It is well to consider that the measures of the government have rendered labor scarce. It would be safe to say there is not _half a supply_; that every sort of inducement will be held out to get labor away from present situations; that the inclination of all who are unincumbered is, to get to the city and its neighborhood. Every planter has some already there, living most unprofitably. I have half a dozen, some under the agreement of the present year. Concentration is the order of the day, and none but those who can command the largest sum of money will be able to carry on plantations with any hope of success. I take leave to add some suggestions, believing you will receive them with the same friendly spirit in which they are offered. I am still surrounded by my own servants, and would like to see the system so ordered that they would still find it to their advantage to remain in their present comfortable homes. Wages, rules, and regulations should be fixed and uniform: nothing left to discretion. A penalty should be inflicted on every employer who deviates from the established rates, _maximum_ rates. No field crops should be raised by hired laborers. The evils attending this are numerous and insurmountable. Wages should be extremely moderate on account of the unsteadiness of labor and exceeding uncertainty of crops of all sorts, but especially of cane and cotton. Cooking for hands should be confined absolutely to one kitchen, and a charge made for all wood taken to their houses; a certain supply should be allowed, and no additional quantity permitted at any price: otherwise no plantation can long stand the enormous, wasteful consumption of fuel. All necessary expenditures for the blacks, old as well as young, should be borne by themselves. White laborers are all liable to such charges, and why not wasteful and improvident blacks? They should be early taught the value of what they consume as well as the other costs of living. About keeping stock the rule should be absolute. No travelling about, day or night, without a written sanction from the proper person. The violation of this order by a commanding officer has brought the small-pox on my place and already eight grown hands have died with it, and there are not less than twenty invalids besides: this is one of the evils. Medicine and professional attendance a charge to the patient, as well as all educational arrangements. Every ploughman or woman, and teamster, to be obliged to feed and curry his or her team once at least every day.