454 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



and the premium crops of Kentucky, 190 bushels to the 

 acre! Sweet potatoes did not average probably over 50 

 bushels to the acre, some planters barely making seed. 

 This was owing to the drouth that almost desolated many 

 places. Solon Robinson. 



Charleston, December 25th, 1850. 



Georgia Burr Millstones. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 10:86-87; Mar., 1851] 



[January 6, 1851] 



Although this kind of stone has been known and used 

 for a hundred years, it is like the discovery of the action 

 of the water ram, or the well-known fertilising qualities 

 of guano, which, though known for an equal length of 

 time, required the spirit that actuates the present age to 

 bring it into general use. I had often heard of it, and 

 sometimes heard it spoken of approvingly, and at other 

 times with doubt, and often as of little value, and for the 

 reason it was but little known or used. Stones made of 

 French burr blocks were brought into the state in the 

 almost immediate vicinity of the quarry, and millers 

 contended, and still contend, that no other material exists 

 that is suitable for millstones, except that of France. 



While at Savannah the other day, I sought the oppor- 

 tunity of examining this Georgia product, at the store of 

 Messrs. Hoyt, agents of an association recently formed, 

 called the "Lafayette Burr-Millstone Manufacturing 

 Company," who now have some 20 or 30 hands employed, 

 and will soon increase the number to meet the demand. 

 The quarry is 100 miles from Savannah, and six miles 

 from the Macon Railroad, upon the plantation of P. B. 

 Connelly, extending over a tract of about 1,700 acres, 

 near the line of Jefferson and Burke counties. Previous 

 to the time the present proprietors commenced, in 1849, 

 about a thousand pair of millstones had been made, and 

 although many of them in a rough manner, and the blocks 

 not so carefully selected as at present, yet, not one has 



