Credit.

Increase to keep good the mortality, 2

Annual gain, 2-335/1000, say 3

Gain, 5, at $500 2,500

Net cost, 10,200

The usual allowance for field hands is one-third,—allow it to be forty in a hundred, the cost of each would be $255 per annum, or $21.25 per month.

Let each one make his own allowance for the disadvantage of having the larger portion of the capital of a State locked up in a tool which would do more and better work if recognized as a man and representing no invested capital. How much productive industry would there be in New England, if every laborer or mechanic cost his employer $800 to $1500 before he could be set to work, and if each one who undertook to labor upon his own account, and was not so purchased, were stigmatized and degraded and termed 'mean white trash?'

It will again be objected that the theory of the cotton planter is to raise all the food and make all the clothing on the plantation. The cultivation of cotton in the best manner is described by Southern writers as a process of gardening. Now what would be thought of a market gardener at the North who should keep a large extra force for the purpose of spinning yarn on a frame of six to ten spindles, and weaving it up on a rude hand loom? Would this not be protection to home industry in its most absurd extreme? But this is the plantation system.

The correctness of the estimate of cost can be tested in some degree by the rates at which able-bodied slaves are hired out. Many lists can be found in Southern papers; the latest found by the writer is in De Bow's Review of 1860.

A list of fourteen slaves, comprising 'a blacksmith, his wife, eight field hands, a lame negro, an old man, an old woman and a young woman,' were hired out for the year 1860, in Claiborne Parish, La., at an average of $289 each, the highest being $430 for the blacksmith, and $171 for 'Juda, old woman.'

The Southern States have thus far retained almost a monopoly of the cotton trade of the civilized world by promptly furnishing a fair supply of cotton of the best quality, and at prices which defied competition from the only region from which it was to be feared, viz., India. This monopoly has been retained, notwithstanding the steadily increasing demand and higher prices of the last few years.

Improvements in machinery have enabled manufacturers to pay full wages to their operatives, both in this country and in England, and to pay higher prices for their cotton than they did a few years since, without materially enhancing the cost of their goods, the larger product of cloth from a less number of hands and the saving of waste offsetting the higher price of cotton; but it is not probable that the cost of labor upon cotton goods can be hereafter materially reduced. The cost of labor upon the heavy sheetings and drills which form the larger part of our exports is now only one and one-half cents per yard, and the cost of oil, starch, and all other materials except cotton, less than one-half cent, making less than two cents for cost of manufacturing; but with cotton at ten cents to the planter and twelve and one-half cents to the spinner, the cost of cotton in the yard of same goods is five cents.

With cotton at the average price of the last few years, we have supplied a very small portion of India and China with goods, in competition with their hand-made goods of same material. With new markets opening in Japan and China, and by the building of railroads in India, we have to meet a constantly decreasing supply of raw material as compared with the demand. Give us cotton at six to seven cents, at which free labor and skill could well afford it, and the manufacturing industry of New England would receive a development unknown before. But when we ask more cotton of slavery, we are answered by its great prophet, De Bow; that because we are willing to pay a high price we can not have it; for he says, 'Although land is to be had in unlimited quantities, whenever cotton rises to ten cents, labor becomes too dear to increase production rapidly.'

And this is what the great system of slave labor has accomplished. The production of its great staple, cotton, is in the hands of less than 100,000 men. In 1850 there were in all the Southern States only 170,000 men owning more than five slaves each, and they owned 2,800,000 out of 3,300,000.

These men have by their system rendered labor degrading,—they have driven out their non-slaveholding neighbors by hundreds of thousands to find homes and self-respect in the free air of the great West,—they have reduced those who remain to a condition of ignorance scarcely to be found in any other country claiming to be civilized—so low that even the slaves look down upon the 'mean white trash,'—they have sapped the very foundations of honor and morality, so that 'Southern chivalry' has become the synonym for treachery, theft, and dishonor in every form,—they have reached a depth of degradation only to be equalled by those Northern men who would now prevent this war from utterly destroying slavery,—they have literally skinned over a vast area of country, leaving it for the time a desert, and with an area of 368,312,320 acres in the eight cotton States, they have now under cultivation in cotton less than 6,000,000 (an area scarcely larger than the little State of Massachusetts); they have less than two slave laborers to the square mile; and their only opposition to the re-opening of the African slave-trade is upon the ground that an increase of laborers will but reduce the price of cotton, give the planters a great deal more trouble and less profit, and only benefit their enemies in New and Old England.

