SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 183 



A. Wilkinson makes refined, (hogshead,) sugar by How- 

 ard's vacuum pan; and Mr. Osgood,^ a few miles below, 

 makes the same kind by vacuum pans from the Novelty 

 Works. Mr. Osgood has greatly increased the product of 

 his land by deep plowing, and the use of subsoil plows, 

 abundant ditching, and manuring, at the rate of 100 cart 

 loads to the arpent, with old rotten bagasse, stable ma- 

 nure, and pea vines. Having no wood, except drift, he 

 saves bagasse for fuel, or else would make manure of it, 

 as he has proved its value to be great when fully rotted. 

 His front fence is two and a half miles long, nearly all 

 formed with a hedge of Yucca gloriosa, called here, 

 "Spanish bayonet," "Pete," and several other local names. 

 Although rather ragged in appearance, and interrupted 

 by sundry negro paths, it is a good fence. Mr. 0. assures 

 me that no animal, not even a hog, will attempt to go 

 through one of these paths. The points of the leaves are 

 so hard and sharp, that everything is afraid to come near 

 it. It needs topping every year, and all the tops that fall 

 between the rows are allowed to remain and grow, and 

 those that fall outside must all be removed, or they will 

 grow and increase the width of the hedge row two much. 

 The annual trimming and growth of new plants every 

 year, is the whole secret of keeping up these fences. When 

 they are neglected, they soon become unsightly and ineffi- 

 cient. The first setting of the hedge is very easy, as it is 

 done by cuttings slightly planted in two rows, about two 

 feet apart, and ten or twelve inches from one to the other, 

 set opposite to the spaces of the opposite row. After get- 

 ting large enough to trim, say in three or four years, the 

 spaces all fill up with new plants. I think it the best 

 hedge plant for this climate and soil, that I know of. 

 Mr. 0., however, is about to try the bois d'arc, (Osage 



' Isaac Osgood, whose sugar estate was forty-five miles below 

 New Orleans on the right side of the Mississippi River, had one of 

 the most highly cultivated places in that district. In 1844 he pro- 

 duced 658 hogsheads of sugar. Ibid., 2:334 (November, 1846), 

 3:118, 258 (February, March, 1847). 



