350 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



is taken up in gardens, yards, lots, and roads, of which 

 last he can show a pattern worthy of imitation. 



Can you believe me when I tell you that every acre of 

 these crops is put in with hoes — that a plow is never used 

 upon the plantation, except to scratch the ground a little 

 between the corn rows? The rice land, being reclaimed 

 swamp, and kept wet during the growth of the crop, is 

 perhaps too soft to admit of using horses or cattle for 

 draft. But why, in this age of improved agricultural im- 

 plements, the sandy-loam upland should continue to be 

 dug up with hoes, just as it was a century ago, passeth 

 my understanding. But this is not the worst waste of 

 labor. I have seen a hundred negroes in a lot, threshing 

 rice with flails, winnowing it in the wind, and carrying 

 off the straw half a mile in bundles upon their heads. Col. 

 Carson has so far advanced in improvement as to thresh 

 his crop by steam; but in some other labor-saving prac- 

 tices he is still keeping company with men of past ages. 



To give readers some idea of rice cultivation, I will de- 

 scribe the process from the beginning. 



In December and January, if the stubble is dry enough 

 it is burnt off, and if not, it is dug up and piled, or turned 

 under by enormous hoes, which the negroes raise high 

 over head, and let fall with the least possible exertion of 

 strength, and at so slow a rate the motion would give a 

 quick-working Yankee convulsions. But the negro has 

 his task, that is, one third of an acre, (which the said 

 Yankee would do with a plow in two hours,) and so it is 

 useless to expect Cuffee to move any faster than to ac- 

 complish it before dark. In March, the ground is all hoed 

 over again, and clods broken up and drills opened with 

 suitable hoes, 15 inches apart, and the seed drilled in by 

 hand, and covered with a wooden baton. The water is 

 then let on for a few days until the seed is sprouted, and 

 then it is drawn off. When the plant attains the fourth 

 leaf, go through with the hoes, and if the weather is 

 favorable, hoe again before letting on the water, or let it 

 on at once for ten to twenty days, and then draw off and 



