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be divided out into smaller places. The} 7 would by this means be- 

 come more manageable, and could be subjected to a more profitable 

 mode of agriculture. The river banks being composed of the brown 

 crumbling loam of the bluff cave to such an extent that in a few 

 une of the homesteads will have to be moved back to save 

 them from a watery gT) 



On Saturday the banks of the Ouachita are every where lined 

 with freedmen engaged in fishing, for during that day all field labor 

 is suspended and the crop has to take care of itself the best it can, 

 for it is more important to have a mess of fish for Sunday dinner 

 than to make corn and cotton grow, which requires considerable 

 exertion and some waste of muscle and nerve. 



Monroe is a place of considerable size; it is well built and pro- 

 mises to he the second largest town in North Louisiana. It has 

 many good and some elegant buildings, and whenever the Vicksburg 

 railroad shall be extended to Shreveport it will undoubtedly enlarge 

 its proportions and establish branch connections with Fulton and 

 Alexandria. 



At the edge of the town Mr. Pargoud has one of the best 

 i improved plantations in tiie State. It is handsomely fenced in, full 

 } grown sycamores, set out at regular intervals, form the posts into 

 which the cross-bars are fitted. The freedmen's houses are all 

 painted white, are very neat and arranged in straight rows, so as to 

 form regular streets, and the whole has the appearance of a flourish- 

 ing village. The Ouachita river is second only to the Calcasieu in 

 the transparency of its water and the picturesqueness of its banks. 

 The predominant forest growth is the water oak, the sycamore 

 locust and robinia. On the waste lands the bitter weed (Helenium 

 teninfolium) and the mullin cover the surface soil and choke out 

 grasses and other weeds. 



My stay in Monroe was but of short duration and I continued my 

 route in the direction of Bastrop, in Morehouse parish, twenty-eight 

 miles distant. The cotton plantations on the road, as far as Bayou 

 de Siard, are in a high state of cultivation, but there the road tarns 

 to the left and passes over a strip of country composed of brown 

 loam, covering the pebble beds, which are sometimes exposed. 

 There black-jack, post oak, gum and pine predominate. There are 

 but a few scattered huts all along the road inhabited by shingle 



