140 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



large reed canes. He thinks that they will last many 

 years, and when decayed, that the hole in the clay will 

 still afford drainage for many more years. At any rate, 

 it is a cheap experiment. He has a Cherokee-rose hedge, 

 now three years old, that will, in another year, be a good 

 fence. 



Bermuda Grass. — This grass is much objected to in 

 many places, on account of its tenacity of life, but Mr. A. 

 assures me that he finds no difficulty in killing or smoth- 

 ering it down by crops of the cow pea. This easily- 

 managed and most valuable grass cannot be the same 

 kind that is so much anathematised in Georgia. 



Here, for the first time, I saw the "cholera among the 

 turkeys," — a disease that is at least as unaccountable as 

 that of the same name in the human system ; and which 

 has slain its thousands among that branch of the poultry- 

 yard family, within a few months, in this region. They 

 drop from the roost frequently, and usually quite fat. 

 The most beautiful tenents of Mrs. Affleck's yard, and in 

 fact that I ever saw, was a couple of domesticated wood 

 ducks. China and African geese, thrive here as though 

 it was their native home. One of the great pests of the 

 poultry yard and garden are the rats, which are only kept 

 in check by a number of excellent terriers. Yet we see a 

 hundred curs and hounds in the country to one of these 

 valuable little dogs. 



It is a wonder where wood is scarce and dear as it is 

 here, and where the China tree grows so rapidly, and 

 makes such good fuel, that plantations are not made for 

 that purpose, upon some of the old fields hereabouts, that 

 are unfit for any thing else. Mrs. Isaac Dunbar,^ Mrs. 

 A.'s mother, and who manages the "home place," has 

 some of the finest hedges of Louri-mundi, that I have 

 seen; and although they are not good fence, they are 



^ Mrs. Isaac Dunbar was, before her marriage, Elizabeth "Wil- 

 kinson. Her husband is mentioned in the Nashville Agriculturist, 

 4:183 (December, 1843), as winner of a premium at an agricul- 

 tural fair at Washington, Mississippi, for a fine piece of linsey 

 cloth. 



