^rm^rs Jll0ittljlg tesitxrr. 



J.-U^JU>liK3^ 



CONl>tCTi:D BY ISAAC HILL. 



^ Those who LaHuH in the E\RtH are the CII0»EN 1*B0FLE of CfoD, whose li.U; \sl^ UK has made his PECULrAR DEPOSIT E FOn SUBSTANTIAL AND GENUINE 7IRTUE." — JeffcTSOU. 



VOLUME Vll. 



CONCORD, N. H., MAY 31, 1845. 



NUMBER 5. 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



P11B1.1SHK1) F.y 



ISAAC HILL, & SONS, 



ISSUED ON THE LAST DAY OF EVKRY MO.M'ir, 

 At Athenian Buildiugv 



n^-Gt!":''*'- AntNTS B. CnoK, Kci-nc, N il. ; Thomas 



R. Hampton, Wabliington City, D. C; Joiis Marsh, Wash- 

 tngton St. [iostun, Mass.; Charles WAHitt^, Uiinliy Ituiv, 

 VA'orceclcr. Mass. 



TERMS To single subscribers, Fiflij Cents. Ten i>cr 



cent, will be alhiweil to the person who shall selnl more than 

 one subscriber. Tivelve copies will he sciil for the advance 

 pavnielit of Fivt Dollars ; twcntylive copies for 7Vii Dollars: 

 si.x'ly copies for 7Vcii(y Dollars. The payment in every case to 

 be made in advance. 



QC^.Moneij and snliscriptions^ bija regulation of the Post JMa.^trr 

 Qeneraly maij in all cases be remitted by the Post Master, free oj 

 postage. 



9Cf-.\ll gentlemen who have heretofore acted as Agents aie 

 reqncsted to continue their .'Vgency. Old subscribers who 

 come under the new terms, will please notify us of the names 

 already on our books. 



COIVCORD, N. H., MAY 31, 1845-, 



The Editor again at home ! 



A'eui 0)'/f07is— )7s great business hut begun. — 

 " Grand sign" of JIgricullure at the Soutbivest. 

 Great capital J/oin small means. Fertilitij of 

 land on the Father of Waters : hnw the migJiti/ 

 river was funned. Jlriificial enbankments. En- 

 eroachinoits upon the banlis. Snags. Great in- 

 crease of commerce. Chart of the river : itsblulfs. 

 Memjihis, a naval depot in Tennessee. Cotton 

 plantations and appendages. The cotton gin of 

 If'hilney — its grand con,'!cquences. Cotton the 

 most important article of commerce, sought for at 

 home and abroad. Levee of Orleans — its Muni- 

 cipalities erleniling along the Crescent : the levie 

 alive with merchandize and drai/men, bales of cot- 

 Ion and hogsheads of sugar. The cotton produc- 

 tion of great importance to the whole Union. — 

 Britain clucked hij the J] merican growers of cotton. 

 Consequences of attempting to forestal tlie cotton 

 market. Too much cotton will not be produced : 

 its increase to be desired hi/ the u-hote people oftlie 

 United Stales. Sugar contrasted with cotton cul- 

 tivation. Partialili/ of the tariff to tlie groicer nf 

 sugar : operation of the tariff for the benefit of a 

 single sugar planter : bounties on other agricul- 

 tural productions as e.rpedicnt as high protection 

 to sugar. Bcauti/ of the sugar plantations. Gen. 

 Wade Hampton — his early commencement in Lou- 

 isiana -his splendid properlij on tlie .Mississippi : 

 its great cash productii,nfor a single year. 

 Tlieex|)Oi-t!!<if the oily of New Orleans tire laifl 

 down lliu present year at sixiy-tive millions o! 

