“FOR SALE OR RENT.—My plantation, one mile above Montgomery, immediately on the river, containing about 2,000 acres, 1,300 in cultivation. There is a steam grist-mill, which propels two gins, on the place, and every other improvement which constitutes a complete plantation. I will rent for a share in the crop. This is well known as one of the very best cotton farms in the State.” When these plantations were rented, the owners asked three to five dollars rent, payable 1st of January, 1867; or, if he furnished all the mules, corn, bacon, and everything else except the labor, he would require one-half the crop. The old planters seemed utterly despondent about raising cotton by free negro labor. A few thought of watching the Yankees and imitating their policy; but the most of those who did not propose flying to Brazil, were dreaming of imported white labor. The following was one of their fine schemes: “WHITE LABOR AGENCY.—Rates of Hire of White Laborers: Men, per year $150 00 Women, per year 100 00 Children, of 12 or 14 years of age, per year 50 00 House Servants, per month 15 00 Payable at the end of the year. They contract for one year, to do the same work as the negro; live in the same cabins, and on the same rations; clothe themselves and pay their own doctor’s bills. Time lost by sickness deducted from wages. One in every six of Germans agree to speak English. Cost of transportation, $15 per head, to accompany orders, but to be deducted from wages. An order will be forwarded to New York on Saturday, the 11th instant.” A “Planters’ Convention” was to be held in a couple of weeks, to agree upon a policy for making the negroes work. But they had no faith in it, unless they could have power to seize upon every idle negro they found, put a hoe in his hand, and vigorously apply the lash. The local papers were calling out lustily to “checkmate the Freedmen’s League.” This association, it seemed, had “taken upon itself to fix the wages of freedmen at ten dollars per month,” a rate higher than had been heretofore ruling. “Teach the darkies,” urged one of the papers, “that this leaguing is a game that two can play at. If they assume to dictate, we will oust them; and supply their places with better laborers, whom we can import from the North;” and it greatly encouraged itself herein, by its interpretation of a recent speech by the President: “President Johnson, in his speech to the negroes, plainly intimated that the Lincolnian idea of everything for the negro, and everything by the negro, had no receptacle in his brain.”