SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 151 



tended by many that these old cotton plantations, after 

 some of the first crops of cane, will "run out." But I 

 cannot believe that a soil almost bottomless, if properly 

 cultivated, can ever fail. And I will show in some of my 

 subsequent letters, by indisputable facts, that the subsoil 

 plow is all that is needed to renovate land that has "run 

 out," anywhere upon this vast and inexhaustible bed of 

 alluvion. 



Immediately after leaving General Carter's we entered 

 "the plains," a very level tract of land some dozen miles 

 across, of a whitish clay, with frequent openings, called 

 "prairie," however unlike they look to those I live upon, 

 and judging from the appearance of the few scattered 

 settlements along the road, the land affords a poor return 

 for the cultivation bestowed upon it. Though I have no 

 doubt that all this great uncultivated tract, lying along 

 this road, much of it still in heavy forest, mostly beech, 

 with magnolia, oak, poplar, &c., will some day be found 

 to be most valuable land, when cleared and well under- 

 drained; for water is the great detriment to cultivation 

 on much of the soil of this region. I passed the night 

 with Dr. Scott,^ who lives on the river bank, six miles 

 above Baton Rouge. He is a gentleman of education and 

 intelligence, but who has got such an inveterate habit of 

 looking on the "black side" of everything, that he sees 

 nothing but darkness in the path ahead. He says that it 

 is idle for hill planters to think of going into the sugar 

 business ; for most of the sugar planters of the state are 



' Dr. Williana B. Scott, a native of Bedford County, Pennsylvania. 

 Became a prominent Baton Rouge physician. Served for many 

 years in the Louisiana state legislature, and was a member of the 

 Constitutional Convention of 1844-1845. Southern University (the 

 Louisiana state university for negroes) is now situated on the 

 site of Dr. Scott's plantation, and a town called Scotlandville or 

 Scotland, has developed at the back of this plantation about a mile 

 from the Mississippi River. "Brief Biographical Sketches of 

 Members of the Convention," in New Orleans Daily Picayune, 

 September 8, 1844; Pike, Coast-Directory; Louisiana Senate 

 Journals, 1836-1842; Journal of the Louisiana Constitutional Con- 

 vention, 1844-1845. 



