New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-11-07
LETTERS FROM THE PARISHES.

fertility. Those which have been covered
with sand are not SO productive as those
which are purely alluvial. The yield. then,
varies oil the way from half q hogshead to
two hogsheads per acre or arpeht The
labor seemed adequate and cheerful.
Women as we'll a. men welded that ma
chete-the cAne knife, the carts were moving
to and from the sugar house, and the smoke
of the furnaces was universal along the
men in the vegetable farms, or cropping on
shares, the whole labor of this region is
colored. Really this sugar harvest is a pan.
Drama only equalled perhaps by the vine
yards of the Rhine or the Garonne. 1t is
the end of experience and anxiety, the
preface to rest and compensation. The vim
tage of the mill and furnaces continues for
weeks, and brings, or ought to bring, all the
relief and recreation of. ship which termi-
mates tempestuous voyage in a profitable
port.
Yet the question of compensation is not
adjusted between the planter and laborer.
The planters think the laborers exact too
much. The laborer thinks he is allowed
too little, especially when surrounded by
conditions which he can not avoid. One of
these is that almost invariable prac,ice of
paying wages in goods instead of in money.
One negro laborer stated that the "chance"
Of colored person was better in cotton
than in sugar, for the reason that any one
could become q cotton planter, while to
make sugar there was an amount of capital
needed, with period of delay, which a sin
gle laborer cauld not hope to command or
await. This informant told of men who
had "done nothing for themselves" on the
sugar plantations who had gone up to the
cotton lands and done we'll, some of them
making as much as forty bales. He ex-
pressed the opinion that there would be a
larger labor movement from sugar to cotton
"after New Year" This fluctuation between
cotton, rice and sugar may be expected
until the teFms of labor shall be perma
nently adjusted. The two interests are OBJ
vlously not far apart at present. Perhaps
the experiment of trying other pursuits
may tend to satisfy the laborer that the
sugar crop presents certain advantages
while the facility of labor migration may
remind the planter that next to cheap
labor, permanent labor is important to a
heavy investment in land and machinery.
Indeed this facility of labor movement
from unsatisfactory wages or a crop failure
should dispose the planter to fix this labor
by the sale or lease of small holdings, and
an annual tribute to his sugar mill. This
localizing labor induces and enables it 10
tide over short crop. Laborers who have
nothing can move with the readiness and
rapidity of soldiers or railroad hands. Any
superior attraction offered the laborers in
sugar may compel an advance of their
wages beyond the interest or perhaps the
ability of the planter to pay.
This is only one of the particulars in
which people who are to dwell together
suffer from want of conference upon their
common interests. The employer is depend
ent upon regular and effective labor. Why,
then, should he not favor the moral protec
tion Of the laborer If the barrel house, or
the gaming table, demoralize and disable
the laborer. how can the planter expect him
to render the services which he has con
traoted If the planter takes no care of
the morals of the young, how can he expect
honest or capable domestics for the services
of his familys 1t has long been known In
the South that the freed negroes, relieved
from supervision and left to the temptations
which sought their services for nothing, de-
generated into thriftless mendicants. Have
the planters no fears that the children of
the present laborers, epurned from all care
and consideration, may grow Up without
the. habits of order and industry of the
present laboring racef
Those politicians who teach that negro
is only to be tolerated because he can make
cotton, and only to be dreaded because he
may not vote as directed, take very linn
tied view of the great moral element which
votes once in two years, but may steal, get
drunk and infest society every hour which
intervenes between elections. The time
will arrive when the negro will not be re-
garded as the one ward of the nation, to be
left like his red brother to the tender mer-
cies of gunpowder, whisky, smallpox and
measels, but q valued and indispensable
agent of the people with whom he lives and
for whom he labors. For, without the
negro, the delta is again swamp. After
high and just eulogy on his old master, Mr.
Thrasimond Landry, laborer said, "All
them old gentlemen is broke down and
dead. The Dutch is gittin' in on us, and
the Jews; an they has even tried the
Chiney." But, added he, "Chiney is too
light; he can't ditch, he can't handle q
plow, he can't get cypruss out of the
swsmps. The Niger and the mule is all
that can stand this country" This man
had unconsciously spoken . truth that
economists should ponder. 1t may be
added that this docile and dependent people
ysarn for the protection and counsel of
those with whom they have been reared.
1t is great calamity, if not . crime, to
separate the interests and kindly relations
of those who are, in this country, indis-
pensable to each other.
THE RICE CROP.
This industry 10 greatly on the increase
for reasons which have been intimated.
The care Anacost of the sugar crop is very
great, and large proportion of the receipts
60 to the expense of culture. The cotton
crop 10 more simple, less expensive, and
does not involve the delay of rattoons.
From these facts all crops must be profit