar and kind; and they came to him like children who have been given some task, and constantly are wanting to be encouraged and guided, simply and confidently. At dinner, he frequently addressed the servant who waited on us familiarly, and drew him into our conversation as if he were a family friend, better informed on some local and domestic points than himself.

He informed me that able-bodied field-hands were hired out in this vicinity at the rate of one hundred dollars a year and their board and clothing. [101] Four able-bodied men that I have employed the last year, on my farm in New-York, I pay on an average one hundred and five dollars each, and board them; they clothe themselves (at an expense, I think, of twenty dollars a year; probably slave’s clothing costs five dollars). They constitute all the force of my farm hired by the year, except a boy, who goes to school in Winter, and have no overseer, but one of themselves, in my absence. I pay the fair wages of the market, more than any of my neighbors, I believe, and these are no lower than the average of what I have paid for the last five years. This, then, probably offers a fair comparison of the proportionate cost of free and slave labor. I have little doubt that mine is most economical.

It is difficult to measure the labor performed in a day by one with that of the other, on account of undefined differences in the soil and in the bulk and weight of articles operated with and upon. But here I am shown tools that no man in his senses with us would allow a laborer he was paying wages to, to be encumbered with; and the excessive weight and clumsiness of which, I should judge, would make work at least ten percent. greater than with those ordinarily used with us, and I am assured that in the careless and clumsy way that they must be used by the slaves, anything lighter or less rude would not be good economy, and that such tools as we constantly give our laborers and find our profit in giving them, would not last out a day in a Virginia corn field—much lighter and more free from stones though it be than ours.

So, too, I ask why mules are so universally substituted for horses on the farm! The first reason, and confessedly the most conclusive one, is, that horses cannot bear the treatment that they always must get from slaves; horses are always soon foundered or crippled by them, while mules will bear cudgelling, and lose a meal or two now and then, and not be materially injured, and they do not take cold or get sick if neglected or overworked; but I do not need to go further than to the window of the room in which I am writing to see, at almost any time, treatment of cattle that would insure the immediate discharge of the driver by almost any farmer owning them at the North.

Before leaving Virginia, I hope to be able to examine this subject more thoroughly.

I did not intend when I commenced writing these letters to give much attention to the subject of Slavery; but the truth is, the character of the whole agriculture of the country depends upon it. In every department of industry I see its influence, vitally affecting the question of profit, and I must add that everywhere, and constantly, the conviction is forced upon me, to a degree entirely unanticipated, that its effect is universally ruinous. My first impression upon crossing the country was, that to account for the general superior prosperity asserted of the North, we need go no further than to examine the soil; the main source of wealth at the South being agriculture, no cheapness of labor could make profitable the culture of such poor soil as that which at first fell under my observation. It did, indeed, occur to me that only by the low value of slave labor, could such land have been so long retained in cultivation. Would you think it possible that a man could live by cultivating ground that only produced three bushels of wheat to the acre? The very slightest possible cultivation of the soil, and the mere seed and sowing of it without the slightest tillage, would cost a northern farmer as much as the value of the crop. Such crops are common in Virginia. I do not exaggerate in saying so. I have heard of repeated instances where the crop of a whole, large plantation was not over three bushels to the acre! Without asserting, as, however, I am much inclined to think, and [104] as many Virginians confess to me they are themselves convinced, that the system of slavery is responsible, by its enervating effects upon the minds of the superior race, for this beggarly farming; there is not room for the shadow of a doubt across my mind, that slave labor makes the cost of cultivating such lands greater, and the profit (!) less, than it would be under free labor.

But the soils from which I derived the impression I have spoken of, are by no means to be taken as a criterion of the ordinary lands of this country; I have since seen large tracts of as fine wheat land, deep and rich upland of clayey loam; or alluvial meadows of the best description of soil for general cropping, that I ever saw in any country, and even on the same old piney land—or worn out tobacco fields—under a system of agriculture of moderate enterprise and skill, I have found that fair crops of all sorts can be made. And under free labor, and the direction of men exercising the ordinary intelligence and skill applied to Northern farms, I am wholly convinced that there is not in all the Northern States, or in all of Europe, a district of country where the business of farming would be so profitable, as in Eastern Virginia. I shall hereafter discuss the inducements offered under present circumstances to emigration. As to the capability of the soil, I heard this morning that a Northern man last year purchased a farm in Southern Virginia, but a few miles from a railroad, and but twenty from a seaport, for which he paid $5 an acre. It had not ordinarily produced wheat at the rate of five bushels the acre, and had never been plowed over four inches in depth; upon which, by plowing eight inches, turning up not only virgin soil, but clay to mix with the sand of the surface, and applying 150 barrels of guano, costing $3.75 to the acre, he obtained a crop averaging twenty bushels an acre, and from which he realized much more than sufficient money to pay for the cost of the land it grew upon, and the expense of growing it. I have seen land of a similar description, which has been sold, with its improvements, during the last year, for $2.25 an acre.

