The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12,1857.

20 cents (101) a bushel to carry wheat by canal from the
towns in the centre of Pennsylvania to Philadelphia, a
distance of two hundred miles. The country is level along
the Atlantic coast, but it is very poor and sandy.
I met a Pennsylvania farmer who resided within twenty
miles of Philadelphia. His land was worth 100 dols., or
201. sterling, an acre, and it would rent at 400 dols. a year.
He raised ten acres of wheat and ten acres of Indian corn ;
the average produce of the former is about twenty.five
bushels an acre, and of the latter sixty bushels. After
Indian corn oats are generally sown, then wheat, to which
all the manure produced in the farm is applied. The rest
of the farm is in grass and meadow, for when the land is
sown down after the wheat crop it is allowed to lie for six
or eight years. The timothy grass is sown in autumn and
the clover in spring. The pastures are ploughed in autumn
or in spring, and maize is planted in four•feet squares,
which permits of the crop being thoroughly cultivated
during summer, and little hand hoeing is required. Twenty
cows were kept, and their prattle° is made into butter, and
sold in Philadelphia. A cow, when the produce is disposed of
in this way, will yield 35 dols. a year, and 55 when the
milk is sold in towns, lut an ox will only yield about
25 dols. when fed throughout the year. A ton of hay with
straw will winter a cow, and Indian•corn meal is allowed in
spring when she is giving milk. Besides himself, he
employed one man servant, and kept three horses. lie
paid from 35 to 40 dols. in taxes every year.
We subjoin, also, the following table of
prices, premising, for the sake of such readers
as have been a long time from school, that
there are eight bushels to the quarter :

Wheat. Indian Oats. Potatoes.
Corn.
a. d. a. d. a. d. a. d.
Now England States .. A 9 .. 1 4 .. 010
New York 1 turttiliLemn I
34 •. 2 .
191 ...
: (1) 10
Pennsyl. I East. Dist. 4 6 .. 2 0 .. 1 4 .. 1 0
vanis J Western.. 3 7 .. 1 8 .. 1 0 .. 010
Ohio 2 3 .. 0 10 .. 0 8 6 6
Indiana and Illinois 2 0 .. 0 7 .. 0 7 .. 0 7
Michigan 2 3 .. 1 0 .. 110 .. 0 7
Wisconsin 2 0 .. 010 .. 0 7 0 7
Delaware & Maryland 4 2 .. 2 3 .. 1 4 .. 1 0
Virginia tTaesst.teDrnist 1 "(I)
41 ..
100
Kentucky & Tennesse 21..0 7e .. 7:..• 1 0
South Carolina, Deur- 2 .. 1 0 .. 1 2 .. 1 0
gis, and Alabama
Lonisiana&Mississippi 4 8 .. 1 4 .. 1 0 .. 1 3
Missouri 1 8 .. 0 7q .. 071 .. 010
-

Passing on to that portion of Mr. Russell's
work which treats of the Slave States, the
whole of the eighth chapter will be found, we
think, peculiarly interesting. The following
remarks are very striking, and point to a view
of slave labour which is unfamiliar to the
people of this country :
- -

- -
Even a rich district cultivated by slaves may compare
very favourably with one cultivated by free men, with
regard to the amount of produce that they severally raise ;
yet the outward signs of prosperity in the two would be
very opposite. The income of the large planter is com•
monly spent in a way that does not give rise to local trade
and commerce. The slave population is, in a great
measure, a non•consuming class, and does not promote
that traffic which raises up villages and towns. These
effects of slavery are always most strongly marked in those
districts which have the richest soils. An exactly opposite
state of things prevails in the fertile districts of the Free
States, where, the labour of the cultivators being well
rewarded, the means for purchasing the comforts and
luxuries of life are diffused among all classes.

" The aspect of the country," then, a theme
so much dwelt on by a certain class of tra-
vellers, is not, it would seem, an unerring
index to its actual condition. In all those
kinds of labour which require that a large
number of hands should be suddenly concen•
trated upon some one operation, slave labour
will, in Mr. Russell's opinion, always be able
to compete with free :
Though a slave may, under very favourable circum-
stances, cultivate twenty acres of wheat and twenty of
Indian corn, he cannot manage more than two acres of
tobacco. The culture of tobacco, therefore, admits of the
concentration of labour, and thus the superintendence and
management of a tobacco plantation will be more perfect
and less expensive than of a corn one. And while slavery
can always command labour, it likewise possesses the
great advantage of organising labour. Tobacco cannot be
cultivated in the Free States by hiring and employing
labourers; it is only cultivated there by small farmers.
These circumstances give slave labour a great advantage
over free in the culture of this crop.
But besides these advantages, slavery admits of having
an economical division of labour in the raising and pre.
paring of tobacco for market. Mr. Babbage points out the
existence of an important principle in the division of
labour when employed in manufactures, that is, " the
master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be executed
into different processes, each requiring different degrees of
skill and force, can purchase exactly that precise quantity
of both which is necessary for each process; whereas, if
the work were executed by one workman, that Person must
possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and
sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of the
operations into which the art is divided."—Economy of
Manufactures', p. 138. The same principle applied to the
organisation of slave labour for tobacco culture, though in
a different way, inasmuch as both young and old slaves can
find suitable employment in the culture and preparation of
the crop for market. Worms require to be picked off the
plants during their growth, and the leaves are gathered at