Part 14 (1/2)

--A. I would say variously from 500 to 2,500 acres in cultivation.

Q. How valuable are these plantations per acre?

--A. That is a question which cannot be answered definitely except in this way: where a planter owns the land, and he is out of debt, the land is not for sale, because he cannot invest his money in anything that is so profitable; but where a planter's property is mortgaged, and the mortgagee wants to foreclose and will foreclose, and there is not in that country the money which the planter can borrow to relieve himself of his indebtedness, he will probably sell his land at a small excess of his debt in order to save something. You see there is a want of capital in that country, and if a planter is involved, as many planters are and have been ever since the war, he must do the best he can. There are many planters in that country who are nothing but agents of the factors, from the fact that the interest and commissions they pay upon the debt amount to more than the rent for the property, and they hold on to it as a home.

Therefore, a planter in that condition will sell at a nominal price, whereas a plantation owned and paid for is not for sale.

By Mr. PUGH:

Q. There is really no established market price?

--A. None at all, owing to the necessity of the one to sell and the desire of another to buy.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. At what rates per acre have you known the t.i.tle to change in some instances?

--A. I have known lands to be bought there, including woodlands and cleared lands, at from $20 to $25 an acre, which would be, say, $40 or $50 an acre for the cleared land, and I have known other planters to refuse $80 an acre, cash.

Q. Do you think that $80 or $100 per acre would be a reasonable price for these plantation lands?

--A. They sold before the war for $120 an acre.

By Mr. CALL:

Q. You are speaking now of the alluvial lands?

--A. I am speaking of the alluvial lands on the Mississippi River, cleared, ready for cultivation, with the improvements existing upon them.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. Improved plantations?

--A. Yes, sir.

Q. Upon what price per acre do you think those lands would pay, one year with another, an interest of 6 per cent?

--A. I will best answer that question by the figures of rents which I have given. The rent, without any responsibility attached to the proprietor at all, is from $8 to $10 an acre.

Q. In money?

--A. In money. I will say further that I have been living in that country since 1869, and I have never yet known a year when there has not been a sufficient crop made to pay the rent, without a single exception.

By Mr. CALL:

Q. What is left to the tenant after he pays this $10 an acre?

--A. That land produces on an average 400 pounds of lint cotton to the acre, which at 10 cents a pound is $40.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. To what extent is Northern capital availing itself of opportunity to invest in these plantations?

--A. I might say it is limited.

Q. From what fact does that arise?

--A. From the fact that the safety of investments there is just becoming apparent to capitalists. Capitalists up to this time have been afraid to go to the South, owing to the disturbed condition of affairs politically and this very race-issue question. A man does not want to carry his money down there and put it into a country that might be involved in riots and disturbances. Those questions are now just beginning to settle themselves, and capital is beginning to find its way.

Q. Do you antic.i.p.ate in the near or remote future any further difficulty from the race question?

--A. Not at all, and if we are left to ourselves things will very soon equalize themselves.

Q. You are left to yourselves now, are you not?

--A. We are now.