The negroes expect, after emancipation, to _lose their provision grounds_; many expect certainly to be turned off by their masters, and many who have harsh masters, intend to leave, and seek homes on other estates, and _all_ feel a great uncertainty about their situation after 1840; and consequently they can have but little encouragement to vigorous and extended cultivation of their grounds.

Besides this, there are very many cases in which the apprentices of one estate cultivate provision grounds on another estate, where the manager is a man in whom they have more confidence than they have in their own "busha." They, of course, in such cases, abandon their former grounds, and consequently are charged with neglecting them through laziness.
3.

Another alleged fact is, that _actually less work_ is done now than was done during slavery.

The argument founded on this fact is this: there is less work done under the apprenticeship than was done during slavery: therefore _no work at all_ will be done after entire freedom! But the apprenticeship allows _one fourth less time_ for labor than slavery did, and presents no inducement, either compulsory or persuasive, to continued industry.

Will it be replied that emancipation will take away _all_ the time from labor, and offer no encouragement _but to idleness_?
How is it now?
Do the apprentices work better or worse during their own time when they are paid?
Better, unquestionably.
What does this prove?
That freedom will supply both the time and the inducement to the most vigorous industry.
The _other reason_ for believing that the negroes will abandon estate-labor after entire emancipation, is their _strong tendency to barbarism!_ And what are the facts in proof of this?
We know but one.
We heard it said repeatedly that the apprentices were not willing to have their free children educated--that they had pertinaciously declined every offer of the _bushas_ to educate their children, and _this_, it was alleged, evinced a determination on the part of the negroes to perpetuate ignorance and barbarism among their posterity.