"The rich lands where white labour, even in small numbers, might be profitable, are either in the hands of large planters, or too heavily timbered for a single man. The only thing now preventing any poor white man in the South from gaining a fair competence, and even attaining wealth, is his own laziness, shiftlessness, and ignorance; for the small planters in the counties I have mentioned are deplorably ignorant. * * *
"There is one case I remember, which is to the point; the man lives in Choctaw county, and was born in Georgia. He does not own a negro, but has two boys, one sixteen, the other twelve. With the assistance of these boys, and the most imperfect agricultural implements, he made twenty-two bales of cotton, year before last, plenty of corn, and sufficient small grain for himself and family, although the season was more than ordinarily bad in his neighbourhood, while many of his neighbours, with five or six slaves, did not exceed him, and some made even less. He went on to his place without ten dollars in his pocket, gave his notes for eight hundred dollars, payable in one, two, and three years' time, with interest at six per cent. per annum, and the ensuing year he purchased another one hundred and sixty acres for seven hundred and fifty dollars, also on time. This man is, however, far more intelligent and progressive in farming than those about him; he does not plant as did his grandfather, because his father did so, but endeavours to improve, and is willing to try an experiment occasionally.
"In my own county, in Alabama, there is a woman whose husband died shortly after the crop was planted, leaving her without a single servant, and no assistance except from a little son of twelve years of age: yet she went into the field, ploughed and picked her cotton, prepared her ground for the coming crop, and raised a second crop thereon.
My conclusion, from the various evidences to which I have
referred, must be a widely different one from Mr. Russell's,
from that which is generally thought to prevail with our leading
capitalists, merchants, and manufacturers, and from that which
seems to have been accepted by the Cotton Supply Associations
of Liverpool and Manchester. It is this: that there is
no physical obstacle in the way of our country's supplying ten
bales of cotton where it now does one. All that is necessary
for this purpose is to direct to the cotton-producing region
an adequate number of labourers, either black or white, or
