generally has been rapidly losing ground [i. e. among the whites of the South] for some years back, and that blessing [health] is now sought with as much confidence on the swamp lands of the Yazoo and the Mississippi as among the hills and plains of Carolina and Virginia."—(De Bow's "Resources," vol. ii., p. 43.)
Dr. Barton says:—
"In another place I have shown that the direct temperature of the sun
is not near so great in the South (during the summer) as it is at the
North. I shall recur to this hereafter. In fact, the climate is much more
endurable, all the year round, with our refreshing breezes, and particularly
in some of the more elevated parts of it, or within one hundred miles of
the coast, both in and out of doors, at the South than at the North,
which shows most conspicuously the folly of the annual summer migrations,
to pursue an imaginary mildness of temperature, which is left at
home."
Mr. Russell assumes that slave labour tends, as a matter of
course, to the formation of large plantations, and that free
labour can only be applied to agricultural operations of a
limited scope. Of slaves, he says: "Their numbers admit of
that organization and division of labour which renders slavery
so serviceable in the culture of cotton." I find no reason given
for this assertion, except that he did not himself see any large
agricultural enterprises conducted with free labour, while he
did see many plantations of fifty to one hundred slave hands.
The explanation, in my judgment, is that the cultivation of
the crops generally grown in the Free States has hitherto been
most profitable when conducted on the "small holding"
system;[1] the cultivation of cotton is, as a general rule, more
profitable upon the "large holding" system.[2] Undoubtedly
there is a point below which it becomes disadvantageous to
- ↑ Indian corn has been considered an exception, and there are probably larger corn fields in Indiana than cotton fields in Mississippi.
- ↑ I believe that plantations or agricultural operations devoted to a single crop are, as a general rule, profitable in proportion to their size in the Free States, unless, indeed, the market is a small one and easily overstocked, which is never the case with the cotton market.
