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These testimonials are at your command and may be added to if desired - my plantation has long been generally considered as among the very best in our body of the best rice lands in the world. It lies in the midst of some dozen plantations whose average yield is fifty bushels and over. These plantations are mainly bits of microscopic marine shells as examined some ten or fifteen years since by the late professor of chemistry at West Point Mr. Baily and the results published by him - you will understand that these plantations are so many bits of marl and of great productiveness & inexhaustable. I commenced planting them in 1823 and during the 55 years I have never had a crop injured by brackish water nor have my river banks been topped by a freshet. By the gales of 1829 and 1859 my crops were measurably destroyed. These have been my only losses in that time.
Had my contract been sectioned the Freedmen would have taken a smaller number of acres to the hand and relied on good cultivation which would certainly have yielded upwards of 55 bushels of rice per acre and left the land in better condition for the next years crop. Being allowed to pay one third of the produce they referred to plant largely and rely on the vigor of the land rather than on their industry, with greater damage to the prospects of the next crop.