in the midst of bad managers of slaves cannot do much; and without discipline there cannot be profit to the master or comfort to the slaves.”  Feed and clothe your slaves well.  The best preventive of theft is plenty of pork.  Let them have poultry and gardens and fruit trees to attach them to their houses and promote amenability.  “The greatest bar to good discipline in Virginia is the number of grog shops in every farmer’s neighborhood.”  There is no severity in the state, and there will be no occasion for it again if the fanatics will only let us alone.[9]

[Footnote 9:  “On the Management of Negroes.  Addressed to the Farmers and Overseers of Virginia,” signed “H.  C,” in the Farmer’s Register, I, 564, 565 (February, 1834).]

An essay written after long experience by Robert Collins, of Macon, Georgia, which was widely circulated in the ’fifties, was in the same tone:  “The best interests of all parties are promoted by a kind and liberal treatment on the part of the owner, and the requirement of proper discipline and strict obedience on the part of the slave ...  Every attempt to force the slave beyond the limits of reasonable service by cruelty or hard treatment, so far from extorting more work, only tends to make him unprofitable, unmanageable, a vexation and a curse.”  The quarters should be well shaded, the houses free of the ground, well ventilated, and large enough for comfort; the bedding and blankets fully adequate.  “In former years the writer tried many ways and expedients to economize in the provision of slaves by using more of the vegetable and cheap articles of diet, and less of the costly and substantial.  But time and experience have fully proven the error of a stinted policy ...  The allowance now given per week to each hand ... is five pounds of good clean bacon and one quart of molasses, with as much good bread as they require; and in the fall, or sickly season of the year, or on sickly places, the addition of one pint of strong coffee, sweetened with sugar, every morning before going to work.”  The slaves may well have gardens, but the assignment of patches for market produce too greatly “encourages a traffic on their own account, and presents a temptation and opportunity, during the process of gathering, for an unscrupulous fellow to mix a little of his master’s produce with his own.  It is much better to give each hand whose conduct has been such as to merit it an equivalent in money at the end of the year; it is much less trouble, and more advantageous to both parties.”  Collins further advocated plenty of clothing, moderate hours, work by tasks in cotton picking and elsewhere when feasible, and firm though kindly discipline.  “Slaves,” he said, “have no respect or affection for a master who indulges them over much....  Negroes are by nature tyrannical in their dispositions, and if allowed, the stronger will abuse the weaker, husbands will often abuse their wives and mothers their children, so that it becomes a prominent duty