The fences by the roadside soon faded out, and for miles scarcely any were to be seen. Little stakes, here and there, would mark the boundaries of individual possessions; but besides these, there would be no divisions in fields of two or three hundred acres of cotton. Then would come a tract, equally as large, lying fallow, and covered with a luxurious growth of dewberries that tempted more than one of our party to delay the progress to church while we went “berrying.” In other places great tracts were observed in which the furrows of cotton, cultivated years ago, could still be plainly traced, although the ground was now covered with a dense growth of pines. Since the flight of the slaveholders, however, some of this has been reclaimed; and more land is now under cultivation, both on Lady’s Island and on St. Helena, than when they fell into our hands. The cotton was still small, but the rich sandy loam seemed to suit it well, and gentlemen familiar with the cotton culture, who accompanied us, said it could not look better. The fields were beautifully clean—it is rare that a Western corn field shows as careful culture—and the women and old men, who now do most of the work on these islands, had carefully hilled it up with the hoe, till, in places, it could hardly be distinguished from the ridges heaped for the sweet-potato plants about the cabins. We did not pass a field, in our twelve miles drive out and as many back (partly by a different road), that would not bear a favorable comparison with the average of Northern farming.[18] Since the Government has been offering large bounties for volunteers, most of the young men from these islands have gone into the army, filling up such regiments as that of Colonel Howard, which we saw at Beaufort, and all this work has, therefore, been done by the weaker and more infirm classes of the population. General Saxton has not encouraged it, but the negro women still work freely in the fields. The withdrawal of the young men from the islands has been, in some respects, an advantage. They tell of such sights as the uncles and aunts, gathered in to tie and whip some young scapegrace who persisted in neglecting his crop, and whom they feared, they would, therefore, have to support next winter. No whipping is needed now; the crops are cultivated better than before, and when young scapegrace comes back from the army, he will be found to possess a manliness that will scarcely require the further stimulus of the lash.