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and are paying first class Freedmen 20 dollars per month with board. They all think they will make money as these prices. I heard no complaint of the Freedmen as a laborer, but the contrary.  To show better just how they work I would state that Messrs. Kelsoe & Clayton informed me that they had raised ten acres of cotton to the hand. Dr W.H. Jenkins has raised 250 acres of cotton and 120 acres of corn with 34 hands. Mr. W. W Benjamin with 57 hands has raised 400 acres cotton and 100 acres corn.

The state of feeling at a distance from Pine Bluff especially to the Southward is not very favorable but improving. Before quitting this portion of my report, I cannot forbear mentioning the fact - as an example for imitation - that Gen Yell a prominent mover in the convention that led this state into rebellion, is excercizing a valuable influence in reference to our work. He urges the people to give the Freedmen a fair trial at least- to them fairly and Kindly - that their fine plantations are not worth a fathering without his labor. With an honest and earnest effort he says at the present rate of cotton (if the Freedmen even work two thirds as well as formerly) they will reimburse their employers for every slave liberated by the war.

I arrived at Little Rock on the 11th Sept