478 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



proved implements. A change for the better is already 

 going on, and when the time comes that men cannot run 

 off to the West to get new and cheap land, in some bilious 

 swamp, then will these granite hills be appreciated at 

 their real value, and these old broom-straw fields and 

 pine barrens be restored to usefulness, and covered with 

 a healthy, happy, wealthy population, 



March 18th was a day worthy of the latitude of Que- 

 bec, but the cold did not stop the corn planting. The 

 average yield of corn is estimated at ten bushels to the 

 acre. The average yield of cotton, about 400 pounds, in 

 the seed. It grows very small, say about two feet high, 

 and is planted, on most of the lands, two and a half by 

 three feet. 



Col. Billups, one of the gentlemanly planters of Athens, 

 whose hospitality I partook of, contends that side-hill 

 ditches will not answer the purpose here, because the 

 rain falls in such torrents, it fills up or sweeps them all 

 away. That was the case upon his plantation five years 

 ago. I contend, however, that if made as they should be 

 at first, they will neither wash away nor fill up. 



Light Crops of Oats. — I had supposed this a favorable 

 soil for oats. But I have the authority of Dr. Hull,^ an 

 intelligent planter, for saying that many of the fields 

 sown do not average 500 lbs. straw and grain, all told. 

 The probable reason is, the ground is so poor for want 

 of manure, so shallow plowed for want of better plows, 

 that a few days of sun exhausts all the moisture, and 

 leaves the tender plants to struggle for life in a bed of 

 dust, lying upon a foundation nearly as hard as brick. 



Cultivation of Grass. — This is almost entirely neg- 

 lected. I know the difficulty of making a hay crop in 

 this climate, yet I cannot help thinking it may be profit- 

 ably done upon many spots unfit for any other crop. 



' Dr. Henry Hull, son of the Reverend Hope Hull, who settled in 

 Athens, Georgia, in 1803, and died there October 1, 1818. Dr. 

 Henry Hull was a successful practitioner of medicine and subse- 

 quently professor of mathematics in the state university. White, 

 Historical Collections of Georgia, 393-94. 



