The Texas Almanac for 1872, and Emigrant's Guide to Texas. Page: 37
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PLANTING AND LABOR IN TEXAS.
PLANTING AND LABOR.
Texas, with all her intrinsic advantages, is liable to greater irregularities
of seasons than any other Southern State. The past year corroborates the
traditional reputation she bears.
The condition of the labor question continues without any improvement
in the class "pon whom we are, as yet, chiefly dependent. The knowledge
planters have acquired, by dear bought experience, in reference to the
effects of freedom, enables them to make a true estimate of the value, as
laborers, of the unfortunate race who received the questionable boon of
emancipation. The economies of plantation operations are beginning to be
well understood, and facts prove that small, well managed places, can be
made to yield profitably, while large ones simply sink money. We hear of
single, white families, with a little help when most needed, making thirty
to forty bales of cotton, when we know of plantations supporting forty to
fifty niegroes scarcely making as much.
Many planters are running places on shares, who receive at the end of
the season a half of what often is not a third of a crop. This year, in many
instances, the corn furnished by the employer for feed and seed has not
been returned, while the negro, furnishing none, gets half of all made.
Besides this, the -privileges conceded to him are out of all proportion to the
benefits rendered in return. He gets half of all made, has the freedom of
the plantation in every sense, free rent, free fuel, a small hog ranch, a ggod
sized poultry yard, and a considerable truck patch. These constitute his
holdings-attractive advantages which secure, of a verity, his adhesiveness
to the location. Planting, under these circumstances, by intelligent white
men, has pretty nearly run its course.
As remarked, small cotton'farms it is found pay well, while all attempts
to raise heavy crops on large places, with numbers of negroes, have proved
failures.
The trifling, worthless hands are finding their level and are being dis-
carded. The better class of freedmen are doing well for themselves. As a
class they are too much absorbed in their own petty affairs ever to be profit-
able hirelings or workers on shares, and it is found, as a choice of evils, bet-
ter to rent land to them for a specific sum, or for so much cotton per acre.
After the change in the labor system, planters found themselves in a situa-
tion that was pitiable and helpless. Judgment and prudence, in forming
correct views of the dilemma in which they were placed, were lost sight of.
The preservation from total ruin of their plantations was the chief thought
with them, and they eagerly engaged the freedmen on any terms they
could, and submitted to pillaging,theft and shirking for years without much
complaint. In fact, what redress or remedy, under the then existing cir-
cumstances, was obtainable.
Times have changed, and submission to griefgnces of this kind is now no
longer bearable, and as planting is a business, like any other, to make it
successful it must not be burdened with too much dead weight in the shape
of worthless employees. The limited capacity of the negro (who for obvi-
ous reasons has been indulged inordinately, and permitted to regard his own
trifling interests more than those of his employers,) can not rise to the reali-
zation of what is now due to himself and others, and thereby do fair, hon-
est work for a liberal compensation. His education and blood seem alike
to forbid it. The labor revolution, however, is going on-the South has
accepted the situation, and intends to make the most of it.
Southern husbandry and tillage, hereafter, must necessarily partake of
the enlightenment and knowledge science and experience.have shed upon
ariculture elsewhere. The drones in the hive are many, and they will
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The Texas Almanac for 1872, and Emigrant's Guide to Texas., book, 1872~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth123777/m1/53/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.