As I may hereafter wish sometimes to assume the superior cheapness or economy of free labor, I will in addition to the reasons I have before given for it, state here a few more.

I have compared notes with several farmers, planters and manufacturers, capitalists and contractors, and I arrive at the conclusion to which they have without one exception conceded, that the wages of laborers, measuring them merely by power of muscle, or brute force, without regard to energy or will, are at this time at least 25 per cent. higher in Eastern Virginia, than in the State of New-York.

In addition to this difference there is to be deducted from the profit of the slave the loss of time occasioned by his sickness (or absence from any cause); which loss does not fall upon the proprietor under the free labor system, and the temptation to counterfeit which is not offered to the laborer. The loss of this to the slave farmer is of various consequence, sometimes small, often excessively embarrassing, always a subject of anxiety and suspicion. A farmer told me for the purpose of showing me the weakness of the family tie and the [105] promiscuous intercourse among slaves, that having allowed one of his men, a mechanic, to work some time in a shipyard at a city, soon after his return, and at a time when he was pressed for labor, he suddenly found twelve hands, male and female, and all of them married parties, laid up with a disgusting disease, and was obliged to procure, at a great expense, a physician to come from town twice a week to examine the whole force, to prevent its spread among them. After all, an old “nigger doctor,” a slave in the neighborhood, was more successful in curing them with an empirical remedy, than the regular practitioner. I mention this as indicating that this complaint is not unfrequent among them. A decoction of pine leaves is one of the negro remedies.

As to sham-sickness or “playing ’possum” I heard much complaint of it, and it is said to be nearly as hard to treat negroes in sickness as it is children, because they use their imagination so much, greatly puzzle the doctors by lying as to their symptoms, and from their neglect or refusal to take the remedies left for them. They will generally conceal pills in their mouth, declare they have swallowed them, and it is only discovered that they have not by their failing to have any effect. This is a general custom, but probably arose from the fact that unless very disagreeably ill they are loth to recover from that which exempts them from labor.

Amusing incidents illustrating this difficulty I have heard, showing that the slave rather enjoys getting a severe wound that lays him up. He has his hand smashed by accident, and says: “Bless de Lord—de hand b’long to massa. I don’t reckon I’se got no more corn to hoe dis year, for sartin.”

On the other hand the suspicion that when a hand complains he is “playing possum” and the refusal to allow him to “knock off’ often aggravates what might be otherwise a slight and temporary indisposition, into a long and serious illness. From this reason, the labor of women on a plantation, as a large planter assured me, “actually does not pay for their salt.” After they get to the “breeding age” they do no more work of any account. “They are forever complaining of ’irregularities.’ They don’t come to the field, and you ask what’s the matter, and the old nurse always nods her head and says, ’Oh, she’s not well, sir; she’s not fit to work, sir,’—and you have to take her word for it.”

I believe that the slaves are generally very kindly and considerately treated in sickness, but the profit of slave labor is all the less from this, from the encouragement to the slave to make the most of sickness and so to withdraw his labor and be a mere “bill of expense” to his master.

Then the slaves sometimes refuse to labor, or “balk,” from mere “rascality,” which, as I have before shown, is sufficiently common and inexplicable as to be considered a disease. They are then inconceivably stubborn, and can barely be driven to work by the lash, and in no way restrained from recklessly or malevolently doing much injury to their master’s property.

“How do you manage, then, when a man misbehaves, or is sick?” I have been asked at this point of the discussion.

“If he is sick, I simply charge against him every half day of the time he [106] is off work, and deduct it from his wages. If he is careless, or refuses to do what in reason I demand of him, I discharge him, paying him wages to the time he leaves. With new men in whom I have not confidence, I make a written agreement, before witnesses, on engaging them, that will permit me to do this. As for“rascality,” I never had but one case of anything approaching to what you call so. A man contradicted me in the field; I told him to leave his job and go to the house, took hold and finished it myself; then went to the house, made out a written statement of account, counted out the balance in money due him, gave him the statement and the money, and told him he must go, and had not another word with him. I’ve no doubt he was a good and respectful man to his next employer.”

The slave master, in case he finds he has a “tartar” on his hands, has no remedy, if he has hired him, but to ask a deduction of what he has paid from his owner, on the same ground that you would if you had hired a vicious horse, and instead of helping you on your journey he had broken your leg; or, if he is an owner, to sell him “to go South.”

