366 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



the mill by hand, or rather head, where a little head work 

 of another kind would take it up out of the boat by ele- 

 vators. 



The straw is consumed almost as fast as threshed. 

 And here the saving of labor in getting wood, as well as 

 the saving of labor stacking the straw and hauling ma- 

 nure, must be taken into account, as an offset to the loss 

 of manure in burning the straw. 



The rice for seed is always threshed by hand, as ex- 

 perience has taught that the vitality of a considerable 

 portion is injured in the threshing machines. It is jitst 

 so with wheat. [An experienced farmer thinks about 

 one grain in 500 is injured by threshing with machines, 

 and as about 6 per cent, by the last process, there is still 

 a great pecuniary advantage in favor of threshing with 

 a machine. — Eds.] The quantity of seed to the acre is 

 2 to 3 bushels, planted in drills 15 inches apart, opened 

 by trenching plows, and singular as it may sound to 

 some other rice planters. Governor Aikin plows all of 

 the land that will bear a mule or horse, of which he works 

 about forty and twenty oxen. 



Corn is generally planted in hills, upon the upland part 

 of the island, which is sandy, 4 by 5 feet, two stalks in 

 a place, and yields an average of 15 bushels per acre. 

 Corn upon the low, or rice land, does not yield well, 

 though it makes very large stalks. With sweet potatoes, 

 on the contrary, the low land produces nearly double, and 

 of better quality, averaging 200 bushels to the acre, and 

 frequently 400 bushels. The average yields of rice is 45 

 bushels to the acre, and upon one eighty-acre lot the 

 average yield is 64 bushels. The crop upon that lot last 

 year was 5,100 bushels, weighing 234,600, lbs. that is 46 

 lbs. to the bushel. This made 229 barrels of whole rice, 

 two barrels of middling, and two and a half barrels of 

 small rice, which, at 600 lbs. each, (probably about 20 

 lbs. below the average,) would make 140,100 lbs. This, 

 at three cents, will give the very snug sum of $4,203 for 

 the crop of 80 acres. 



