Viewing page 130 of 258

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

farm one hundred negroes about one half able to work, upon my Houston farm fifty about one half working  It is my purpose if I can do so to retain about one half upon each farm provided I have provisions left at Christmas for that number otherwise only the number that I can feed without buying  Since the extinction of Slavery with but few exceptions the Freedmen upon my farms have acted badly in every sense of the term  It is to be hoped however that they will do better for the next year  If they do not Employers & employees must in time be reduced to abject poverty & want wherever they depend exclusively upon agricultural labor for support  I have been a Union man from principle all my life a soldier