Let me suggest here another estimate of this landed property of the Negro, acquired _since_ emancipation. Taking the old slave States in the general, there has been a large acquisition of land in each and all of them. In the State of Georgia, as we have just seen, it was 680,000 acres. Let us put the figure as low as 400,000 for each State--for the purchase of farm lands has been everywhere a passion with the freedman--this 400,000 acres multiplied into 14, _i.e._ the number of the chief Southern States, shows an aggregate of 5,600,000 acres of land, the acquisition of the black race in less than twenty years. But Dr. Tucker will observe a further fact of magnitude in this connection: It is the increased PRODUCTION which has been developed on the part of the freedman since emancipation. I present but _one_ staple, and for the reason that it is almost exclusively the result of $1. I will take the five years immediately preceding the late civil war and compare them with the five years preceeding the last year's census-taking; and the contrast in the number of cotton-bales produced will show the industry and thrift of the black race as a consequent on the gift of freedom: _Years_ _Bales_ 1857 2,939,519 1858 3,113,962 1859 3,851,481 1860 4,669,770 1861 3,656,006 ---------- Total 18,230,738 _Years_ _Bales_ 1878 4,811,265 1879 5,073,531 1880 5,757,397 1881 6,589,329 1882 5,435,845 ----------- The five years' work of _freedom_ 27,667,367 The five years' work of _slavery_ 18,230,738 ---------- Balance in favor of freedom 9,436,629 Now this item of production is a positive disproof of Dr. Tucker's statement, "that the average level in material prosperity is but little higher than it was before the war." Here is the fact that the Freedman has produced one-third more in five years than he did in the same time when a slave!