would be a conspicuous and noticeable material of clothing, half the white population of Mississippi still dress in homespun, and at every second house the wheel and loom are found in operation? The same influences which condemn the majority of free labourers in Alabama to hand-looms, homespun, and three hundred pounds of wheat to the acre, as the limit of production, also condemn them to isolated labour, poor soil, poor tools, bad management, "bad luck," small crops, and small profits in cotton culture.
The following passages from a letter published in the New York Times present convincing evidence that it is no peculiarity of the Western Texas climate, but only the exceptional social condition with which its people are favoured, that enables free white labour to be employed in increasing the cotton production of the country. I have ascertained that the author of the letter is known to the editor of the Times, and is esteemed a gentleman of veracity and trustworthy judgment.
"I am well acquainted with Eastern Mississippi, south of Monroe county,
and there are few settlements where my name or face is unknown in the
following counties, over the greater part of which I have ridden on horseback,
to wit: Loundes, Oktibleha, Choctaw, Carroll, Attalla, Winston,
Noxubee, Kemper, Nashoba, Leake, Scott, Newton, Lauderdale, Clarke,
Smith, and Jasper. After four years' travel through these counties,
transacting business with great numbers of their inhabitants, stopping at
their houses, conversing much with them, and viewing their mode of
living, I unhesitatingly answer that white men can and do labour in the
cotton field, from Christmas to Christmas following; and that there, as
elsewhere, prudence, industry, and energy find their universal reward:
success and wealth.
"In the counties of Choctaw, Winston, Nashoba, Newton, and Smith, there are very few large plantations; most of those having slaves holding but two or three, while those who own none are in the majority; yet these are all cotton-growing counties, and the staple of their cotton, poor as their lands are, is equal to the average sold in the Mobile market. Where the young farmer is enterprising and go-ahead, his cotton is usually superior. * * *
