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prevent suffering from hunger during the approching winter.
Both the planters and the Freedmen have been greatly disappointed in the cotton crop; at the beginning of the season there was a promise of a very fine crop but the worms attacked it, and have made such fearful ravages that it is reduced fully one half while there is at the same time a decline in price; cotton selling at a very low figure, while provisions of every Kind are very high.
Many of the Freedmen who are planting on shares become discourage, after gathering there corn crop, and are indifferent about the cotton crop; fearful that after it is gathered, ginned and the taxes upon it paid, that their will be nothing left to remunerate them for their labor.

[[left margin]] Nature of contracts for the present year [[/left margin]] 
Very few of the Freedmen have made contracts to work for monthly wages; most of them being engaged in planting on shares. There is a spirit of liberality manifested by the majority of the planters in there contracts with Freedmen evincing a desire on their part to aid them, and place every facility and encouragement before them in making their crops.
In many cases however, there has a great deal of trouble arisen from the wording of the Contracts; many of them being written in such an ambiguous manner, that it is difficult to decipher their meaning It creates a mistrust among the Freedmen to find the contract does not mean what they had previously supposed and they become dissatisfied, leave their work and look to the Bureau for redress; Another source of trouble arises from carelessness in keeping contracts, which are lost frequently by both parties
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