SOLON ROBINSON, 1850 351 



clean out the grass, and then let on the water, and keep 

 it on until the grain is ripe, which is the last of August. 

 It is cut with sickles, bound in small sheaves, and, of 

 course, carried off upon the negroes' heads, either to hard 

 land, where it is carted, or to flat boats along the shore, 

 or in some of the large canals through the fields. From 

 the boats, it is carted or carried to one great stack yard, 

 where it is put up in very handsome round stacks, or long 

 ricks, upon beds graded so as to carry off all rain water. 

 As soon as possible after the crop is secured, the thresh- 

 ing commence.5, and requires a great number of hands to 

 carry the sheaves to the machine, and take away the 

 straw and chaff, and put up about 500 bushels of cleaned 

 grain a day in the store house. 



As soon as there is a stock on hand, the process of hull- 

 ing commences. I will endeavor to describe this process 

 particularly. 



The mill is driven by tide water, and will hull about 500 

 bushels a tide, which rises here six feet ; Col. C, however, 

 intends to get a steam engine, so as to be able to run con- 

 stantly. The rough rice is brought from the store house 

 and emptied into a bin upon the lower floor, from which 

 it is carried by elevators to the third story and passed 

 through a large fanning mill ; and then through a three- 

 part screen, to separate the sand that is too heavy to be 

 blown out, and divide the small rice from the large grain 

 as much as possible, as it is important to have all of 

 nearly the same size passing between the stones at the 

 same time. From this screen, the rice falls to a pair of 

 six-foot mill stones, which run just close enough together 

 to rub off the hulls of the most of it. From here it is again 

 elevated, and passed through another fan that blows off 

 the hulls and spouts them out doors. Then it passes 

 through another screen that separates the grains that 

 passed through the stones whole without being hulled, 

 and the hulled grains, together with perhaps ten per 

 cent, that will not hull, falls down to the mortars on the 

 lower floor. These are twelve in number, holding five 



