The fact is admitted by all, but the reason is not very clear to every one.  Many cannot comprehend, why it is, that the farmer who pays his laborers nothing, should be less prosperous than his neighbor, who pays his laborers from ten to fifteen dollars per month.  The idea that those who work slaves, pay nothing for their labor; or in other words, that slave labor costs a man nothing, is incorrect.  If a farmer breeds and raises slaves, it is at a cost of at least a thousand dollars per slave.  If he purchases a slave with his money, the slave frequently costs him one thousand dollars.  If we suppose his money worth ten per cent interest, per annum, the amount of the interest on the purchase money, is one hundred dollars per annum.  Here is eight dollars and thirty-three and one-third cents per month, that the farmer is paying for labor.  To this add fifty dollars per annum for clothing, viz., four dollars and sixteen and two-third cents per month; making an aggregate of twelve dollars and fifty cents per month, that the farmer expends for slave labor.  During a residence of forty four years in the South, I never knew the time when white laborers could not be procured for that amount, and frequently for less.  To this we may fairly add at least twenty-five per cent for loss of time by sickness, loss of slave property by death, physician’s bills, &c., so that we may put down slave labor at fifteen dollars per month.  Fifty per cent more, than white labor ordinarily costs in the slave states.  This is a fair statement of the case.  But the disadvantages of slave labor do not stop here.  As a general rule, land cultivated by white laborers, will produce from twenty-five to fifty per cent more than land cultivated by slave labor.  This is owing to the careless, slovenly manner in which slave labor is performed.  To this we may add the destruction of farming utensils and implements of husbandry, over and above what occurs in the hands of white laborers; and also the injury inflicted on horses, mules and oxen; the loss of stock for the want of proper attention, regular feeding, &c.

None can comprehend the force of my remarks so well, as the practical farmer.  Well does he understand the vast expense incurred, and the loss that is sustained, by the careless and reckless wear and tear, and destruction of farming utensils and machinery—­the improper treatment of horses—­inattention to hogs, cattle, &c.  Slaves are remarkable for their listlessness and indolence, and the little interest they manifest in anything.  Many of them perform their round of labor with as little apparent concern or interest, as the horses or mules which they drive before them.  There are, I admit, exceptions, but as a general rule, my remarks hold good.  I never owned a negro, but I frequently employed them as cooks, washerwoman, &c., and many years observation satisfied me, that as a general rule, that when left to themselves, they consumed, or rather wasted, one-third more precisions than would have sufficed for my family under the management and supervision of an economical white woman.