Last year the negroes congregated on these plantations cultivated their crops in their own way and on their own account. The military authorities selected some seventy of the best, and allotted to each a tract of thirty acres. Each was permitted to draw mules and supplies, to be paid for at the end of the year, and each hired as many negroes to assist him as he thought he needed to cultivate the land. The officers say they worked well, and would have made large profits, but for the ravages of the army-worm. As it was, they only gathered one hundred and thirty bales of cotton from their entire plantation, or scarcely one-twelfth of a good crop. White lessees, managing large places on the river, suffered equally from the army-worm, but saved a much larger proportion of cotton. Still, the experiment was a success. The negroes paid back all the advances made them by the Government, and some of them had a balance of between five hundred and a thousand dollars profits.[38] These results, it is true, could not have been attained without Government encouragement and direction; but surely no better way of dispensing charity was ever devised than to make the destitute earn it for themselves, and pay back the advances furnished them. Nor was there anything in the operations of the negro farmers last year, nor in their prospects when we visited them in June, 1865, to warrant a doubt as to their capacity for supporting themselves and managing their own affairs, when once fairly started. Whether they would furnish the country as great an amount of cotton for export, as under the old system, is another and a very different question. * * * * * We drove through miles of cotton and corn, rank with the luxuriant growth of a soil marvelous for its fertility. Then came a bad road along a broken levee, through a cypress swamp, where amid the gloom of trailing moss, hanging down almost to the edge of the stagnant, scum-covered water, one could dimly make out the great cypress-knees, and fancy them fit resting-places for the snakes and alligators which are said to constitute the only inhabitants. Finally our ambulances could go no further over the narrow road, and for a little distance we followed on foot the little path beaten by the crowds of negroes constantly flocking to the river. The luxuriant grass waved over and almost concealed it; and here and there it was overgrown with vines, so that every step crushed the juicy dewberries under our feet. The steamboat had passed around the bend, and lay awaiting us as we emerged on its northern side. ----- Footnote 37: