474 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Matters in Mississippi. 

 By Solon Robinson. 



[Chicago Prairie Farmer, 5:114-15; May, 1845] 



[February 22, 1845] 

 Messrs. Editors: To you who know of my wander- 

 ings, it may not seem very surprising that I date from 

 this place, but to some of your readers it may not be 

 amiss to assure them in advance, that I am that "same old 

 coon" whose communications have so often been dated 

 from "Lake C. H. Indiana." And how shall I make this 

 communication interesting to my friends up near the 

 north pole? Why first I will tell you what farmers are 

 doing in this latitude now in this month of February. 

 First then, many are busy planting corn! "Planting 

 corn!" I think I hear some of you say, while chopping 

 a "hole in the ice" to water your team preparatory to 

 doing a day's work sledding up wood. "Planting corn!" 

 Why where is the fellow, at the equator? Let's have the 

 map. Ah! true; Mississippi does run pretty well down 

 south, but not quite to the equator. But next, where is 

 "Log Hall," where they are planting corn while we are 

 having such "nice sleigh rides," and hardly thinking of 

 the far off time when we shall be engaged in the same 

 occupation ? 



Well my friends, I will tell you all about it, if you will 

 wait on me as patiently as nature compels you to do for 

 the coming of that time promised to all climes, "seed 

 time and harvest." 



"Log Hall," is in Hinds county, near the centre of the 

 State north and south, about 20 miles from Vicksburgh, 

 and is the residence of Dr. M. H. Phillips, one of the 

 editors of a most excellent agricultural paper, the South- 

 western Farmer, published at Raymond in the same 

 county, and besides, a writer and correspondent of the 

 Cultivator and several other agricultural papers, and a 

 gentleman who has done more than any other individual 

 in the south towards "the improvement of the soil and 

 the mind," and is untiring in his efforts "to elevate the 



