supply themselves by their own skill and ingenuity with everything that
they now obtain from abroad; and if cut off from all other associations,
the society which they themselves form would satisfy their desire for
companionship; for not only would its members be numerous and
representative of every shade of character and disposition, but they
would also be bound together by ties of blood and marriage as well as of
interest and mutual affection. Similar tasks and relaxations create in
them a similarity of tastes. The social position of all is identical,
for there are no classes among them, the only line of social division
being drawn upon differences of age; and they are paid the same wages
and possess the same small amount of property. They are attached to the
soil by like local associations, which vary as much as the plantation
varies in surface here and there. Each plantation of any great extent is
like that part of the country, both in its general aspect and its
leading features, just as the employments and amusements of its
population, if numerous, are found reflected in the social life of the
whole of the same section.

The particular plantation to which I shall so often allude in this
article as the scene of the observations here recorded, like most of the
tobacco-plantations in Virginia, covers a broad expanse of land,
including in one body many thousand acres, remarkable for many
differences of soil and for a varied configuration. It is partly made up
of steep hills that roll upon each other in close succession, partly it
is high and level upland that sweeps back to the wooded horizon from the
open low-grounds contiguous to the river that winds along its southern
border. At least one-half of it is in forest, in which oak, cedar,
poplar, and hickory grow in abundance and reach a great height and size.
The soil of the lowlands is very fertile, for it is enriched every few
years by an inundation that leaves behind a heavy deposit; that of the