The chief
distinction of this plantation, however, lay in its device for profit
sharing. To each slave was assigned a half-acre plot with the promise that
if he worked with diligence in the master's crop the whole gang would in
turn be set to work his crop. This was useful in preventing night and
Sunday work by the negroes. The proceeds of their crops, ranging from ten
to fifty dollars, were expended by the master at their direction for Sunday
clothing and other supplies.[12] On a sugar plantation visited by Olmsted
a sum of as many dollars as there were hogsheads in the year's crop was
distributed among the slaves every Christmas.[13]
[Footnote 11: Pleasant Suit, _Farmer's Accountant and Instructions for
Overseers_ (Richmond, Va., 1828); _Affleck's Cotton Plantation Record and
Account Book_, reprinted in _DeBow's Review_, XVIII, 339-345, and in Thomas
W. Knox, _Campfire and Cotton Field_ (New York, 1865), pp. 358-364. _See
also_ for varied and interesting data as to rules, experience and advice;
Thomas S. Clay (of Bryan County, Georgia), _Detail of a Plan for the Moral
Improvement of Negroes on Plantations_ (1833); and _DeBow's Review_, XII,
291, 292; XIX, 358-363; XXI, 147-149, 277-279; XXIV, 321-326; XXV, 463;
XXVI, 579, 580; XXIX, 112-115, 357-368.
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