in the custody of the Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, Ga.]
Other lowland plantations on a scale similar to that of Sabine Fields
showed much better earnings. One of these, in Liberty County, Georgia,
belonged to the heirs of Dr. Adam Alexander of Savannah. It was devoted to
sea-island cotton in the 'thirties, but rice was added in the next decade.
While the output fluctuated, of course, the earnings always exceeded the
expenses and sometimes yielded as much as a hundred dollars per hand for
distribution among the owners.[36]
[Footnote 36: The accounts for selected years are printed in _Plantation
and Frontier_, I, 150-165.]
The system of rice production was such that plantations with less than
a hundred acres available for the staple could hardly survive in the
competition. If one of these adjoined another estate it was likely to be
merged therewith; but if it lay in isolation the course of years would
probably bring its abandonment. The absence of the proprietors every summer
in avoidance of malaria, and the consequent expense of overseer's wages,
hampered operations on a small scale, as did also the maintenance of
special functionaries among the slaves, such as drivers, boatswains, trunk
minders, bird minders, millers and coopers.
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