 (lollais, nearly equal to tlie e.\|iorts of every oili- 

 er port of ilie Union. It is witliiii the rerollee- 

 tion of nieii wlio have scarcely pa.ssed the mid- 

 dle aoe of lili; that this |ilace was once the |io.s- 

 session ol' n foreign inoiiarrhy. The grouthol' 

 its fireat htisiiiess and ot' that iniineiidu e.\|iort 

 which eiiahles the United States to pay for the 

 {{reat portion of Ibrei^n articles cont<inned hy our 

 population has heeii from the Sfiread of western 

 emigration th.-it has mainly taken place since the 

 comiiienceinent of the present century. As yet 

 the vast amount of produce shipped at New Or- 

 leaijs is lint the mere skimming of the surface 

 of what the "real valley of the Mississippi is 

 destined to liecome: the settlement of the coun- 

 try is now hnt hcittin. 



It was to OS ill our late jonrney a grand si^'ii 

 to find the attention of all classes and ranks of peo- 

 ple in the south-west leyion ol' ihe United States 

 turned to the cultivation of the earth. The grow- 



iug of cotton anil sugar, two great articles of ex- 

 port from New Orleans, was the suliject which 

 most engaged atteiilioii. Lawyers and physicians 

 in IVlississippi, in Alahania and Louisiana, had 

 united to their professions that of the ownership 

 of plantalions. Some of them had multiplied 

 and increased their capital in the course of a few 

 years with good iiianagement from hundreds to 

 thousands and lens of thousands of dollar.^, milk- 

 ing great wealth with liitle or no means to hegin 

 with. 



Along the margins of the rivers and around 

 the liayous the alluvion which has lieen lironght 

 down hy the overHow of the great father of 

 American waters and his triliiitaries is fertile be- 

 yond all example in the old thirteen States: it 

 would seem as if this land never conid wear 

 out. The plantations on the shores of the Miss- 

 issippi for a thousand miles above New Orleans 

 present a most maguifieent prospect. Generally 

 cnliivation extends at present at no very great 

 distance from Ihe river. The ground falls away 

 and Ihe land in the rear soon becomes a swamp. 

 The iMississippi has been formed as we might 

 suppose a current of water forced over a lomr 

 level charged with soil and oilier materials fall- 

 ing to the bottom or lodging upon the sides of 

 the current ;is a constant deposite. It may he 

 easily imagined that a stream with such contin- 

 ued loilgeinent \\ould in the course of lime, 

 not only rai^e its bottom above the original 

 level, lint build up a higher bank on either hand, 

 and would convert into swamp from its own 

 drainage the adjacent level left below the new 

 deposite. In this way the Mississippi has been 

 formed for many hundred miles wilh a deep bot- 

 tom probably atill higher tliaii the first level — ils 

 banks higher than any part of the surrounding 

 country liilling otT lo the great level which has 

 become wet at all times from the oozing ihrotigh 

 of the waters, the lower parts becoming perma- 

 nent lakes, as I'oiitcliartrain and Borgnc, and all 

 of it subject to inundation whenever the season 

 of running waters from the streams above arrive.". 



It has been the practice of the planters along 

 the banks of the iMississippi to raise an embank- 

 ment upon the higher part next to the river for 

 Ihe purpose of shiilling out the highest overflow 

 of waters. These eniliankmeiits are seen several 

 hnudred miles above New Orleans along tlie*x- 

 tended cotton and sugar plantations. The soil 

 here is much more adhesive than sand, so that 

 the water does not easily find its way ihrongli or 

 oflen break doivii the embankment. When this 

 happens at any weak point much of the land 

 especially in the re;ir of ihu plantations is silb- 

 inerged and ihe crops are ruined. 



For more than one third of the whole distance 

 oil the Mississippi the bank of the river oil one 

 side or the other is coniiunally fidling away: 

 large trees present no obstacle to this continued 

 encroachment, and these wilh the stumps and 

 old logs long covered together with masses of 

 wood and other lumber on the river ;it every rise 

 of water float upon the snrliice and continue their 

 course until they etiect a lodgement in the eddies 

 or upon shoals. Trees wilh heavy roots sinking 

 to the bottom of the liver with the top or lighter 

 part floating downward become snags, which at 

 lower stages of the water become objects of fear 

 and avoidance to the numerous steamboats daily 

 passing over or near llieiii. 



