Morning, This following enlightening and joyful article arises from the pen of Howard Miller, author of the much cherished, "Record of the Faithful" (1882). This publication is valued much in that it lists, as of 1882, the congregations in existence at that time in the Brethren church. While some states and congregations are not listed, it is still a valuable reference tool. Professor Miller in his "picture of words" paints glimpses of what I remember of my youth in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains in Eastern Tennessee. While cotton has never ruled in that clime, the mighty tobacco leaf is still a staple crop though it replaced by and large by a more nefarious crop. Enjoy the reading, Wayne Webb PLANTATION LIFE. BY HOWARD MILLER. How many of our readers have any knowl-edge of life on a Southern plantation, one of the old time "befo' the wah" places? Very few, indeed, and it is a day that has passed away, never to return again. Suppose, now, that we go out and see one of these old plac-es, or what is left of them, for they are all in a sad state of repair. Almost any place in the South will do, if we only go far enough south. I have always regarded Virginia almost as much south as Ohio is west. Suppose we go to Natchez, Miss., and take a trip out into the country from that point. I think Natchez is far enough toward the Gulf to merit the name of being a Southern city.-The writer hereof knows something of Nat-chez and its surroundings, for he spent more than a year in that city, and learned to re-spect and love its people and surroundings. First, let us have a little chat about Nat-chez itself. Natchez is on the banks of the Mississippi River, on a bluff about two hun-dred feet high, and has about 8000 inhabitants. Before the war Natchez was called the Athens of Mississippi, and it certainly had all that wealth and culture could buy and surround itself with, judging from what is left of the old time grandeur in the way of buildings, etc. The far-famed Natchez--under-the-hill-was an unsavory collection of people living and herding there in the days of flat boats and early steam-boating. It has all disappeared, or, at least, so much of it as gave it its peculiar flavor of wickedness. The city of Natchez comes nearer to a northern city, in morals and progressiveness, than any other southern town I ever saw, and I have seen most of them. The town of Vidalia is opposite, in Loui-siana, and the surface of the Pelican State, as Louisiana is called, is one unbroken flat as far as the eye can reach. Back of Natchez, the country is hilly and rolling, cut up with bayous, which correspond to our creeks, and scarred with washouts.-There is one difference we must remember as existing between the North and South, and that is the long distance between towns. Thus Natchez is the town for thirty or forty miles back, and in every direction, cities, or even towns, are few and far between in the far South. People ten miles in the interior have Natchez as their post-office, and this is true of any other considerable town or city. Suppose, now, that we take a team and ride out into the country. Everything will be new to the Northern farmer. The long moss, hanging pendant from the live-oaks, the trees full of flowers, and in their season the mag-nificent magnolia, the magnolia grandiflora, all combine to render the drive a memorable and pleasant one. If the weather is propi-tious, and the mocking-birds are singing, it is a season to be remembered, but if the weather is bad, it is especially and particu-larly bad in every respect. A noticeable feature of the country is the fact that nearly all the houses are back from the main road, hidden from sight. As the road grows more and more into the country, we come to a gate built squarely across the highway. This indicates that the limits of a plantation have been reached, and, that, un-til we reach another gate, we have not left the place, or farm, although the word farm is unknown here. All these plantations have names, Laurel Hill, Diamond Dust, Athlone, Minorca, and anything and everything that the taste, or lack of it, on the part of the proprietor, could suggest. These names were given before the war, and the plantations are known, far and wide, by these distinctive titles. Let us turn into one of these places and see the proprietor, where he lives, and how. It is ten miles from Natchez, yet we are in the rural belongings of that city. It will be as impossible to describe a plantation home, accurately, so as to fit all plantations, as it is to portray the characteristics of a Pennsyl-vania farm-house. Yet there are features in common with the farm-houses everywhere. The spring-house, the big red barn, the barn yard, and all that sort of thing are tolerably common throughout the North, and are just as certainly wanting in the South. Nearly all the Southern homes are wooden structures, with a wide hall running through the house, and a broad, covered porch run-ning all around it. They call this porch a gallery. Everything is calculated with an eye to coolness and comfort in the terribly long, hot, summer months. The houses are gen-erally one-story in height, and there is plen-ty of room inside. There are fire places for the winter, but they are not much used. In fact I have suffered as much from the cold in the South as I have North, not because it was so very cold, but because they were not prepared for it, and did not understand the fire business. When the thermometer is below the freezing point, as it does get sometimes, it takes something more than three or four shingles in an open fire place to keep a family warm, especially