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There is a good steam sawmill in operation and cotton gin also run by the same engine.  The farm is well stocked everything belonging to the Freedmens Department except the mules and wagons.

The experiment of leasing to Freedmen has been tried here with marked success, according all due praise to Capt Mallory for his success on this farm.  I think he has fallen into the error of managing and governing too much for these people so as to become to some extent a necessity to them.

The "Johnston Colony" is not doing so well.  The number of Freedmen here is 300. - 35 being men.  They were brought from Presidents Island last spring, and had been much demoralized from having been long in the miserable "corrals" of North Mississippi and west Tennessee, which followed the first breaking up of slavery.  They are difficult to manage and have produced this year only 131 acres of corn & 20 acres of cotton.  The large number of rations issued in Capt Mallory's Superintendency is a very unsatisfactory feature, and allthough the proceeds of his farms, will be sufficient to reimburse the Government, yet while the Freedmen draw rations, they do not seem so independent of aid as is desirable.  I think in future a different course will be feasible.

There are several planters, mostly Northern men, in this neighborhood cultivating cotton.