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Much difficulty is experienced in collecting rents for this year, from the fact that the great majority of the freedmen are living on and cultivating small tracts of lands of about half an acre each; which tracts, or rather lots, were rented during the early part of this year, when the renters could reasonably anticipate sufficient returns from outside occupation for prompt payment of rents coming due. But the oyster trade,–the chief source of revenue in this county,—having been virtually suspended, by the late action of the civil authorities,—many of the freedmen are compelled to depend for subsistence entirely upon the product of these small half acre lots; thus rendering the collection of rents extremely difficult, and in many cases impracticable.
The number of unemployed freedmen is being lessened as rapidly as possible. Men, women and children are secured homes and permanent. employment, with good wages, in other counties and states. One hundred have been forwarded to Boston Mass, for distribution, in that and adjacent localities, during the present month; while there is every reason to believe that the demand for labor of that