The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-11-19

only second in beauty to that of the
lands In Belgium, is completely for
saken. Such is the condition of the
land that, leaving aside the precari-
ousness of labor, an immense outlay
of money is requisite to reduce the
plantations to their old state, or to
insure for many years to come, even
with abundant labor, much more than
half of their former productions.
The crops of Louisiana were thus
estimated. Taking the former mini
mum crop of sugar to be $4,000
hogsheads, and the maximum $40, 600;
the cotton on the Mississippi and its
tributaries, minimum 100000 bales,
maximum 400, 900, the incoming crop,
as compared with that, will not be
more than 80, 600 bales of cotton and
$4,000 hogsheads of sugar, and this
is very large estimate.
The levees of the Mississippi River
and its tributaries and outlets embrace
length of 5000 miles, with an ave-
rage height of embankment of per
haps about twelve feet, with base of
ninety orone hundred feet. In many
localities, the levees have height of
thirty feet, with q base of three hun
dred feet. These large works are
located always at the most dangerous
places, where there are the largest in
roads Of water upon the tillable land.
Without q coerced system of labor,
these breaks cannot be repaired and
kept up, unless, indeed, the Govern
ment Of the Uuited States undertakes
that laborious and indispensable work.
Even under that system, if such an
appropriation is made, the levees
would be less effectual in keeping out
the waters than heretofore, because
the eye of the owner of each particu-
lar property day and night is to exer-
else q guardianship which disinte-
rested hireling is not likely to do. In
addition to this, large porton of the
improvements on the plantations, the
sugar houses and machinery, erected
at such heavy cost, have been in most
sections entirely destroyed during the
war The outlay of capital required
to restore the buildings, the private
embankments, the fences, (most of
which have to be purchased the
ditching, canalling, &c, puts it out of
the power Of the great bulk of plant
ers to resume their former avocations
1t must also be taken into considera-
ton, that in the delta of the Missis-
sippi, for the effectral cultivation of
the cane and cotton crops, for each
thousand acres Of land there must be
at least three hundred miles of canal
ling, ditching and cross drains, the
latter varying from four feet in width
to five in depth, also an enormous
can1lage that is to connect the drain
age Of each plantation with the regu-
lar outlet or bayou for carrying off
superfluous water. When these diff
culties are considered to the planter
IN his present condition, without
credit, without an organized system
of labor, the risk before him of under
taking such a work is really appalling.
And yet, unless it is done, the dcpre-
citation in the value of his lands, the
entire loss of all the improvements,
buildings and machinery, will leave
the planter penniless, even were his
possessions before the war worth
millions.
Mr.. John Bumsides plantation.
one Of the largest in the South, may
he taken as an example. 1t has been
the most Systematically managed,
both as regards agricultural develop
mcnts and economy Of expenditure,
and Notwithstanding liberal COM
pensation to the few hands Ne has
been enabled to employ, his crop has
( been reduced from 5000 hogsheads
OF sugar, III 1861, to between 500 and
600 hoSsheads in 1868. But this loss
OF products IS not the least he has to
encounter. On one estate of 5000
acres of cultivated land, from the in
| ablllty to procure the reasonable labor
and remove the difficulties of drain
age III the rear of his estate, nearly
or quite one-half is lost altogether to
present use.
The adjoining estates of Governor