Plantation life in Tennessee was more humane than is generally supposed. Great care was taken in establishing the negro quarters. There were several reasons for this, not especially peculiar to Tennessee. Health is an indispensable factor in the life of an efficient laborer. It saved or reduced the expense of medical attention. Sanitary quarters for the negroes produced contentment and thus lessened the problem of government. They prevented the spread of disease, and a consequent heavy death rate. They diminished crime among the slaves and on the whole made a good reputation for the master. Respect for the master was no inconsiderable force in the proper functioning of a plantation. The slaveholders discussed these subjects in the agricultural fairs and read papers on how to build proper slave quarters. In an issue of the Practical Farmer and Mechanic, published at Somerville, Tennessee, the county seat of the most densely slave-populated county in the state, are given the following instructions relative to the establishment of the plantation buildings: In the selection of his farm, he (the master) should have an eye to health, convenience of water, and a soil with such a substratum as to retain manures. His home should be neat but not costly—erected on an elevated situation—with a sufficient number of shade trees to impart health and comfort to its inmates. His negro quarters should be placed a convenient distance from his dwelling on a dry, airy ridge—raised two feet from the ground—so they can be thoroughly ventilated underneath, and placed at distances apart of at least fifty yards to ensure health. In this construction, they should be sufficiently spacious so as not to crowd the family intended to occupy them—with brick chimneys and large fire-places to impart warmth to every part of the room. More diseases and loss of time on plantations are engendered from crowded negro cabins than from almost any other cause. The successful planter should therefore have an especial eye to the comfort of his negroes, in not permitting them to be overcrowded in their sleeping quarters.[15]