fixed the good or bad character of the past year, and approved or disproved the executive ability of the plantation manager. It is a close contest between man and Nature, and the always increasing science of the one is more than counterbalanced by the capricious obstinacy of the other. The old men and women, heirlooms of departed experiences, found themselves growing in importance with autumn, and their rusty memories became oracles to furnish data for prognostication. There were the "big freeze" and the "early freeze" and the "late freeze" years. There were years when the cane sprouted in the mats, when the second-year stubble could not be told from first-year, and the first-year stubble filled up like plant cane. Then there were all the years marked by a water-line of rises, overflows, and crevasses. There was one memory that contained a year in which the Mississippi froze all over, and several that perpetuated the falling of the stars; but however persistently such a recurrence was periodically suggested, Nature had been pleased to withhold a repetition. The autocratic sugar-house itself was not beyond damaging recollec-
