488 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



pleased to see Mrs. D. take pride in showing us her neat 

 dairy room, and long row of barrels of the sweetest lard, 

 besides tallow, and two year old soap; all prepared and 

 put up under her own personal superintendence — and 

 this in Mississippi too — by the wife of a planter worth 

 — well I don't know how much money, but this I do 

 know, that him and his good wife are worth a most com- 

 fortable and cheerful disposition that makes all happy 

 around them, and if they have not quiet consciences, I 

 don't know who can have them. Unfortunately they have 

 not a child in the world : but I dare say they won't lack 

 heirs. 



Col. D. is satisfied that Spanish tobacco upon such 

 rich, warm land as his, could be made a very profitable 

 crop, if they could only once "kick themselves clear of 

 the traces" that bind them to the cotton-sacks, whether 

 making or losing. And Col. D. assured me that at pres- 

 ent prices, he did not make 5 per cent on his capital. 

 And yet, in addition to what I have mentioned, he makes 

 about eight bales to the hand. He puts up his cotton in 

 bagging made of his refuse cotton at the factory in Nat- 

 chez. A few years ago he sent a crop to market put up 

 in thin boards bound round with ropes like common bal- 

 ing. The cotton bagging is much handsomer and tighter 

 than hemp, but a little more liable to be torn by handling ; 

 by the constant use of those abominable cotton hooks,, 

 which open great rents in the bags, through which an- 

 other kind of hooks contrive to hook a kind of rent, 

 though they themselves are all anti-renters. But if cot- 

 ton planters understood their own interest, they never 

 would use any other than bagging made of cotton that 

 will hardly pay for sending to market. To do this, they 

 must have manufactories right in their midst. 



I have visited no place in the south where everything 

 wore so much the appearance of a well ordered "No. 1, 

 Yankee farm," as does every thing about this place. 

 There is but one important thing lacking, and that is a 

 complete system of side-hill ditching. 



