In his teens the slave's earnings would
gradually increase until they covered all his current charges, including
the cost of supervision; and shortly before the age of twenty he would
perhaps begin to yield a net return to the owner.
A slave's highest rate of earning would be reached of course when his
physical maturity and his training became complete, and would normally
continue until his bodily powers began to flag. This period would extend
in the case of male field hands from perhaps twenty-five to possibly fifty
years of age, and in the case of artizans from say thirty to fifty-five
years. The maximum valuation of the slave as property, however, would come
earlier, at the point when the investment in his production was first
complete and when his maximum earnings were about to begin; and his value
would thereafter decline, first slowly and then more swiftly with every
passing year, in anticipation of the decline and final cessation of his
earning power. Thus the ratio between the capital value of a slave and his
annual net earnings, far from remaining constant, would steadily recede
from the beginning to the end of his working life. At the age of twenty
it might well be as ten to one; at the age of fifty it would probably not
exceed four to one; at sixty-five it might be less than a parity.
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