SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 143 



roots vegetate, and unless actually consumed, fire does 

 not seem to destroy its vitality. It has been known to 

 grow abundantly from ashes, taken from a kitchen fire 

 where it had been thrown to destroy it ! And I have my- 

 self seen it growing out of the lime mortar in the top of 

 a sugar-house chimney, after the chimney had been used 

 to boil a crop of sugar ; and those who know anything of 

 the intense fires used, can easily imagine that the top of 

 a chimney is anything but a cool place ! 



Doctor Metcalf and his neighbor Dr. Mercer^ have 

 some of the best stock in this part of the state. Though 

 I am sorry to say that there is not much encouragement 

 among the mass of Mississippians, for enterprising pub- 

 lic-spirited men like these, to expend money in introduc- 

 ing good stock, except for their own use. I saw in Dr. 

 Metcalf's garden, a beautiful and efficient hedge of the 

 Florida thorn, which I like better than the Cherokee rose, 

 or the Osage orange, a specimen of which I have seen on 

 Dr. Mercer's place. That plant, in this climate, grows 

 naturally to a tree, and in a hedgerow does not afford 

 sufficient thorns on the lower part of the stems. Being 

 deciduous, too, it is less beautiful in winter than the 

 Louri-mundi, if planted for an ornamental hedge. 



On the day I left Dr. Metcalf's, I crossed the Homo- 



* William Newton Mercer, born Cecil County, Maryland, 1792; 

 died 1878. Received medical training at the University of Penn- 

 sylvania and served as assistant surgeon in War of 1812. Trans- 

 ferred to New Orleans in 1816, and later to Natchez, where he de- 

 veloped a lucrative practice. Married Anna Frances Farrar, and 

 at her father's death, began management of his large cotton plan- 

 tation. In 1843, on the death of his wife, returned to New Orleans 

 and built a mansion on Canal Street (today the home of the Bos- 

 ton Club). President of the Bank of Louisiana at the outbreak 

 of the Civil War. Although opposed to secession, joined his fellow 

 citizens, and suffered confiscation of his property after an alter- 

 cation with General Benjamin F. Butler. Jewell, Edwin (ed.). 

 Jewell's Crescent City Illustrated (New Orleans, 1873) ; Rightor, 

 Henry (ed.), Standard History of New Orleans, Louisiana, 214-15, 

 459-60, 498 (Chicago, 1900) ; New Orleans States, September 23, 

 1923; letter of W. H. Stephenson to Herbert A. Kellar, June 11, 

 1936. 



