SOLON ROBINSON, 1851 467 



bie^ is one of the oldest planters on the Alabama side 

 below Columbus, having settled there in 1835 ; his crops 

 may be taken as a pretty fair specimen of the capability 

 of productiveness under ordinary cultivation. He v^^orks, 

 now, 40 hands all told ; say 30 full ones, and plants 300 

 acres of cotton, and 250 of corn, besides considerable 

 quantity of oats, some wheat, potatoes, turnips, rice &c., 

 and makes all his own meat, and a little to spare, and 

 sells corn. His cotton has averaged, per year, 1,000 

 pounds in the seed, to the acre, and five bales to the hand, 

 and six cents a pound for price. He plants corn the mid- 

 dle of March, in the bottom of water furrows, between 

 four-foot beds ; first running a subsoil plow. Plants cot- 

 ton middle of April, four to six feet between rows. Never 

 burns cotton and corn stalks, nor waste manure, although 

 the land he cultivates is the very finest kind of river bot- 

 tom. Says he keeps too many cattle, and is convinced 

 that he might buy more pork with the corn consumed 

 than it makes. 



Columbus. — What traveller has ever visited this thriv- 

 ing, go-ahead town v/ithout feeling proud of the enter- 

 prise of his countrymen? I could not say all I might of 

 this place, in a whole number of this paper. Many 

 wealthy citizens of Columbus have dwellings out upon 

 the hills near town, where they enjoy the fresh air, amid 

 beautiful grounds, shade trees, shrubbery, and pleasant 

 gardens. Among these, are Col. Chamber's,^ Dr. Wild- 



* James Abercrombie, born in what was formerly Hancock County, 

 Alabama; moved to Russell County in 1830. An officer of the 

 Mobile and Girard Railroad in 1850. An extensive planter, owning, 

 with his sons-in-law, eight hundred slaves. Adjutant-general, War 

 of 1812. Died in Russell County, Alabama, 1867. Memorial Rec- 

 ord of Alabama, 2:385-86 (Brant & Fuller, Madison, Wis., 1893). 



' Colonel James M. Chambers, coeditor with Charles A. Peabody 

 and others of The Soil of the South, an agricultural periodical. 

 American Agriculturist, 10:133 (April, 1851). Colonel William H. 

 Chambers, the publisher, in January, 1850, established the South- 

 ern Sentinel, a Columbus newspaper. Southern Cultivator, 9:56 

 (April, 1851); Martin, Cohimhus, Georgia, 44; The Plow, 1:61 

 (February, 1852). 



