Volume 03 Page 0108

I have heard much discussion among Planters, respecting the Quanty
averaged in threshing with the flail stick 12 Bushels are said to be
the task while some planters say that one day with another they
do not get more than 5 or 6 Bushels of clean winnowed rice
I have this day made a calculation with Mr Bagashaw
& measured carefully. I have say 25 full hands on the floor
12 men who do 600 sheaves each 13 women & weak hands 500 each
Mr Bagshaw says the usual sized sheaved should always give 2 bushels every hundred
sometimes 2½ bushels which latter would turn out 15 Bushels the 600 sheves
But Negroes are cunning enough to remember that what they are
harvesting they will have to thresh & will tie as small sheaves
as they can. Mr B says at this last harvest he told them
that he would give them 110 for every 100 if they went on
tieing such small sheaves. Well the last week, threshing
on an average each man & woman's threshing when winnowed out
is ten Bushels I told Mr B that some planters went entirely
by measure & had a tub on the threshing floor which when full
of threshed rice just from under the flail mixed with the threshed
particles of straw & tailings so as to come at a due estimation
of their being what will produce when winnowed 12 Bushels
"Yes" said he, but the negro will knock away so as to
break up & intermix the greatest possible quality of our straw
&c with his days task & thus defeat justice by rendering things
uncertain & unequal.

Mr Bagshaw says that last year the old man at Mr McAlpins
killed between Harvest & then planting again fully 4000 Rats
(four thousand) while at my place old Abram only killed about 1000.
Mr McAlpin instructed him to pay one lb of tobacco for every 100 rats
That some 16 or 18 years ago soon after Mr Potter bought the
property next below me, the rats were so numerous that
they lost the entire planting of seventy acres the seed being so much eaten
by the rats that Mr Potter requested Mr Wallace to go over
& look at the devastation & tell him what he had best do Mr W
told him that the planting was entirely destroyed that the only plan
was to plant it over again & get as many dogs as they could
& go to work & hunt them which was done
1 April 1845 I got Mr Papot my sub-overseer to keep a regular daily account
in the Plantation Book of the number of dead Rats brought in by Old Abram
& his pack of 5 Curs & from the 1st Jany to this date 3 months the Number is
2700 (two thousand & seven hundred rats!!) Many days from 30 to 40 being killed