148 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



has resided upon this place, Springfield, one mile south 

 of the state line on the road from Woodville to Jackson, 

 La., upwards of forty-five years, and has made a cotton 

 crop every year, though some of the earliest ones v^^ere 

 ginned by his own and one negro's fingers, while sitting 

 over a log-cabin fire of a winter evening. But, in 1809, 

 he sold a crop of considerable size at 321/2 cents a pound ! 

 This "gave me a lift," remarked the General, "by which 

 I was enabled to begin to go ahead." He is now a hale 

 old man of 77, was a great friend of General Jackson, but 

 a small one to some of those that have since pretended to 

 follow the steps of that "illustrious predecessor." His 

 reminiscences of the early settlement of this country are 

 highly interesting, but space will not permit me to insert 

 them here. Speaking of coco grass, he says he has seen 

 it grow up through a pile of cotton seed, several feet 

 thick, that was purposely put upon a patch of it to 

 smother it. He says that "old field, black seed grass," 

 will crowd out Bermuda grass in two or three years. The 

 land here, though still hilly, is far less so than that I have 

 passed over, and much better watered with springs and 

 creeks. 



General M. says he has kept sheep many years, and 

 that they do well. The wool, originally fine, continues 

 the same, only shorter. He has some very good horses of 

 his own raising; having in his younger days been con- 

 siderably engaged in rearing — he loves a good horse. He 

 cultivates at the home plantation, (having two others,) 

 about 1,000 acres, with sixty hands, and averages 300 

 bales of cotton — 5 bales to the hand, which averages per- 

 haps $20 the bale. This is certainly not a very profitable 

 income upon the value of land, stock, machinery, slaves, 

 &c., particularly, as upon a large, old plantation like this, 

 not more than one half of the negroes are ever counted 

 as field hands, and estimating the plantation at the very 

 low figure of $50,000 and one half of the proceeds of the 

 crop is at once taken up for interest at 6 per cent. Then 

 there is the wages of one or more overseers; a large bill 



