SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 127 



ful themselves. I would commend this course to others 

 of my southern friends. 



I landed at Vicksburg, November 17th, and found as 

 fine a lot of mud in the streets of that hill-side town, as 

 one could wish for. I spent the night with my hospitable 

 friend, Daniel Swett,^ and in the morning saw a show of 

 Mississippi ice. Mr. Swett has been for several years 

 engaged in the introduction of improved agricultural im- 

 plements, into this part of the country, without hitherto 

 meeting with much success. One difficulty, hitherto experi- 

 enced with eastern plows, is found in the low beams, (a) ^ 



Nov. ISth. — I rode out to the plantation of Dr. M. W. 

 Philips, whose name has long been known to the readers 

 of the Agriculturist. He lives some 15 miles east of Vicks- 

 burg. The intervening land, (Warren county), being the 

 most uneven surface that I ever saw cultivated. It may 

 be said that there are no hills ; but the whole face of the 

 country is sunken into hollows, from one to one hundred 

 feet deep, just as thick as they can lie side by side of one 

 another. The soil is a light alluvion, without grit, and 

 very deep. It is very liable to gully, and yet the perpen- 

 dicular cut banks of the railroad, are standing with the 

 ten-year-old spade marks still as plain as when first made. 

 Many a hill side in this county is cultivated by the hoe, 

 where it is so steep that a mule cannot pull a plow. It used 

 to be celebrated as one of the best cotton-growing coun- 

 ties in the state; but a continued cropping of the land, 



^ Possibly Daniel Swalt, an implement dealer of Vicksburg. 



''The editor described the measures taken to meet this difficulty: 

 "(a) One of the editors of this paper, R. L. Allen, has travelled 

 extensively through the south within the last two years; and hav- 

 ing detected this radical deficiency noticed by our correspondent, 

 immediately ordered high beams for several sizes of plows, includ- 

 ing an entire series from the lightest cotton at $1.75, to the heavi- 

 est sugar plow. These ax'e made both by A. B. Allen & Co., of New 

 York, and by Ruggles, Nourse and Mason, of Worcester. We ven- 

 ture to say, that, including the beautiful self-sharpening and sugar 

 plows, lately got up by the latter firm, and the cheap, yet well-made 

 and efficient cotton, corn, and sward plows, made by the former, 

 there has never been a set of plows constructed, combining so much 

 economy and advantage." 



