Des Arc weekly citizen., 1869-02-23
Engaging Field Hands.
From the Baton Rouge Advocate l

From the Baton Rouge Advocate 1
 Many persons engaged in planting nave apparently forgotten the lessons Of ls66, when the demand for labor was as great as 1t is now, and are offering prices for field hands that will require extraordinary cropping and high prices Tor produce to enable them to pay and not bankrupt themselves.
 Look before you leap,' and if the price demanded is more than can be paid and leave margin for profit, il were better to contract the cultivated area Of your places, and press on ener. getically with small force engaged at reasonable prices. Nearly all of the good reliable hands have already been engaged in this vicinity, and it were suicidal policy to bid high for labor that is beyond reach.
 The labor market is exhausted here, and there little use in offering the mis. cellaneous gangs of idle town negroes high. price. Rumors of these offers create discontent among the good and reliable laborers who have generally gone to work at prices that arc fair to both employers and employees. The de- mand for fresh hands on sugar places that will be reopened on the coast be- low this city can better be supplied from more distant sections of the South than this, and it were we'll that no inn polite competition between agents, planters and farmers should occur here, for the limited supply O. eood field hands who are willing to work and who are not already engaged.
 Last gaqenn,c fapsnssn nnowofsnu have resulted satisfactorily, and hands engaged this year can be easily paid even if the crops should prove short. But if extraordinary prices for labor are promised, the result may be disastrous to both planters add freedmen.
 It were far better to procure labo- rers from the overcrowded coasts of South Carolina and Georgia than to inaugurate system of bidding and in- triguing here among the laboring freedmen which can only be attenden- ded with one result-discontent among them and pay rolls that will be be- yond the ability of their employers to meet.
 The Tiobodaux Sentinel of the 16th, says that: Many freedmen are flock ing into town as usual at this season of the year, and renting every room that can be had. Until the wages of the last year are all consumed, they will not engage themselves to work for the present year. Many planters are al- most destitute of labor, while some are lucky enough to retain the most of their employees of the year just finished. From the Csddo Gazette.
 We hear complaints on the part of some planters of the difficulty in hiring laborers for the year. We presume that the reason of this trouble is the same as in previous years, and owes it's existence to to the scarcity of labor. We hear also that many planters are offering one half the crops, and agrec to furnish cverything-which is very liberal to say the least of it. As a rule the freedmen refuse monthly wa ges, and prefer to work for share of the crop, whether one-half or less In few stances the laborers furnish their own teams and supplies, giving a part of the crop for the use of the land.
 hV PtthtNio iC OtaSCit for success in 1869. They pay high wages-twenty dollars for the best hands, and from that down to twelve and ten dollars; but they will expect those hands to do good work. Reck- oning rations and othor considerations at a fair price, the hands this year cost the planters from S1 to Sl 25 per day. the year round.
 TWENTY DOLLARS MoETH.--Somc of our planters have requested us to state that they arc paying twenty dol lars month and rations, cabins, wood, etc, and can't get a supply of field hands even at that price. Fries have gone up since last year in this parish just five dollars month, and that with out bureau, and without mcddlers of any kind. We will begin to need a Planters Bureau, before long to regu- late prices, and to keep the cnltiyators of the soil from ovcrcropping them selves. Ifthcy make a good crop this year they will want about ten thou- snad hands next year at any price they choose to ask less than forty or fifty dollars month.
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