PLANTATION MANAGEMENT.

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profitably employed in raising cotton on the sterile soils ofthe pine barrens. This immense tract of land, forming abroad fringe to the Southern States east of the Mississippi, is abarrier to the extension of slavery. Poor as the soil is, it isstill capable of supporting a considerable population under asystem of small holdings; and I do not think that itcan ever be cultivated by slave labour. On the other hand,also, it is unprofitable to maintain slaves on the wheat andIndian corn lands along the flanks of the Alleghany moun-tains in Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia,where tobacco is not raised. Thus the slave population beinghemmed in by the highlands on one side and the poor soils ofthe coast on the other, is confined to the middle belt which Ihave laid down on the map as the cotton region.

In travelling through a fertile district in any of the South-ern States, the appearance of things forms a great contrast tothat in similar districts in the Free States. During twodays’ sail on the Alabama river from Mobile to Montgomery,I did not see so many houses standing together in any onespot as could be dignified with the appellation of village, but Imay possibly have passed some during the night. There weremany places where cotton was shipped and provisions werelanded; still there were no signs of enterprise to indicate thatwe were in the heart of a rich cotton region. Nor is this to bewondered at, for American slavery, in its most productive state,has all the worst features of absenteeism, more particularlywhere the plantations are managed by overseers. In fact,the more fertile the land the more destitute is the country ofvillages and towns. And how can it be otherwise ? Thesystem of management which is recommended as the mosteconomical and profitable, is to raise and to manufacture onthe plantations every thing which the slaves require. Thoughthis is seldom accomplished, yet a great part of the clothingis home-made ; and the chief articles imported are bacon andmules from the Northern States. The only article sold iscotton, which is conveyed to the nearest point on a navigableriver, and consigned to a commission agent in the exportingtown; while the bacon all comes in through the same channel.Of such articles as are in daily use among the rural inliabi-

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