That the slaves have to be “humored” a great deal, and often cannot be made to do their master’s will, is very evident,—I do not think they will do from fear nearly as much as Northern laborers will simply from respect to their contract or regard to their duty. The gentleman I before spoke of as employing white laborers on a farm, had been especially struck with this. A dam had given way, and it was necessary to do a good deal of work very promptly in the water. He was greatly surprised to find how much more readily than negroes his white men would obey his orders. jumping into the water waist deep in the midst of winter without the slightest hesitation or grumbling. He had noticed the same on all emergencies, when it was desirable to work late at night, &c., or to do any very disagreeable job. A farmer in England told me that he had once, in a very bad harvest season, had laborers at work without a wink of sleep for sixty hours, himself heading them, and eating and drinking with them.

Finally, to come to the point of the amount of work which will be done under the Northern and the Southern system. I regret that I cannot get more exact data here. The only close observation of the work done in a day by slaves that can be fairly compared with that by free laborers, that I have been able to obtain, was made by Mr. T. R. Griscom, of Petersburg; a man remarkable for the accuracy and preciseness of his information on all subjects. I was recommended to call upon him, as a man possessing very intimate knowledge with regard to the agriculture of the district in which he lives, by as strong a pro-Slavery man as I have met. He formerly resided in New-Jersey, and has had the superintendence of very extensive and varied agricultural operations in Virginia.

He tells me he once very carefully observed how much labor was expended in securing a crop of very thin wheat, and found that it took four negroes one day to cradle, rake, and bind one acre. (That is, this was the rate at [107] which the field was harvested.) In the wheat-growing districts of Western New-York, four men would be expected to do five acres of a similar crop.

Mr. Griscom further states, as his opinion, that four negroes do not, in the ordinary agricultural operations of this State, accomplish as much as one laborer in New-Jersey. Upon my expressing my astonishment, he repeated it, as his deliberately formed opinion.

I have since, again called on Mr. Griscom, and obtained permission to give his name with the above statement. He also wishes me to add, that the ordinary waste in harvesting, by the carelessness of the negroes, above that which occurs in the hands of Northern laborers, is large enough to equal what a Northern farmer would consider a satisfactory profit on the crop.

I do not think there is a man in Virginia whose information on this point would be more reliable or whose opinion would be formed with less prejudice to either side and is entitled to greater respect than Mr. Griscom’s.

I have at second hand the result of the experience of another man who has superintended extended labors of a similar character, both at the North and in Virginia, which precisely agrees with Mr. Griscom’s. I am not able now to see him and obtain the facts directly, but have been promised a statement of them by him in writing.

In a late article by H. M. Brackenridge, in the National Intelligencer, copied in the New-York Times of Dec. 29, reproving the spirit of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and containing many very sensible observations on Slavery, the result, the writer says, of ten years observation and much reflection, it is stated that “the day’s labor of the slave is notoriously not more than half that of the white man; and if left to himself (it would be) not more than half that.”

Another gentleman here, who formerly resided in Connecticut, told me that he believed that a Northern laborer would finish a negro’s day’s work by 11 o’clock in the forenoon.

I have stated that I had met no farmer that was not convinced of the superior economy of free-labor (if the slaves were not on their hands and in some way to be provided for), but few however are willing to concede or can believe the difference to be as great as the above opinions would indicate. On mentioning them to one, he remarked, that although the four men might not have done more than at the rate of an acre a day, it must have been because they were not well driven. He thought that if driven hard enough, threatened with punishment, and punished if necessary, they would do as’ much work as it was possible for any white man to do. The same man, however, has told me that slaves were very rarely punished—he thought not more than apprentices were at the North—that the driving was almost always left to overseers, who were the laziest and most inefficient dogs in the world—frequently not worth half so much as the slaves they pretended to manage—and that the wages of an overseer were often not more than half as much as one of the negroes put under his control could be hired out for.

