A PLEASANT EXCURSION TO SHELE BEACH. 



Reference was made in the body of this volume to an excursion to Shell 

 Beach, on Lake Borgne, which was tendered the Society by the officers of 

 the railroad leading to that place. Monday, the 19th day of January, was 

 spent in this excursion. 



The Shell Beach Railroad follows the left bank of the Mississippi river for 

 a distance of fourteen miles, in a southeasterly direction, from the city of New 

 Orleans, thence making an almost right angle bend to the left, a distance of 

 about fifteen miles further, to the gulf, or bay, known as Lake Borgne. This 

 so-called lake is a bay extending up from the Gulf of Mexico, and is rendered 

 historic as the landing place of the British army under the command of Gen. 

 Packinham, which was so disastrously repulsed by Gen. Jackson a few days 

 later at the very threshold of the city. The railroad follows the higher lands 

 over the almost identical route traversed by the ill-fated army of Packin- 

 ham, and also, near the city, passes through the battle-field, where, just 

 seventy years and eleven days before the date of our pleasant excursion the 

 most sanguinary and (unequal in its results) decisive struggle of that war 

 occurred. 



This railroad passes through some of the finest sugar lands of Louisiana, 

 there being numerous plantations along the route that bear evidences of past 

 prosperity, though at this time the sugar business is a waning industry. 



Northern enterprise, aided by Southern capital, has built this railroad 

 through these rich alluvial lands, formerly entirely devoted to the sugar in- 

 dustry, with a view to their conversion into vegetable gardens for Northern 

 markets. Much has already been accomplished in this direction, and the 

 officers of the company were not blind to their own interest and that of the 

 country through which they operate, in foreseeing the value of such an ad- 

 vertisement as an excursion of this kind would be to them. This, from a bus- 

 iness point of view, also from the true social and hospitable character of 

 these people, no doubt prompted the invitation, which, accepted, afforded the 

 members of the American Horticultural Society the pleasant and truly en- 

 joyable excursion to 



SHELL BEACH. 



As intimated above, the members of the Society, many of them accom- 

 panied by wives, daughters and invited friends, to the number of near two 



