absurdly complaining, only goes to enrich Northern men. A man forced to labour under their system is morally driven to indolence, carelessness, indifference to the results of skill, heedlessness, inconstancy of purpose, improvidence, and extravagance. Precisely the opposite qualities are those which are encouraged, and inevitably developed in a man who has to make his living, and earn all his comfort by his voluntarily-directed labour.
"It is with dogs," says an authority on the subject, "as it is with horses; no work is so well done as that which is done cheerfully." And it is with men, both black and white, as it is with horses and with clogs; it is even more so, because the strength and cunning of a man is less adapted to being "broken" to the will of another than that of either dogs or horses.
Work accomplished in a given time.—Mr. T. R. Griscom,
of Petersburg, Virginia, stated to me, that he once took accurate
account of the labour expended in harvesting a large
field of wheat; and the result was that one quarter of an
acre a day was secured for each able hand engaged in cradling,
raking, and binding. The crop was light, yielding not
over six bushels to the acre. In New York a gang of fair
cradlers and binders would be expected, under ordinary
circumstances, to secure a crop of wheat, yielding from
twenty to thirty bushels to the acre, at the rate of about two
acres a day for each man.
Mr. Griscom formerly resided in New Jersey; and since living in Virginia has had the superintendence of very large agricultural operations, conducted with slave-labour. After I had, in a letter, intended for publication, made use of this testimony, I called upon him to ask if he would object to my giving his name with it. He was so good as to permit me to
