SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 185 



Yesterday, when I left Mr. Wilkinson's, he was still 

 cutting cane, growing green as ever; though this is un- 

 usual. 



January l&th, 1849. 



Mr. Robinson's Tour. — No. 9. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 8:283-84; Sep., 1849] 



[January 24, 1849] 



Louisiana. — There are a good many small rice farms 

 along this coast of the river, on which the seed is usually 

 sown broadcast, in March or April, and flooded in June 

 or July, three or four inches deep, if the state of the river 

 admits; and if it does not, it grows dry, as there is not 

 energy enough in the Creole population, who plant rice, 

 ever to fix any kind of machinery to elevate water to flood 

 the rice fields.^ Mr. Andrew Knox,- a very intelligent gen- 

 tleman, with whom I spent a night, is of opinion that all 

 of the back lands might be very profitably cultivated in 

 rice, by using windmills to drain the land, and the same 

 cheap power to flood the fields, when needed. Some plant 

 in drills, and cultivate with plow and hoe. This produces 

 the best crop, but requires labor, which is very objection- 

 able among "white folks." The rice sown broadcast has 

 to be wed with sharp hoes or knives. The crop is cut and 

 stacked like wheat, in September, and is threshed, or 

 trodden out, now and then. It is sometimes winnowed 

 with a fanning mill, but oftener with a blanket, some- 



' It was customary for most of the sugar planters on the lower 

 Mississippi to produce some rice and the majority of sugar planters 

 in the state also grew corn for consumption on their plantations. 



^ Andrew Knox, owner and operator of New Hope sugar planta- 

 tion in Plaquemines Parish, nineteen miles below New Orleans, 

 on the west side of the Mississippi River. Used the most im- 

 proved equipment. New Hope was later owned by W. and H. 

 Stackhouse, one of the largest sugar producing firms in the state. 

 "Directory of the Planters of Louisiana and Mississippi," in 

 Cohen's Ne^v Orleans Directory, 1855, p. 338; Champomier, State- 

 ment of the Sugar Crop Made in Louisiana, 1857-1858, 1859-1860, 

 1861-1862. 



