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and "found" or 75 cts per day the workman finding himself few work by the month or year: this because freedmen have not foresight and because wages are uncertain: of the non-payment of wages there is great complaint. There cannot be successful farming with short contracts. The farmer must have help that he can depend upon. Long contracts and low wages cannot well go together; the laborer is always trying to better his terms of pay. An enterprising Northern farmer is cultivating James Island, he employs a number of colored laborers and is satisfied with them. 

The majority of Northern settlers in my sub-district say, "Pay the freedmen well and he will work well" 

The freedmen in James City Co. and elsewhere are so poor that, to live comfortably, they should be paid weekly, at any rate monthly: they live from hand to mouth and have nothing ahead. But there is not the money to pay them. Not two out of five land-holders are able to furnish teams, fodder and seed, to say nothing of paying wages: they therefore offer the land to freedmen to be cultivated on shares; the freedmen take it as the best thing he can do; but how will        

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