Have not the manufacturer, the consumer, the business man, the farmer, the soldier, every free man, every friend of the poor whites of the South who are not yet free men, a right and an interest in claiming that this monopoly of 100,000 cotton planters shall cease, their estates be confiscated for their treason, and divided among our soldiers, to repay them for their sacrifices in the cause of their country? First of all, however, let us claim the 100,000,000 acres, not the property of any individual, but fought for and paid for by the United States, and then given to that most ungrateful of all the rebel States, Texas—the great 'Cotton State.'

Upon these fertile lands, and in this most profitable branch of agriculture, let us find the bounty for our soldiers, the reward for their sacrifices, and our own security for the future good order of the state.

By so doing we shall silence the outcry of the South that ours is a war of conquest (since the right of the government to the public lands of Texas is unquestionable), and, at the same time, furnish a powerful incentive to the zeal of our soldiers.

I have compiled a few facts and statements in regard to the soil and climate of Texas from Capt. Marcy's Exploration of the Red River, in which he was accompanied by Captain, now General, McLellan, from the Texas Almanac, a most violent pro-slavery publication, and from the letters of a friend, a loyal Texan, who has been driven from his home, and is now in the North.

In advocating the Memphis and El Paso route for the Pacific Railroad, Captain Marcy writes as follows:—

The road alluded to, immediately after leaving Fulton, Ark., leads to an elevated ridge dividing the waters that flow into Red River from those of the Sulphur and Trinity, and continues upon it, with but few deviations from the direct course for El Paso and Dona Ana to near the Brazos River, a distance of three hundred and twenty miles, and mostly through the northern part of Texas. This portion of the route has its locality in a country of surpassing beauty and fertility, and possesses all the requisites for attracting and sustaining a dense farming population. It is diversified with prairies and woodland, and is bountifully watered with numerous spring brooks, which flow off upon either side of the ridge above-mentioned. The crest of the ridge is exceedingly smooth and level, and is altogether the best natural or artificial road I ever traveled over for the same distance.

After leaving this ridge, the road crosses the Brazos near very extensive fields of bituminous coal, which burns readily, with a clear flame, and is very superior in quality.

From the Brazos, the road skirts small affluents of that stream and the Colorado for two hundred miles. The soil upon this section is principally a red argillaceous loam, similar to that in the Red River bottoms, which is so highly productive.

As this route is included within the thirty-second and thirty-fourth parallels of latitude, it would never be obstructed with snow. The whole surface of the country is covered with a dense coating of the most nutritious grass, which remains green for nine months in the year, and enables cattle to subsist the entire winter without any other forage.

The line of this road east from Fort Smith would intersect the Mississippi in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., and would pass through the country bordering the Arkansas River, which can not be surpassed for fertility.—Marcy's Red River Exploration.

The route thus described lies through the following counties, and attention is specially directed to their several products in 1858:—

Acres

County White Slave Corn Wheat Cotton Sug. Misc'l Total.

Bowie 2,077 2,321 10,392 1,421 8,240 23 3,232 23,308

Cass 6,112 4,816 28,474 5,552 20,168 36 4,368 58,508

Titus 6,025 1,891 18,987 2,272 9,872 92 6,227 36,450

Upshur 5,999 2,801 22,515 3,092 16,692 45 3,122 46,065

Wood 3,254 733 8,336 1,090 3,194 31 1,841 14,501

Van Zandt 2,548 242 6,504 837 1,213 8 596 8,160

Henderson 2,758 827 8,470 845 4,768 70 908 15,061

Navarro 2,885 1,579 10,531 2,785 4,678 127 2,609 20,730

Hill 1,858 508 5,161 3,189 181 201 761 9,493

Bosque 887 182 2,702 872 224 45 83 4,026

34,403 15,800 121,072 22,564 69,330 678 22,748 236,392

Let us allow the usual proportion of field hands to the whole number of slaves, viz., one-third, and we have a force of 5297; if whites do not labor in the field, each field hand must cultivate 44 64/100 acres of land. The customary allotment is ten cotton and five corn, or, where corn and wheat are the principal products, from twenty to twenty-five acres.

