The negro grounds are often at a great distance, five or six miles, and some of them fifteen miles, from the plantation.

Of course much time, which would otherwise be spent in cultivating them, is necessarily consumed in going to them and returning.

Yet for all that, and though in many cases the planters have withdrawn the watchmen who used to protect them, and have left them entirely exposed to thieves and cattle, they are generally well cultivated--on the whole, better than during slavery.
When there is inattention to them, it is caused either by some planters hiring them during their own time, or because their master permits his cattle to trespass on them, and the people feel an insecurity.

When you find a kind planter, in whom the apprentices have confidence, there you will find beautiful gardens.

In not a few instances, where the overseer is particularly harsh and cruel, the negroes have thrown up their old grounds, and taken new ones on other plantations, where the overseer is better liked, or gone into the depths of the mountain forests, where no human foot has been before them, and there cleared up small plats.