All the larger plantations are provided with steam-engines, the chimneys of which are usually carried to a height sufficient to remove all danger from sparks. There is always a corn-mill, and frequently a saw-mill attached to the gin, and driven by the same power. On every plantation, one day in the week is set apart for grinding a seven-days' supply of corn. This regulation is never varied, except under the most extraordinary circumstances. There is a universal rule in Louisiana, forbidding any person, white or black, smoking in the inclosure where the gin-house stands. I was told there was a legal enactment to this effect, that affixed heavy penalties to its infringement. For the truth of this latter statement I cannot vouch.
With its own corn-mill, saw-mill, and smithery, each plantation is almost independent of the neighborhood around it. The chief dependence upon the outside world is for farming tools and the necessary paraphernalia for the various branches of field-work. I knew one plantation, a short distance from ours, whose owner had striven hard to make it self-sustaining. He raised all the corn and all the vegetables needed. He kept an immense drove of hogs, and cured his own pork. Of cattle he had a goodly quantity, and his sheep numbered nearly three hundred. Wool and cotton supplied the raw material for clothing. Spinning-wheels and looms produced cloth in excess of what was needed. Even the thread for making the clothing for the negroes was spun on the plantation. Hats were made of the palmetto, which grew there in abundance. Shoes were the only articles of personal wear not of home production. Plows, hoes, and similar implements were purchased in the market, but the plantation was provided with a very complete repair-shop, and the workmen were famous for their skill.
The plantation, thus managed, yielded a handsome profit to its owner. The value of each year's cotton crop, when delivered on the bank of the river, was not less than forty thousand dollars. Including wages of the overseer, and all outlays for repairs and purchase of such articles as were not produced at home, the expenses would not exceed five or six thousand dollars. Cotton-planting was very profitable under almost any management, and especially so under a prudent and economical owner. Being thus profitable with slave labor, it was natural for the planters to think it could prosper under no other system. "You can't raise cotton without niggers, and you must own the niggers to raise it," was the declaration in all parts of the South.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
WAR AND AGRICULTURE.
Official Favors.--Division of Labor.--Moral Suasion.--Corn-gathering in the South.--An Alarm.--A Frightened Irishman.--The Rebels Approaching.--An Attack on Waterproof.--Falstaff Redivivus.--His Feats of Arms.--Departure for New Orleans.
Our cotton having been ginned and baled, we made preparations for shipping it to market. These preparations included the procurement of a permit from the Treasury agent at Natchez, a task of no small magnitude. An application for the permit required, in addition to my own signature, the names of two property-owning citizens, as security for payment of the duties on the cotton. This application being placed in the hands of the Treasury agent, I was requested to call in two hours. I did so, and was then put off two hours longer. Thus I spent two whole days in frequent visits to that official. His memory was most defective, as I was obliged to introduce myself on each occasion, and tell him the object of my call.
A gentleman who had free access to the agent at all times hinted that he could secure early attention to my business on payment for his trouble. Many persons asserted that they were obliged to pay handsomely for official favors. I do not know this to be true. I never paid any thing to the Treasury agent at Natchez or elsewhere, beyond the legitimate fees, and I never found any man who would give me a written statement that he had done so. Nevertheless, I had much circumstantial evidence to convince me that the Treasury officials were guilty of dishonorable actions. The temptation was great, and, with proper care, the chances of detection were small.
Armed with my permit, I returned to the plantation. Mr. Colburn, in my absence, had organized our force, lately engaged in cotton-picking, into suitable parties for gathering corn, of which we had some three hundred acres standing in the field. In New England I fear that corn which had remained ungathered until the middle of February, would be of comparatively little value. In our case it was apparently as sound as when first ripened.