July 15, 1852. We were in motion at two o'clock in the morning, and, taking a north-east course towards the base of the mountain chain, passed through mezquite groves, intersected by brooks of pure water flowing into the south branch of Cache Creek, upon one of which we are encamped.

We find the soil good at all places near the mountains, and the country well wooded and watered. The grass, consisting of several varieties of the grama, is of a superior quality, and grows luxuriantly. The climate is salubrious, and the almost constant cool and bracing breezes of the summer months, with the entire absence of anything like marshes or stagnant water, remove all sources of noxious malaria, with its attendant evils of autumnal fevers.—Marcy's Exploration of the Red River, p. 11.

Our camp is upon the creek last occupied by the Witchitas before they left the mountains. The soil, in point of fertility, surpasses anything we have before seen, and the vegetation in the old corn-fields is so dense that it was with great difficulty I could force my horse through it. It consisted of rank weeds growing to the height of twelve feet. Soil of this character must have produced an enormous yield of corn. The timber is sufficiently abundant for all purposes of the agriculturist, and of a superior quality.

We have now reached the eastern extremity of the Witchita chain of mountains, and shall to-morrow strike our course for Fort Asbuekl.

The more we have seen of the country about these mountains, the more pleased we have been with it. Bounteous nature seems here to have strewed her favors with a lavish hand, and to have held out every inducement for civilized man to occupy it. The numerous tributaries of Cache Creek, flowing from granite fountains, and winding like net-work through the valleys, with the advantages of good timber, soil and grass, the pure, elastic and delicious climate, with a bracing atmosphere, all unite in presenting rare inducements to the husbandman.—Marcy's Red River Exploration.

This section of country is in latitude 34°, longitude 99°; the latitude the same as the central part of South Carolina and the southern part of Arkansas.

We will now give statements from the Texas Almanac.

The south winds are the source of comfort and positive luxury to the inhabitants of Texas during the hot weather of summer. The nearer the sea-coast, the cooler and more brisk the current; but the entire area of prairie, and a large portion of the timbered country, feel it as a pleasant, healthful breeze, rendering our highest temperature tolerable.—Prof. Forshey, of the Texas Military Institute.

TRINITY RIVER AND ITS VALLEY.

So far as I have described the river, the climate is pleasant and salubrious, and favorable for planting. The forests and cane-brakes mitigate the cold of the northers in winter, and the south breezes temper the heat of summer. Contrary to the usual opinion, plantations, when once cleared of decaying timber, are found to be remarkably healthy. In fact, there are no causes of sickness. The river in summer is only a deep, sandy ravine, with a clear and rapid stream of water running at its bottom, and in the rear of the plantations, instead of swamps, are high rolling cane-brakes.

The paradox, that there is more good land on the Trinity than on the Mississippi, is one which will be readily sustained by those who are acquainted with the subject.—Texas Almanac, 1861.

TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS.

The soil is exceedingly rich, from two to ten feet deep, and when the seasons are favorable it produces from sixty to one hundred bushels of corn, and from one and a half to two bales of cotton, per acre. From twenty-five to thirty acres of corn, or twelve to fifteen acres of cotton to the hand, are usually cultivated.

Our country upon the whole is fertile and well watered, has timber enough to supply its demands, and an everlasting amount of stone for building; it has an eternal range of mesquit grass, on which horses and cattle that never smell corn keep perfectly fat all winter. The climate is delightful, the nights pleasant, a fine south breeze in summer continually playing over the face of our broad prairies, and the atmosphere so pure and invigorating, that it is more conducive to good health to sleep out in the open air than to sleep in-doors. There is something so attractive in this section of country, that those who live here a short time are seldom satisfied to live anywhere else.