if all the doors are left open, which is usually the case. The house is generally uncarpeted, and in nine cases out of ten the furniture is of the ante bellum order. In the particular plantation we are visiting, there is a good library of stand-ard authors, but an examination shows that not one book bears an imprint later than 1861. On the walls are paintings; some of them are valuable, being executed in Italy before the war, when the owner went to Europe. Cop-ies of Titian, and marbles in their appropri-ate place, go to show the wealth and taste of the former proprietor. He is not here now, for some twenty-four years ago he rode away at the head of a thin line of gray that struck a solid wall of blue, and he never rode back again. Right here it might be said that, as far as our Northern proclivities are concerned, the man of the plantation does not care a parti-cle for them, and if the ordinary amenities of life are observed, the war and its results will be no more a cause of disagreement in Mississippi than they would in Maine. All around the house are ample grounds with magnolias growing in the yard, and other native and foreign trees. Here it is that the fig tree has its home, and it grows to be as large as the largest apple tree in your home orchard. One cannot help observing that there is a tumble-down look about the place. Very little has been done in the way of keeping the place in repair for the last twenty years. The plantation comprises two thousand acres, but the actual tillable portions are much less. Before the war the proprietor owned three hundred slaves, and the income from the place did not fall far short of $100,000. It is reduced now some $99,000. Over the hill from the house is the negro part of the place. The houses are of wood, one-story, one room, one big chimney, and one small porch. One is just like another, and they are not infrequently built in the form of an open square. The overseer's house was not far away. There are no over-seers now. The crop now, as before the war, is cotton. The cotton is not raised, or cultivated, but, in the vernacular of the plantation, is "made." They make cotton, make potatoes, make corn, "make" everything that we "raise," or culti-vate. Some of the old slaves are on the place, but the majority are comers and goers annually. The rule is to give each family as much ground as they can cultivate, say ten acres, and for this they pay a rent of one bale of cotton. The sub-farmer must be furnished with everything he eats and uses, by the plantation owner. He gets rations, which are as follows: For each adult, four pounds of green salted bacon, one peck of corn meal, and sometimes a pint of molasses, per week, and, for the pickaninnies of the family, half as much. This does not sound very large, but it is all they can get through with. In nine cases out of ten the proprietor owes his merchant for these advances, and often gives a mortgage on everything he has in the world for payment. If the crop fails, he cannot pay, and the merchant usually carries him through for another year. Nearly all of them are hopelessly in debt. Their smoke houses are in the North, and everything they eat and wear is from the land of cold weath-er. Whether or not they could produce all these things within themselves, it is certain that they do not do so, and it seems that the average planter never feels quite so well as when be is in debt. It is said, by those who know, that it takes thirteen months to make a crop of cotton, the idea being, that the longer one keeps at its cultivation, the farther behind he gets.-Certain it is that the business is not a profitable one for the producer. From the time the seed is put in the ground until it is bal-ed and sold, the cotton plant is subject to en-emies on all hands. In the lowlands over-flows drown it out, and early frosts kill it. The army worm eats up the whole crop in a marvelously short time. At no stage in its existence is it exempt from mortal enemies. The price varies considerably, but may be said to fluctuate about ten cents, which is, perhaps, a fair average price. A field of cotton with the tangled, fluffy mass hanging from the open bolls, is a beautiful sight, and one long to be remembered by the Northern farmer. These plantations are far apart, and, as far as I have had any experience, they are loneliness itself. The only outlet is for neighbors to visit and for town relations and friends to come out and spend a week or so with the planters. Nearly all the Northern farmers, who have gone south and applied Northern methods of agriculture, have failed for vari-ous reasons. The labor system, social and financial surroundings, all combine to make a man from the North fall into the rut of Southern system, or lack of it. One great discomfort of the far South is the great and continued heat. It is just as hot in Illinois as it is in Mississippi, at times, but if you will take the hottest day you ever experienced, at home, and string it out for three months, day and night, you will have an approximation of the heat. It is a mistaken notion that Southern people do not mind the heat. I remember sitting in front of a hotel, one hot evening in July, suffering acutely from prickly heat. Around me were half a dozen natives of the State, and upon my complaining of the trouble I experienced, I found that everyone of them had just the same miserable itching, consequent upon the weather. Nearly everything is different in the South, from what it is in the North, and some peo-ple might like it there, but for me, I prefer the apple to the fig, and wheat bread to corn dodgers. Lewisburgh, Union Co., Pa.