New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-01-14

J.
into sugar Of the best quality. The hollsnr
IN the vaeuum pan and the eeparalion n
the centrifugal are triumPhs Of science ana
He saw . pile Of oranges containing
100 bushels, and wandered In q kroVs COW
eripg 100 acres, under trees bending into
globes beneath their colleen burdens. Sheen
were feeding on oranges, and little bInok
children playing with the fruit The yisid
$4,000.
These we're cheering scenes, but what
gave the greatest pleasure was 70 learn
that laborers who cultivate sugar planta-
become sharers Of the profits and holders of
the soil.
Adjoining the Magnolia Plantation, about
fifty miles below New Orleans, d q settla-
ment Of freedmen who have purchased
sugar land homesteads with river frontage
in oranges.
This Is the pari. h of Plaauemines. WHARF
there is lage majority of freedmen. There
has never been any violence, and they gov
ern the parish, yet the planter ssye: 1.-THE
oolored people of Plequen3ines klve never
done anything Of which the white people
could complain. Our doors are never
looked. The parish is more prosperous than
it ever was before the war"
On large plantation, thirty miles below
New Orleans, an intelligent holder who
mskes what is considered one Of thu best
brands OF brown. sugar, has introduced the
system OF culhvating cane on the ahaEea,
paying Eor the yield by the ton. He Conn.,
menced on this plan in 1875, with few
tenants. In 1876 nearly half his lands were
so tended, and his neighbors are following
his example. The laborers who have
adopted this basis prefer it to hiring. Is
gives them better promise of profit, and
leaves them free. They labor not for wages,
but for Themselves. An old freedman, grown
gray on the plantation as q slave and hired
hand, said he did better on shares. His fam
lily helped him, and he made $500 the drat
year. His tone grew richer, and his tsoth
shone, and his eyes sparkled So he said: II
never enjoyed my liberty IS much since /
was Free"
This is the voice of nature apealing from
the heart of one of the simplest of her chill
dren. 1t calls for the right Of man to labor
for himself, looking to the earth and the
skies for the measure of his reward.
This is free labor. The South is it's fair
est field. The climate and soil forbid the
growth of grasses for grazing. The land
must be titled. Labor can not be banished-
The laborer with the ballot in his hand viii
enter into and possess this land.
And what q land Its resources have
scarcely been touched. Not one acre in ak
in Louisiana has ever been plowed, and
where the surface has been broken only the
crust has been turned. Beneath the inches
which have been languidly stirred are un-
tathomed depths of aliuvial deposit the
cream of the continent, drained for ages By
the Mississi ppi, left at the ever advancing
delta, or spread by over1ows, until an en-
pire has risen from the Hea.
Tho river opposite New Orleans is 15e
feet deep, and the bottom is alluvial. There
Is good soil enough in Louisiana to fersilizs
Asia, and the State ia still growing. The
sugar and orange lands are OF inestimable
value. If the valleys of Ohio are worth
800 an acre, those of Louisiana are worth
$500. Twenty acres Of such lands. tended
by good farmer, would support and enrich
q family.
The South is fitted for and should be made
the garden of free labor. If it has been the
greatest obstacle to the elevation and prog
ress of the lsborer, it may become bis
strength and his hope Cincinnati CONNER
cidl