Our citizens are generally intelligent, enterprising, industrious, religious, sober, and, laying politics aside, honest.—Texas Almanac.

COMAL COUNTY.

BY THE ASSESSOR.

Mostly settled by Germans. In this county there are in cultivation 600 acres in cotton, 15,000 acres in corn, 500 acres in wheat. The acre yields 500 pounds of clean cotton, 40 bushels of corn, 20 bushels of wheat. From 3,500 to 4,000 white inhabitants; 188 slaves; 396 farms. Improved lands $30, unimproved $3 an acre. Most of the farms are cultivatd by white labor; a white hand cultivates thirty acres of corn. Peaches yield abundantly; apples and quinces have been tried successfully. The wild grape, plum, cherry, mulberry, and blackberry grow luxuriantly. Wine of good quality has been made here.

New Braunfels is the county seat. It has 2,000 inhabitants, and boasts of having the only free school in the State, supported by aid from the State school fund, and by direct taxation on the property of the school district. Four teachers are employed, and there are 250 pupils.

The letters of my Texas friend give the following description of the climate of Texas:—

The climate of Texas is very peculiar. This is owing to the body of water to the eastward of it, and to the dry and elevated plain of the Llano Estacado, and the lofty mountains which lie to the westward. To these two causes are due the moisture and the cool temperature, and at times and in certain localities the excessive dryness of Texas.

The Gulf stream, in its course along the coast of Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico, has beneath it, running to the south, a cold stream, nearly down to the freezing point. The great equatorial current which strikes north of Cape St. Roque and through the Caribbean Sea is suddenly narrowed between Cape San Antonio and Cape Catoche; here the upper and warmer current, being condensed, strikes deeper, and forces to the surface the cold water from the under current, sometimes occasioning a roaring and very peculiar noise. By this means the Gulf stream is divided, part turning to the eastward around Cuba and between that island and Florida, and part turning to the westward, north of the banks of Campeachy, and striking Padre Island, an island upon the coast of Texas, about one hundred and forty miles this current strikes, there are very deep soundings, almost up with the land. South of this point, upon the beach, are found mahogany and other tropical drift-wood, brought there from the tropics; while north of it the drift wood is oak, ash, and cotton-wood, brought from the north by a current running counter to the Gulf stream, which I will hereafter describe. From Padre Island the Gulf stream strikes off to the north-east to the mouth of the Mississippi, thence around the coast of Florida and through her keys, until it joins the other branch. Inside the Gulf stream, along the coast of Texas, is the counter-current before referred to, making down the coast at the rate of two to three miles per hour, and bringing down the silt and mud of the Mississippi, Sabine, etc. I have seen the water off the Island of Galveston the color of chocolate, after a long norther.

Above the centre of Padre Island the coast of Texas deepens at the rate of about a fathom to the mile, until at twenty fathoms there is a coral reef, and on the easterly side of this reef the water deepens, as by the side of a perpendicular wall, to a very great depth. This reef marks the boundary of the Gulf stream, and also the boundary of the terrible tornado. The tornado of the Gulf of Mexico never passes this barrier, never strikes the land, nor has it been known within memory of man upon the coast.

It seems to confine itself to the course of the warm water of the stream, and the great 'Father of the Waters' spreads his counter-current down the coast of Texas, like a long flowing garment, fending off the storm and the whirlwind, and thus still better fitting Texas for the white man and the white man's labor.

With this freedom from violent storms comes the delicious southerly wind in the summer, which gives health and moisture to the larger part of Texas. This wind varies in the point from which it flows. From Sabine to Matagorda its course is from south-east to south-south-east, growing more and more to the south as the coast tends to the south, until at the Rio Grande it blows from due south with perhaps a little westing in it. The course of this wind will explain the three belts of Texas, the rainy, that of less rain, and that of great drought.

