SOLON ROBINSON, 1850 349 



north and south, and that is, a most valuable and exten- 

 sive library; and an owner who is one of the best-read 

 men in the country. The mansion house is located, for 

 the benefit of a healthy site, upon a tract of almost bare 

 sand, in the midst of pine woods ; and, being surrounded 

 with so much wildness, the comforts, intelligence, and 

 hospitality found within, are all the more striking. A 

 spot for a well-cultivated garden, has been made by great 

 labor, that being one of the necessary appendages to 

 every dwelling place of highly-improved minds. 



It is seldom that I have spent a day more pleasantly to 

 myself, and, I hope, profitably to my readers, than I did 

 the one at Silverton, the residence of Governor James 

 Hammond, of South Carolina, 15 miles below Hamburgh, 

 on the Savannah River. Solon Robinson. 



Mr. Robinson's Tour. — No. 15. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 9:93-95; Mar., 1850'] 



[January ?, 1850] 



A South-Carolina Rice Plantation. — On the 12th of 

 January, I left Charleston, upon a small steamboat that 

 goes up Cooper River twice a week, having an invitation 

 to visit Dean Hall, the plantation residence of Col. Wm. 

 A. Carson,^ an extensive rice planter. Col. C. owns 3,300 

 acres of land, only about one third of which is cultivated, 

 and the remainder is in the original forest. After the 

 most approved fashion of the south, Col. C. cultivates 650 

 acres in rice, 90 acres in sweet potatoes, 180 acres in corn, 

 and 26 acres in oats. The remainder of the cleared land 



'Reprinted in Southern Cultivator, Augxista, Georgia, 8:85-86 

 (June, 1850). 



"William Augustus Carson, 1800-1856. Attended Harvard Col- 

 lege. In 1821, with his mother, purchased Dean Hall plantation on 

 Cooper River. Soon introduced engineering principles in the culti- 

 vation of rice which were in advance of his time. Purchased Cote- 

 Bas plantation in 1831. Married Caroline Petigru, daughter of 

 James Lewis Petigru, of Charleston. Letter of Theodore D. Jervey, 

 Charleston, to Herbert A. Kellar, May 11, 1936. Carson, James 

 Petigru, Life, Letters and Speeches of James Lewis Petigru, 206-11 

 (W. H. Lowdermilk & Co., Washington, 1920). 