Such is the nature and character of the migh- 

 ty stream over which many millions of properly 

 must be annually floated to market. Forty years 

 ago a few arks and boats of rude construction 

 which made only one voyage in a season, and if 

 taken back at all, were several months in the pass- 

 age upwards, embraced the whole commerce of 

 the IMississippi and its branches. Now hnuilreds 

 of steamboats, some of them of the dimensions 

 of larger ships, (lass up and down, freighted with 

 rich and heavy products. One of these, under 



the mighty power of steam, htis made its way in 

 five days and a half against the current liom New 

 Orleans to Cincinnati, the distance of more than 

 eighteen hundred miles. 



A chart of the Mississippi below the month of 

 •the Ohio with till its windings, the successive 

 towns and bluti's wilh the location and names of 

 the owners of plantations, has been published at 

 Cincinnati. Rimning down the rapid stream at 

 the rate of fifteen to twenty miles an hour — a 

 high pressure somewhat appalling in a black and 

 stormy night when no star or other sign in heav- 

 en save the glaring lightning is to be seen — it 

 was gratifying to learn from the map Ihe different 

 locations. In the upper region of the river there 

 are several blnfls into the sides of which the riv- 

 er has perforateil. These blnfls are generally 

 of the most original or eldest soil of that new 

 part of the United States yet much younger than 

 the granite hills of New Kngland: they arc of 

 that redisli ctist more peculiar to the south than 

 the north. On one of the higher or upper blntrs 

 is perched tiie flourishing city of Memphis in 

 the State of Tennessee which corresponds in 

 latitude with the State of North Carolina. This 

 city is rapidly growing into importance from the 

 fiist settlement of the ti'itile cotton country 

 around it : it rises about seven tinndred feet above 

 the level of the river passing hy it. More than 

 a thousand miles inlerior from the ocean, it has 

 already been designated by a resolution of Con- 

 gress as a national naval depot. 



The cotton and sugar [ilantations along the ex- 

 tended banks of the river are an interesting ob- 

 ject to the traveller whose curiosity leads him to 

 mark the sources of production in this great 

 country, which is yet in ils infancy in regard to 

 the fruits to be reaped from the enterprise of a 

 civilized and scientific and persevering people. 

 The first week in the month of March, the many 

 acres in cultivation exhibited the Ibrwanhiess of 

 ihe latter part of May and early June in New 

 England. The season of planting, which con- 

 linues in that country several weeks if not montlis, 

 had not yet passed. In the river plantations a 

 cottage built house, sometimes new and not yet 

 painted, but generally w liite with green blinds, 

 of a single story, designated the residence of the. 

 owner: the older and more aft^Iuent had their 

 neat yarilsaud gardens surrounding, with stables, 

 &c. at no great distance. Still further off were 

 the smaller habitations of the negroes occupy- 

 ing their places of residence in fiimiliesi. F.ach 

 cotton plantation of any considerable e.xtent has 

 its gin and press for the cleansing and jiacking 

 of cotton : tlie cotton gin is an article of Yiiiikee 

 inveniion more important in its eft'ect on the 

 commerce of this country for the last quarter of 

 a ceiilury than is generally conceived — an inven- 

 tion which has been the means of placing the 

 Uniied States beyond rivalry in that greatest of 

 all articles for exportation, and which is fiist ad- 

 vancing this nation towards superiority to the 

 greatest commercial nation on earth. The cotton 

 gin is carried in most instances by horse or mule 

 power, requiring the strength of four of iheso 

 animals passing in a round like a common old 

 fiishioned cider or bark mill. The cotton mixed 

 in the dirt and seeds is placed in a large hop|)er, 

 and comes out cleansed to that state in which it 

 is usually found in the bale. It is compressed in 

 hags in power presses upon the plantations, from 

 whence it is taken to the most convenient point 

 upon some navigable stream to be transported to 

 the port from which it is finally slii|)ped. At 

 New Orleans there are two great cotton [iresses 

 which have been erected at the cost of more than 

 half a million of dollars each : these presses are 

 operated by steam power. They are constantly 

 engaged in the work of compressing cotton b.iles 

 for exportation, in which operation, incredible 

 as it may seem, the most compact hales from the 

 plantations are reduced one half. The ex|ieiis« 