This wind from the south-east corner from across the ocean and gulf (being a continuation of the south-east trades) laden with moisture and of a delightful temperature, when it is met by the cool air from the mountains, and condensed, giving the rains of Eastern and Central Texas. The more southing they have in them, the less moisture, until the extreme south-eastern portion of Texas, or the country near the mouth of the Rio Grande, is one of almost constant drought. There are thus three belts of moisture: first, from the Sabine to the mouth of the Brazos, may be called the belt of greatest rain,—from the Brazos to Lavaca or Victoria, that of moderate rain,—and from Lavaca to the Rio Grande, the dry belt. But even in the dry belt there is moisture enough to give fine grasses, and make the country a fine one for grazing, and the streams taking their rise in great springs, which probably have their source in the melting snows of the Rocky Mountains, flowing under the Llano Estacado and breaking out in great numbers in a line almost north and south, never dry up, even in the dryest seasons.

In the winter months, Texas has winds from the north, which come on very suddenly, and produce great variation in the temperature. They are disagreeable, but wholesome, and clear the atmosphere. They do not extend north of the Red River, nor very far west, but increase in intensity as they go south.

No country in the world can be healthier than Texas, and consumption and pectoral complaints never originate in the area of the northers.

Eastern Texas is generally well wooded; Middle and Western Texas have wood on the banks of the streams, and frequent spots of timber on the prairies.

Most of the country is covered with nutritious grass, affording good pasture throughout the year, capable of supporting an endless number of cattle and sheep, and almost all the soil is suited to the growth of cotton. There are more than five thousand square miles of bituminous coal in Texas, presenting seams five feet thick, and hills of pure gypsum seven hundred feet high. These are all covered by a generous sky and climate beneath which the white man can live and work without fear of malaria or sickness, and where he can enjoy all the blessings of the tropics without their attendant disadvantages.

It is this superb country which we trust General Lane and his forces may soon redeem from the curse of slavery.

The woolen manufacturer has an equal interest with the cotton-spinner in demanding that this shall be done, for with this unequaled country for the production of wool remaining under the curse of slavery, we import annually nearly thirty million pounds of wool,—about one-third of our whole consumption. With Texas free, and emigration from abroad—for a long time reduced almost to nothing—freely encouraged, we should become exporters of wool, not importers.

But I am warned that I have exceeded the space allotted me. The absurd assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism and will not work, can only be met by the question, 'If he will not work except by compulsion, why does he work extra after his compulsory labor is over?' Evidence that he does so work can be presented ad infinitum, upon Southern testimony; witness that De Bow's Review makes only a few selections.

The peculium of Southern servants, even on the plantation, is sometimes not trifling. We make a few selections, showing—

THE NEGROES' CROP.—A friend has reported to us a sale, on Tuesday, of a crop of cotton belonging to Elijah Cook, of Harris Co., Ga., amounting to $1424 96-100.—Columbus (Ga.) Sun, Dec. 29, 1858.

Mr. J.S. Byington informs us that he made two cotton purchases lately. One was the cotton crop of the negroes of Dr. Lucas, of this vicinity, for which he paid $1,800 in cash, every dollar of which goes to the negroes.—Montgomery (Ala.) Mail, Jan. 21, 1859.

Speaking of negroes' crops, the sales of which our contemporaries are chronicling in various amounts,—the largest which has come to our knowledge is one made in Macon, for the negroes of Allen McWalker. It amounted to $1969.65.—Macon (Ga.) Telegraph, Feb. 3, 1859.

Upon Louisiana sugar plantations, the exhausting work of the grinding season can only be maintained by a system of premiums and rewards equivalent to the payment of wages. Under that system the negroes of the sugar plantations are among the most healthy and contented in the South; while the same labor performed in Cuba, under the most severe compulsion, causes an annual decrease of the slave population, and the product of the island is only maintained by fresh importations of slaves from Africa.

With the following Southern testimony as to the intelligence of the negro, I leave this subject:—

Without book learning the Southern slave will partake more and more of the life-giving civilization of the master. As it is, his intimate relations with the superior race, and the unsystematic instruction he receives in the family, have placed him in point of intelligence above a large portion of the white laborers of Europe.—Plantation Life, by Rev. Dr. McTeyire.

We claim emancipation for the white man; it can only be secured by the freedom of the negro. The infinite justice of the Almighty demands both.

If we now fail to accomplish it, to bear in the future the name of 'American Citizen' will be a badge of shame and dishonor.