“I regard the ‘just medium’ to be the correct point. Labour is conducive to health; a healthy woman will rear most children. I favour good and fair work, yet not overworked so as to tax the animal economy, that the woman cannot rear healthy children, nor should the father be over-wrought, that his vital powers be at all infringed upon.
“If the policy be adopted, to make an improvement in land visible, to raise the greatest number of healthy children, to make an abundance of provision, to rear a portion at least of work horses, rely on it we will soon find by our tax list that our country is improving. * * *
“Brethren of the South, we must change our policy. Overseers are not interested in raising children, or meat, in improving land, or improving productive qualities of seed, or animals. Many of them do not care whether property has depreciated or improved, so they have made a crop [of cotton] to boast of.
“As to myself, I care not who has the credit of making crops at Log Hall; and I would prefer that an overseer, who has been one of my family for a year or two, or more, should be benefited; but this thing is to be known and well understood. I plant such fields in such crops as I see fit; I plant acres in corn, cotton, oats, potatoes, etc., as I select, and the general policy of rest, cultivation, etc., must be preserved which I lay down. A self-willed overseer may fraudulently change somewhat in the latter, by not carrying out orders—that I cannot help. What I have written, I have written, and think I can substantiate.”
From the Southern Agriculturist, vol. iv., page 317:—
“OVERSEERS.
* * * “When they seek a place, they rest their claims entirely on the number of bags they have heretofore made to the hand, and generally the employer unfortunately recognizes the justice of such claims.
“No wonder, then, that the overseer desires to have entire control of the plantation. No wonder he opposes all experiments, or, if they are persisted in, neglects them; presses everything at the end of the lash; pays no attention to the sick, except to keep them in the field as long as possible; and drives them out again at the first moment, and forces sucklers and breeders to the utmost. He has no other interest than to make a big cotton crop. And if this does not please you, and induce you to increase his wages, he knows men it will please, and secure him a situation with.”
From the Columbia South Carolinian:—
* * * “Planters may be divided into two great classes, viz., those who attend to their business, and those who do not. And this creates corresponding classes of overseers. The planter who does not manage his own business must, of course, surrender everything into the hands of his overseer. Such a planter usually rates the merits of the overseer exactly in proportion to the number of bags of cotton he makes, and of course the overseer cares for nothing but to make a large crop. To him it is of no consequence that the old hands are worked down, or the young ones overstrained; that the breeding women miscarry, and the sucklers lose their children; that the mules are broken down, the plantation tools destroyed, the stock neglected, and the lands ruined: so that he has the requisite number of cotton bags, all is overlooked; he is re-employed at an advanced salary, and his reputation increased. Everybody knows that by such a course, a crop may be increased by the most inferior overseer, in any given year, unless his predecessors have so entirely exhausted the resources of the plantation, that there is no part of the capital left which can be wrought up into current income. * * * Having once had the sole management of a plantation, and imbibed the idea that the only test of good planting is to make a large crop of cotton, an overseer becomes worthless. He will no longer obey orders; he will not stoop to details; he scorns all improvements, and will not adopt any other plan of planting than simply to work lands, negroes, and mules to the top of their bent, which necessarily proves fatal to every employer who will allow it.