186 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



what after the manner of the old Dutch fan. The hulling 

 machines are equally primitive. A mortar and pestle 

 being the most common. An average crop is about 30 

 bushels of paddy to the acre, weighing 60 lbs. to the 

 bushel; and is worth about 75 cents a bushel, or 21/2 

 cents per pound, clean. 



Four years ago, Mr. K. bought 1,240 arpents, for $2,100, 

 without fence or buildings — an old-field pasture — 340 

 arpents cleared land — 700 tillable — 800 now in wood. It 

 cost him $20,000 and one year's labor with 35 hands, 

 (except making a small crop of corn,) to get ready to 

 make sugar. But he has so renovated the old fields, that 

 he made last crop, from 240 arpents of cane rolled, 325 

 hogsheads of sugar, and the unusual quantity of 85 gal- 

 lons of molasses to the hogshead, (27,625 gallons,) worth 

 18 cents a gallon, and sugar four cents per pound will 

 make $15,210, while the value of the place has increased 

 so, that, compared with late sales in the vicinity, it is 

 worth $100,000. This is certainly much better than let- 

 ting such land lie an idle waste. His annual expenses are 

 about $6,000, as he buys nearly all his corn, as well as 

 meat. He works 24 mules and 6 yoke of oxen, and uses 

 good tools. Notwithstanding he has plenty of timber, he 

 has ordered wire to fence his front, because he thinks it 

 will be the cheapest. Cypress pickets, or rails, for post 

 and rail fence, with which nearly all fences are built, are 

 worth from $5 to $7 a hundred, and posts $10, and will 

 not last over ten years. So that it is easy to see that 

 wire is the cheapest. I am glad to perceive that Messrs. 

 Aliens are prepared to furnish it to order in any quan- 

 tity; as I think that, as soon as its value and cheapness 

 as a fence becomes known, the whole coast will be fenced 

 with it. 



To show what judiciously-applied labor is capable of 

 producing, I will state a few facts relative to the planta- 

 tion of Mr. Wm. Polk, a very enterprising and intelligent 

 young man, from Tenessee, whose place is about 24 miles 

 above New Orleans, on the "west coast." He bought 



