4 LETTER FROM NEW ORLEANS. 



Loiaisiana has been projected far into the Gulf; and the process of 

 making new land at the expense of salt water is still in progress. 

 Though the tide rises eighteen inches at New Orleans, and is felt 

 at Donaldsonville, seventy miles further up, the force of the current 

 keeps the river here wholly fresh at this season, though it is some- 

 what brackish at times when less water is passing out. That the 

 soil is rich, black, and of unfathomable depth, need not be added. 

 Ditching or deep plowing is constantly unearthing immense cypresses 

 which have been imbedded here for thousands of years — some of 

 them still sound and serviceable. 



Mr. Effingham Lawrence, the owner of Magnolia plantation, is a 

 scion of a well-known Long Island family, the son of a good farmer, 

 and. himself invented a plow when but ten years old. Cultivation 

 is not only his pursuit but his passion. He came hither while still 

 yoimg, and has planted since his minority. The machinery in his 

 Sugar-House, where he refines more sugar than he makes, has cost 

 $300,000, and little of it has been superseded by later and more 

 perfect devices. Of his 3,000 acres, he cultivates 1,000, which is 

 nearly all that stands well out of water. Some of the most efficient 

 of his former slaves have left him to plant rice on small places below 

 him, where they make |1,000 to $2,000 each per annum, being 

 superior workers. Most of his ex-slaves chose to remain with him, 

 and some of them are here earning $40 per month. His arable acres are 

 divided into tracts or fields of five to ten acres each by deep ditches 

 on the north and south, crossed by firm high roads on the east and 

 west. These acres have been sixty or seventy years cultivated, 

 mainly in Cane, and have received little or no fertilization, unless 

 an annual burning the waste stalks or " trash " of the Cane to get 

 rid of it may be called such. Negroes and mules have till recently 

 furnished all but the brain-power employed. 



Mr. Lawrence was accustomed to use teams of eight mules to each 

 plow, and was then able to pulverize but eight to ten inches in 

 depth. Had he not been an experienced and capable plowman, con- 

 stantly in the field and often between the plow-handles, he could not 

 have got below six inches, even by the aid of all the persuasives 

 known to plantation management. Of course his soil, anniially 

 drawn upon by such exhausting crops as Cane and Corn, grew gradu- 

 ally less productive ; and he was among the earliest to realize the ne- 

 cessity of bringing Steam to the aid of Agriculture, He had means 

 and credit ; he thoroughly understood his business and its needs ; he 



