358 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



least possible trouble, he keeps sweet potatoes through 

 the winter and well into summer. 



Mr. Eve's plan of manuring is different from Mr. D.'s, 

 as he spreads all broadcast and plows it in ; and he prefers 

 to give the lots manured a thorough dressing at once, 

 instead of scattering it over a wide surface. All of these 

 bottom lands would be improved, most undoubtedly, by 

 underdraining. But that never can be done while the 

 owners cultivate so much land. And it is one of the hard- 

 est undertakings to convince planters that they would be 

 richer if they did not own half so much. This "swamp 

 land," as it is termed, was once considered inexhaustably 

 fertile, and yet, it is now proved by those gentlemen, as 

 well as others, that no part of their labor pays a more 

 certain profit than manuring. 



Upon the subject of using oak leaves for manure, Mr. 

 N. B. Moore, who has had a good deal of experience, says 

 that he considers them about the poorest vegetable sub- 

 stance he has ever tried. He prefers broom straw, or 

 even fine straw, and certainly any kind of weeds, crab 

 grass, corn stalks, or straw of any kind of grain. 



All of these bottom lands are liable to overflow, except- 

 ing when the water is kept back by dams, or levees, as is 

 the case upon a very great portion of all the river lands 

 of the southern states. They also have the reputation of 

 being unhealthy, and of affording as fine a grovi^h of 

 musquitoes as the greatest lover of that kind of music 

 could desire. Of the latter, I have no doubt. As to 

 health, I believe that draining and liming, and improving 

 cultivation will cure that. 



Mr. Moore cultivates his farm principally for hay, to 

 sell in town, but he has learned that no land, not even the 

 Savannah-River Bottom, can be stripped of a crop every 

 year, and yet continue to give, and so he keeps carts con- 

 stantly gathering up manure in the city, which he puts 

 on the land at the rate of one horse cart load every 20 

 feet, upon every bed, which are all laid off 20 feet wide. 

 The manure is first picked up about town, with carts and 



