BLACK OAK AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. II 



forced the owners to abandon the cultivation of 

 these lands, but recently so valuable. To make this 

 better understood, let the fact be stated that Milford 

 plantation, containing one hundred acres of high 

 land and four or five hundred of swamp, which had 

 been sold for six thousand guineas, was abandoned 

 at the time we are speaking of as almost worthless. 



The people, however, inspired by the success of 

 their struggles and sufferings for liberty, did not 

 despond nor slacken their exertions ; they manu- 

 factured cloth for their families and slaves ; they 

 raised every thing needful for consumption. The 

 necessities of the war, and the state of things exist- 

 ing for some time after it, greatly increased the 

 number of domestic fabrications of the wool, until 

 about the year 1790, when the practice of using 

 homespun for plantation purposes became very com- 

 mon throughout the parishes and districts. The 

 yarn was spun at home and sent to the nearest 

 weaver. Among the manufacturing establishments, 

 the one near Murray's Ferry, in Williamsburg, 

 owned by Irish settlers, supplied the adjacent 

 country. The cotton for the spinning process was 

 prepared in general by the field laborers, who, in 

 addition to their ordinary work, picked the seed 

 from the wool at the rate of four pounds of clean 

 cotton per week. 



In the year 1794 the Santee Canal was com- 

 menced. This gave employment to nearly all the 



