228 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



win estimate their present crop of wheat at 20,000 bush- 

 els, and of corn, last year, 26,000 bushels ; and the neigh- 

 borhood ships from 500,000 to 600,000 bushels of corn 

 a-year. The amount of H. K. Burgwin's sales, last year, 

 was $222 to each field hand; and one of his neighbors, 

 below, Mr. Richard H. Smith,^ to $245 — which is better 

 than has been done in cotton for many years. Mr. Smith's 

 entire crop sold, was ninety-three barrels of corn, and 

 12,000 pounds of seed cotton, to each hand, counting all 

 in the field over fourteen years old. [A "barrel" of corn 

 is five bushels of shelled corn.] Mr. H. K. Burgwin has 

 made some pork in former years, but does not think it 

 good policy to feed sound corn to hogs, at present prices 

 of corn and pork. 



While I was at these plantations, a flood in the river, 

 which rises thirty feet, spread over much of the bottom 

 lands. This they are about to prevent by heavy embank- 

 ments; but it is a question with me whether it will pay 

 costs; for, notwithstanding loss of crops occasionally, 

 these overflows add immense fertility to the land. 



The Messrs. B. use nine of Hussey's reapers, which 

 they infinitely prefer to M'Cormick's \^ and Mr. T. P. B. 

 was engaged in erecting a threshing machine to go by 

 steam, similar to Mr. Boiling's, on James River, which he 

 finds necessary to meet the demands of his increasing 

 crops, under his, (in that region,) new system of farm- 

 ing; notwithstanding the predictions of neighbors, over- 



^ Richard H. Smith, influential planter, born near Scotland Neck, 

 North Carolina, May 10, 1812. Lawyer. State legislator, 1848- 

 1850, 1852-1855. Delegate to Secession Convention, 1861. First 

 president of the Roanoke and Tar River Agricultural Society. Died 

 Mai-ch 3, 1893, at Scotland Neck. Allen, William C., History of 

 Halifax County, 209-12 (Boston, 1918). 



= Hutchinson, William T., Cyrns Hall McCormick . . . , 370-74 

 (New York, 1930), gives an interesting account of a visit of A. D. 

 Hager, McCormick's agent, to the Burgwyn plantations in 1854 for 

 the purpose of attempting to overcome the prejudice of the Burg- 

 wyns. The selection of Hager, a Vermont Yankee, for this diplo- 

 matic mission was not a happy one, and the Burgwyns continued 

 their preference for Hussey's machine. 



