SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 207 



mile or more, and which the hands were "thinning to a 

 stand." 



Cotton. — I have seen many hundred acres of cotton up, 

 but as the thermometer this morning, after sunrise, was 

 at 34° F., I presume that it is thinned to death. 



This part of Alabama is fast coming to the time when 

 all flour eaten here will be made on the many streams 

 that drain the soil, on which will grow the wheat. Low 

 prices for cotton may yet prove as great a blessing to the 

 state as high prices have been a curse. SOLON. 



Tuskegee, Ala., March 27, 1849. 



Facts in Natural History. 



[New Yoi'k American Agricidtiirist, 8:194; June, 1849] 



[April 8, 1849] 



When I was in New Orleans last winter, I met with 

 a most worthy old gentleman, Judge Strawbridge.^ I 

 give his name, because there are a good many "old boys" 

 about Philadelphia, that will like to hear of him ; and he 

 invited me to go with him over to his place, across Lake 

 Ponchartrain. 



Well, the Judge is very intelligent, and teHs a great 

 many very interesting stories. Here is one of them : — 

 "That tree you are looking at," said he, as I was looking 

 at a famous old oak that he did not cut down when he 

 built a house close by, "reminds me of a little anecdote. 

 The first summer that I spent here, at Covington, I lived 

 in a house a mile below. I was sitting one evening on the 

 back gallery, watching the caterpillars crawling along the 



' George Strawbridge, a native of Maryland, went to Louisiana 

 in the late 1820's, and became an eminent lawyer, particularly 

 versed in mercantile or commercial law. Associate justice, Louisi- 

 ana State Supreme Court, 1837-1839; judge of the Fourth District 

 Court (New Orleans), until his death in the 1850's. His New 

 Orleans home in 1849 was at 180 Girod Street. Cohen's New 

 Orleans and Lafayette Directory, 1849, pp. 69, 169, 197; Fortier, 

 Louisiana, 2:519; Sketches of Life and Character in Louisiana, 

 44 (New Orleans, 1847). 



