e as it may appear, there is not a plough or a work-horse,
and but one old mule, upon this highly-cultivated tract of one
thousand acres. All the hauling is done by ox-teams, with three sturdy
negroes to each cart, and the heavy cotton-hoe does everything else.
Where one man and a plough could till three acres, twenty men and
women with hoes 'ridge up the ground, scatter manure in the furrows,
and draw the ridges down on it again. True, the surface only is
scratched, and the soil is soon exhausted, but who cares for that when
there is abundance of rich timber-land from which to clear new fields?
and as to economizing labor, that is the last thing a planter cares
about, for what are the negroes to do? None are ever sold, the
"picknies" who swarm around every cabin growing up to stock the
plantations bought for each child as he or she "comes of age or is
married," and work has to be made for them to do.

"What shall I put the hands at to-day, sir?" asked an overseer of an
old planter when the last bale of cotton had been packed.

"Hum! let's see! Well, set them to filling up the old ditches and
digging new ones."

For the same reason power-gins and saw-mills found little favor, the
single-treadle "foot-gin" and the saw-pit and cross-cut employing ten
times as many hands. It was the aim of every large planter to produce
and manufacture by hand-power everything needed on the place. Of
course, it required a heavy expenditure of labor and land to raise
provisions for such an army of unprofitable workers, on which account
slave capital was the poorest paying property in the world. The
planter was wealthy, but he owned only land and negroes: when the
latter were emancipated the former became useless; and this is the
reason why the war so utterly ruined the rich land-owners of the
South.

ROBERT WILSON.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

'76.

Pass, '75, across the Styx!
Make way for stately '76,
Who comes with mincing, minuet pace,
Well-powdered hair and patch-deckt face--
An antiquated kerchief on:
White-capped, like Martha Washington;
Clock-hosed and high-heeled slipper-shod,
To give no Nineteenth Century nod;
Nay, but a courtesy profound,
Whose look demure consults the ground.
O rare-seen bloom! No flower perennial,
This aloe-crowned Dame Centennial!

She comes with shades of days long fled--
Knee-breeched; long silk-stockinged;
Well-braided queues; bright-buckled shoon
That flash