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A planter on the coast, whom I asked to examine these statements, and my conclusions with regard to this subject, that he might, if he could, refute them, or give me any facts of an opposite character, replied: “Why, I have no doubt you are right, Sir; in general, a slave does not do half the work he easily might, and which, by being harsh enough with him, he can be made to do. When I came into possession of my plantation, I found the overseer was good for nothing, and I soon told him I had no further occasion for his services, and I went to driving the negroes myself. In the morning, when I went out one of them came up to me saying, ’Well, massa, what’ll you hab me go at dis mornin’?’ ’Well, ole man,’ said I, ’you may go to the swamps and cut wood.’ ’Well, massa,’ said he, ’s’pose you wants me to do kordins we’s been use to doin’ here: ebery niggar cut a cord o’ wood a day.’ ’A cord! that’s what you have been used to doing, is it?’ said I. ’Yes, massa, dat’s wot dey always makes a niggar do roun’ heah—a cord a day, dat’s allers de job.’ ’Well, now, ole man,’ said I, ’you go and cut me two cords to-day.’ ’Oh, massa! two cords! Nobody couldn do dat. Oh! massa, dat’s too hard! Nebber heard nobody’s cuttin’ more ’n a cord in a day roun’ heah. No niggar couldn do it.’ ’Well, ole man, you have two cords of wood cut to-night, or to-morrow morning you shall get two hundred lashes. Now, go off and be about it.’ And he did it, and ever since no negro has ever cut less than two cords a day for me, though my neighbors never get but one cord. It was just so with a great many other things—mauling rails—I always have twice as many rails mauled in a day as it is the custom of the country to expect of a negro, and just twice as many as my negroes always had been made to do before I managed them myself.”

Allowing that the opinions of the practical men who have had experience at the North and the South, that I have given, somewhat exaggerate the difference in the amount of work accomplished by a slave and a Northern free laborer (though I did not give them because they were extreme, but because they were the only exact statements that I could obtain)—allowing that I have been unfortunate in this way, and that a longer residence in the State would give me information that would much modify these estimates, there still remains, beyond a doubt, a very great loss in using the labor of the slave. These statements would make the loss between three and four hundred per cent. Now although they were the calculations and deliberate estimates of men who had enjoyed a liberal education, and who had unusual facilities for observing both at the North and South—men who employ slaves, and who sustain Southern opinions on the political questions arising from slavery—I am not disposed to insist upon full credit for them. Cut them down one-half, and we still have a loss of nearly one hundred per cent. Even if you will have them to be utterly mistaken, and calculate that the slaves accomplish equally as much—man for man—as Irishmen under wages contract, yet consider how large a sum would pay for clothes, time lost by sickness or otherwise—five or more additional holidays, which custom gives them, and for all that they pilfer or damage and destroy through carelessness, improvidence, recklessness and rascality!

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Can there be a reasonable doubt that the State of Virginia loses fifty per cent. on the cost of labor, in employing slaves in preference to freemen!

Suppose that half the cost of a crop is expended in the human labor given to it, the profits of the farmers of Virginia would then be increased 25 per cent. per annum, if they could substitute the labor of freemen for that of slaves.

Labor is the creator of wealth. There can be no honest wealth, no true prosperity without it, and in exact proportion to the economy of labor is the cost of production and the accumulation of profit.

Remembering this, I cannot but ask the people of Virginia to read again the facts that follow, which I extract from the leading article of the Richmond Enquirer of this date (Dec. 29), and seriously and candidly reflect for themselves with regard to them.

Virginia, anterior to the Revolution and up to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, contained more wealth and a larger population than other States of this Confederacy.

* * *

Virginia, from being first in point of wealth and political power, has come down to the fifth in the former, and the fourth in the latter. New-York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio stand above her in wealth, and all, but Massachusetts, in population and political power. Three of these States are literally chequered over with Railroads and canals, and the fourth (Massachusetts) with Railroads alone.

But when we find that the population of the single city of New-York and its environs exceeds the whole free population of Eastern Virginia, and the valley between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany, we have cause to feel deeply for our situation. Philadelphia herself contains a population far greater than the whole free population of Eastern Virginia.

—The little State of Massachusetts has an aggregate wealth exceeding that of Virginia by more than one hundred and twenty-six millions of dollars—a State, too, which is incapable of subsisting its inhabitants from the production of its soil. And New-York, which was as much below Massachusetts, at the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in wealth and power, as the latter was below Virginia, now exceeds the wealth of both. While the aggregate wealth of New-York, in 1850, amounted to $1,080,309,216, that of Virginia was $436,701, 082—a difference in favor of the former of $643,608,134. The un-wrought mineral wealth of Virginia exceeds that of New-York. The climate and soil are better; the back country, with equal improvements, would contribute as much.

All true, and facts and contrasts more striking and far more humiliating might have been shown you. Why be driven by fanaticism and bigotry to shut your eyes to the most simple and evident explanation of them?

I shall next show why it is not possible for any Single farmer or manufacturer to relieve himself of his proportion of this tax to support slavery and increase his products and profits in a corresponding ratio, and make it [110] evident that only by the general action of the people, their “commercial vassal-age” can be remedied.