82 SUPPLEMENT. 
fice some six thousand five hundred bushels of this precious seed, and 
the only crop which could with safety be disseminated, and conscien- 
tious!y recommended by Governor Hammond, was that harvested on 
the assorted acres of the ten or more best varieties. The crop of Mr. 
Peters was utterly ruined, as he had not taken the precaution to select 
and plant separately. Before making arrangements with Mr. Wray, 
he had imported directly from Vilmorin, Andrieux & Co., of Paris, 
about fifteen pounds of what was supposed to be a variety of imphee 
named Vim-bis-chu-a-pa, at a cost of $10 per pound; but this turned 
out to be nothing but worthless durra. 
With that generosity which characterizes him, General Hammond 
declined receiving any share of the profits from the sale of the seed, 
and presented to Mr. Wray the entire crop of the pure seed, amount- 
ing to about four hundred bushels. 
To inform myself particularly as to the success of this first cultiva- 
tion of the imphee, and to assist in making sugar from it, I visited in 
October of 1857 the plantations of General Hammond, Mr. Peters, 
and Mr. Eve. A part of the imphees I found mixed as above 
stated. On the separate lots I could see no signs of a hybridation 
with durra ; but on one or two there were straggling plants of some 
variety of imphee, the seeds of which resembled those of the lot with 
which it was mingled. The appearance of the various plants is truth- 
fully given by Mr. Wray. Of the comparative amounts of sugar 
which they are capable of yielding I cannot speak, for our attempts 
to produce it were not successful. 
It is comparatively an easy thing for northern and western farmers, 
living adjacent to lines of railroad, to provide themselves with any sort 
of machinery or apparatus at a moment’s notice; and, if breakages 
occur during their operations, a competent mechanic is speedily found 
to repair them. But such is not the case on an inland southern plan- 
tation ; and hence it resulted at Governor Hammond’s that, what with 
the novelty of the operations, breakages of the mill and steam engine, 
quarrels of mechanics, the late arrival of Mr. Wray with his seed, and 
other things combined, no attempt was made to “ commence crop,’ to 
use the West Indian phrase, until the canes were considerably past 
