A Woman Rice Planter

by Elizabeth W. Allston Pringle

But I was more than repaid. I paid off the debt on the place and lifted the mortgage. I had never hoped for that in one year. My renters also were jubilant; they made handsomely and bought horses and buggies and oxen for the coming year's work. When I had paid off everything, I had not a cent left in the bank to run on, however. Washington was amazed and very happy at the results, but when I said something to him about preparing the wages field for the coming crop, he said very solemnly: "Miss, ef yo' weak, en you wrastle wid a strong man, en de Lo'd gie you strenf fo' trow um down once, don't you try um 'gain." I laughed, but, remembering that I would have to borrow money to plant the field this year, I determined to take the old man's advice and not attempt it. This was most fortunate, for there was a terrible storm that autumn and I would have been ruined. My renters were most fortunate in getting their rice in before the storm, so that they did well again.

"Cherokee"—my father's place.

From that time I have continued to plant from 20 to 30 acres on wages and to rent from 100 to 150 acres. Of course I have had my ups and downs and many anxious moments. Sometimes I have been so unfortunate as to take as renters those who were unfit to stand alone, and then I have suffered serious loss; but, on the whole, I have been able to keep my head above water, and now and then have a little money to invest. In short, I have done better than most of my neighbors.

Five years ago the head of our family passed away, and the Cherokee plantation, which my father had inherited from his grandfather, had to be sold for a division of the estate. None of my family was able to buy it, and a syndicate seemed the only likely purchaser, and they wanted to get it for very little. So I determined the best thing I could do was to buy it in myself and devote the rest of my life to keeping it in the family, and perhaps at my death some of the younger generation would be able to take it. This would condemn me to a very isolated existence, with much hard work and anxiety; but, after all, work is the greatest blessing, as I have found. I have lived at Cherokee alone ever since, two miles from any white person! With my horses, my dogs, my books, and piano, my life has been a very full one. There are always sick people to be tended and old people to be helped, and I have excellent servants.

My renters here, nearly all own their farms and live on them, coming to their work every day in their ox-wagons or their buggies; for the first thing a negro does when he makes a good crop is to buy a pair of oxen, which he can do for $30, and the next good crop he buys a horse and buggy.

The purchase of Cherokee does more credit to my heart than head, and it is very doubtful if I shall ever pay off the mortgage. I have lost two entire crops by freshet, and the land is now under water for the third time this winter, and, though I have rented 125 acres, it is very uncertain if I can get the half of that in. March is the month when all the rice-field ploughing should be done. The earliest rice is planted generally at the end of March, then through April, and one week in May. Last season I only got in fifty acres of rent rice and ten of wages; for in the same way the freshet was over the rice land all winter, and when it went off, there was only time to prepare that much. The renters made very fine crops—30, 40, and 45 bushels to the acre, while the wages fields only made 17! This is a complete reversal of the ordinary results, for I have very rarely, in all these years, made less than 30 bushels to the acre on my fields, and I was greatly discouraged and anxious to understand the reason of this sudden failure in the wages rice at both plantations.

By the merest chance I found out the cause. Early in December I was planting oats in a six-acre field. We broadcast winter oats in this section and then plough it in on fields which have been planted in peas before. I was anxious to get the field finished before a freeze, and had six of the best ploughmen in it. Grip had prevented my going out until they had nearly finished, but Bonaparte had assured me it was being well done. When I went into the field, it looked strange to me—the rich brown earth did not lie in billowy ridges as a ploughed field generally does. Here and there a weed skeleton stood erect. I tried to pull up one or two of these and found they were firmly rooted in the soil and had never been turned. I walked over that field with my alpenstock for hours, and found that systematically the ploughmen had left from eight to ten inches of hard land between each furrow, covering it skilfully with fresh earth, so that each hand who had been paid for an acre's ploughing had in reality ploughed only one-third of an acre. And then I understood the failure of all the wage rice!

I called Bonaparte, my head man, whom I trust fully. His grandfather belonged to my grandfather, and his family hold themselves as the colored aristocracy of this country. He has been a first-class carpenter, but he is rheumatic and does not work with ease at his trade now, and prefers taking charge of my planting as head man, or agent, as they now prefer to call it. He is trustworthy and has charge of the keys to my barns where rice, corn, oats, and potatoes are kept. I have trusted him entirely, and it would be a dreadful blow to think that he was losing his integrity. Though the pressure from the idle, shambling, trifling element of his race is very great, he has been able to resist it in the past.