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in this section looks very promising, and if nothing unusual happens to it, there will be an abundant harvest.  The Freedmen are more generally interested in this crop than in any other.  Scarcely any of them have an interest in the wheat crop, except as laborers.  Some of them have sown oats which are now for the most part harvested but the yield hereabouts is not heavy.  Many of them are cultivating tobacco, which now looks well.  All seem to be busily engaged in their various avocations, and their material prospects are evidently improving.  If no accident happens to the crops now maturing, their condition will be for better the coming winter that it was during the last.  I am of the opinion that in the long run it will be better for the great majority of the Freedmen not to advance too rapidly in material prosperity.  Many of them, and perhaps most of them would scarcely know what to do with more money than enough to supply their immediate necessities.  A surplus of funds would be very likely to beget [[strikethrough]]hap[[/strikethrough]] habits of illness extravagance and dissipation.  This would prove more disastrous to them than to be a little

Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-03-27 13:28:34 inserted unknown word "beget".