Year: 1874

pie to understand how 1t Is that the
production Of cotton since the war
has been so large as it has if the ne
gro labor system has been SO much
demoralized as is generally represen-
ted. The answer to this is very east
" given. Before the war nearly all
thscotton was made hy negro labor,
but since its close Thousands and
thousands Of white men have gone
into the cotton fields and labored with
such energy and Intelligence as to
produce wonderful results. The
Memphis Appeal expresses the belief
that the cotton shipped to that inn
portant outlet for the staple is now
raised by white labor, and it further
says that while the culture Of cotton
has been unremuuerative in a large
portion of the negro States, it has
been highly profitable and has greatly
expanded in the white States. The
Mobile Register asserts that African
labor has excluded white labor from
the great cotton region of Alabama,
and therebv destroyed the production
Of cotton upon some of the richest
lands Of the South. The receipts Of
cotton at important points of ship
ment show that as rule the pro-
ductlon has decreased in those re-
gions where the planters depend upon
the negroes almost exclusively for
labor; but this falling off is more
than counterbalanced by the increase
which is the product OF white labor,
In Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri,
northern Texas, and in the Indian
Territory a greatly increased acreage
has been devoted to the production OF
cotton, which is mainly cultivated
with white labor. The Augusta
CAroaasich aasa Sentinel says chat in
northern Georgia, along the line Of
the Air Line Railroad, where cotton
is produced by white labor, the
yiela is steadily increasing. During
1873 the receipts at Atlanta we're
29,2lO bales, This year they were
81 ,sS9 bales, or nearly double those
of the preceding year. In the upper
counties of South and North Carolina
white labor is forced by necessity into
the production of cotton, and the
small farmers, who are in reality the
most prosperous class in the South,
working ia the fields themselves and
producing their own supplies, make
the culture profitable. Some time
ago we published the experience OF
a planter in Louisiana who made an
experiment to ascertain the relative
value of black and white labor in the
sugar culture, keeping strict ac-
count of expenditures and returns.
The result was a dead loss on the
labor OF negroes employed on wages;
worry small profit on that OF negroes
working on shares, and large profit
on the labor of white men, every one
of whom accomplished more than
twice az much work, judging from


results, as any Of the negroes, The
Southern negro laborer, since ne has


become his own master, cannot be


kept steadily at work, and is so in
fataated with politics tnat he Will at


any time leave a crop at the most
critical moment to listen to . stump
speech, while the whites toll steadily


beginning early and almost always


making a tall days work. One Of
the worst evils Of slavery was its ten,


dency to degrade labor in The eyes Of
the whites; and one OF the most ben,


e6cial effects of its abolition has heen


to dignity honest Industry, the result
of which has been plainly manltes-
ted in the facts to which we now
direct attention.


[Ne,u York Sun.