E. S. P. to W. C. G.
Boston, July 28. If you can induce some old man who is a good judge, I would let him pick select cotton all through the season for seed, going over the whole field, or such parts of it as he finds the best cotton, culling the best pods from the best plants. In this way you can get seed enough to plant some acres next year, which would yield enough for the whole plantation another year and of a superior quality. This is the way the most intelligent planters got up their famous varieties of seed, and we ought to be able to use as much brains as they did. Perhaps you can get some refugee to do this, without giving offense to the mass, but he must be a good judge.
I hope you will not feel it your duty to enlist in the army, for I consider your position there a very useful one and difficult to replace. I don’t mean useful merely to the people with whom you come in contact, but politically, upon the solution of the great social, political problem which we have got to solve, viz., the worthiness and capacity of the negro for immediate and unconditional emancipation. I intend to publish the results of this year’s operations next winter and want to be able to show that we have raised cotton at a lower price per pound than the former proprietors did, counting the interest upon their capital invested in negroes as a part of their expenses, which is no more than just.
This point, as regards the raising of cotton by free labor, Mr. Philbrick did successfully make later, as will be seen (see page 265). Another inducement to Northern capital to come South was offered by him at this time in a letter which appeared in the Boston Daily Advertiser on July 20. It was entitled “A New Market for Manufactures,” and tabulated the results of his operations in the “shop” during the fifteen months of its existence so far. Between March, 1862, and March, 1863, for instance, a population of four hundred and twelve had spent there $3047; during the months of May and June, 1863, a population of nine hundred and thirty-three had spent $3800; the articles bought had included a variety of dry goods, provisions, hardware, etc., almost all of which supplied needs entirely new to the blacks. The letter concluded: “It may readily be seen that a considerable demand may arise for the articles above-named and others of kindred nature, when a population of some millions shall be in a position to apply their earnings to the supply of their rapidly increasing wants. Should not the manufacturing interests of the North be awake to this?” This letter, written for the express purpose of bringing means of civilization to the blacks, was taken by many Northern friends of the negro as proof that its writer’s motive was to exploit the black race for the benefit of the white. Of course, Mr. Philbrick knew perfectly well to what misconstruction he exposed himself when he told the public that there was profit to be made on the old plantations. The following letter was written in reply to a warning from C. P. W. on this very head.