450 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



far more interesting than that which which we have 

 hitherto visited ; and I humbly hope that I may be able so 

 to collect and arrange those incidents that you will be 

 pleased to continue to give a monthly welcome to the 

 familiar face of your old friend, 



Solon Robinson. 



Notes of Travel in the Southwest — No. VI. 1 



[Extract; Albany Cultivator, n. s. 2:271-73; Sep., 1845 2 ] 



[Covering February 12-17, 1845] 

 Finding so little of the spirit of improved husbandry, 

 and so few with whom I could feel as though I was with 

 old acquaintances, the pleasure of a circumstance that 



1 The editor prefaced this article with a summary of the intro- 

 ductory part of Robinson's letter: "On the 12th day of February, 

 the date of his letter, the peach and plum trees in the part of the 

 country from which he writes, (the north portion of Mississippi,) 

 are in full bloom. He states that the region is quite new, it being 

 'the much talked of Chickasaw purchase,' and that the people live 

 mostly in log cabins. The land is described as being generally good 

 for cotton, but in Mr. R.'s opinion, an investment of more than 

 37 cents per acre, for a large portion of it, would not prove profit- 

 able, on account of the extremely low price of cotton. The course 

 of cultivation generally practiced, is represented as very deteriorat- 

 ing. The land is mostly hilly, and by injudicious management, is 

 said to be greatly injured by washing. Mr. R. says he passed a 

 field in the north part of Yallabusha county, in which he saw 

 'twenty plows, each drawn by a single horse or mule, and some of 

 them pretty poor at that.' This land, he says, 'was to be planted 

 to corn without any further plowing, and this certainly was not 

 two inches deep in the average.' The soil is said to have been 

 originally about six inches deep, but by this mode of barely 

 'scratching' and loosening the surface, it is in many cases nearly 

 all washed away, leaving the fields cut up by deep gullies. But 

 that this wasteful cultivation, which Mr. R. so much deplores, is 

 by no means universal, will appear from his description of some 

 beautiful and well-managed plantations — to one of which he intro- 

 duces us by a relation of the following pleasant incident, which, 

 though somewhat elongated, we think our readers will be inter- 

 ested to peruse in his own language." 



'Reprinted in Nashville Agriculturist, 6:161-63 (November, 

 1845). 



