AGRICULTURAL TOUR SOUTH AND WEST.-NO. 5. 
143 
* * * * broth. Ginger, cassia buds, and cap¬ 
sicum produce pungency. Treacle, tobacco juice, 
and burnt sugar give it color. Oil of vitriol, (sul- j 
phuric acid,) not only makes it transparent, but 
also imparts to it the taste of age. So that, a butt 
so doctored, immediately seems to be two years old. 
I need not tell you what sort of a poison oil of vit¬ 
riol is. I don’t want to suggest the means of sui¬ 
cide. Ha! ha! But when the beer has gone so 
far, it wants the ‘ heading’—that froth, you know, 
which all fancy to be a proof of good beer. Alum, 
copperas, and salt of tartar, (sub-carbonate of pot- 
assa,) will raise you as nice a ‘ heading’ as ever 
you’d wish to dip your lips in. * * * But there’s 
a dozen other ingredients that go into the stuff you 
lap up so pleasantly, and pay for as beer. What 
do you think of extracts of poppies, coriander, 
nux vomica, black extract, (extract of cocculus in- 
dicus,) Leghorn juice, and bitter bean % But all 
these names are Greek to you. They ain’t to the 
publicans though. Ha! ha! Why, half the 
poor people that go to the lunatic asylums are sent 
there by the poison called beer.” 
Beer or porter, which is entirely free from drugs, 
and has not been in the hands of those who are 
willing to sacrifice the health and lives of their fel¬ 
low beings for the sake of adding a small amount 
to their yearly gains, when taken in moderate 
quantities, merely invigorates and bestows a gene¬ 
rous tone to the constitution, without producing 
that degree of lassitude or prostration, accompanied 
by headache, that invariably follow the drinking of 
the spurious fluid. 
AGRICULTURAL TOUR SOUTH AND WEST.-No. 5. 
Visit to the Plantations of Louisiana. —Directly 
after leaving Baton Rouge, down the Mississippi, 
we pass a long reach of uncultivated wooded tract, 
belonging to Mr. John McDonough, of New Or¬ 
leans, who, like many other land misers in this 
country, appears to buy to keep—not to cultivate. 
Then comes the plantation of the lamented Mr. 
Chambers, who was recently crushed to death in 
his sugar mill, in consequence of entangling his 
coat in one of the ponderous iron wheels. To-day, 
(December 15th,) I noticed a gang of negroes 
gathering cane from the windrows, and carting it to 
the mill. No cane is to be seen standing here, hav¬ 
ing all been cut for fear of frost. 
The next plantations we meet with, are those of 
Col. S. Henderson, Madame Williams, and of Col. 
Philip Hickey. The latter gentleman has raised 
sugar upon his place thirty-five years. In 1817, 
his father sold his crop of sugar for 11 cents per 
pound, and his cotton for 30 cents. On the 19th 
of October, 1813, the frost killed all his cane. Su¬ 
gar was worth, that year, 12 cents per pound. In 
1814, he was offered two pounds of cotton for one 
of sugar, but while loading his boats they were 
pressed into the surface of Uncle Sam, and he lost 
the sale. Had the bargain been consummated, he 
would have realized 30 cents for his cotton, which 
would have made him 60 cents per pound for his 
sugar. Col. Hickey is of opinion that bagasse, (the 
refuse stalks of sugar cane after they have been 
ground,) is unfit for manure until it has been rotted 
a great number of years. The best way to dis¬ 
pose of it he thinks is to use it as fuel. 
1 A couple of miles below, is the plantation of F. 
| D. Conrad, Esq., of which I shall have much to 
j say hereafter. In front of his house is an extensive 
batture. A batture. is a recent formation of land 
by deposite from the muddy water of floods, until 
it gradually rises so far above low-water mark as 
to make good pasture land, and at length is inclosed 
by a levee for cultivation. Mr. C. has some 70 or 
80 head of horned cattle, among which are some 
very good shorthorns for this part of the country, 
though not at all to be compared to this breed at 
the north. He also has a flock of some 150 sheep 
that are much above the average quality of the 
south. 
In his lawn in front of his house, Mr. C. has 
had the good taste to plant specimens of all the 
forest trees native to his region, among which I 
noticed the live oak, the water oak, the willow 
oak, the white oak, the yellow oak, the chincapin 
oak, the cypress, the sycamore, (Platanus,) red 
elm, slippery elm, sweet gum, (Liquidambar,) cot¬ 
ton wood, pecan nut, white ash, hackberry, and 
many others. To these might be added the pride 
of China, now almost ever present upon every 
plantation of the south. 
About one half of the planters along my ride to¬ 
day have done grinding, (or, “ rolling,” as it is 
most commonly called,) their cane, while others 
have suspended operations on account of the long- 
continued rains that have fallen of late. 
I passed the night with Mr. William B. Walker, 
son-in-law and partner of Mr. Johnson, whom I 
mentioned as having abandoned his cotton lands, 
and put his negroes to raising sugar. Mr. W. has 
great faith in the opinion that bagasse cannot be 
disposed of in any way so economically as in the 
chimneys. He thinks that manure is an injury to 
his land rather than a benefit. Three years ago, 
he manured a field of sweet potatoes which all run 
to vines. The next year, he planted the same 
ground with sugar cane, which grew large and wa¬ 
tery, and lodged so badly that the yield was not so 
good as upon the land adjoining, that never had 
been manured. 
Noticing some very pure water on the table, and 
knowing that the river was very muddy just nqw, 
I inquired how it was purified. This I found was 
done by pounding a handful of peach kernels and 
throwing them into a cask of water, which soon 
caused it to settle. Almond kernels will effect the 
same. 
At Iberville Church, December 16th, I saw the 
first growing cane on the estate of Dr. Pritchard, 
who came here from Connecticut about 30 years 
ago, and after much persevering toil, has finally got 
a very beautiful residence, and an excellent planta¬ 
tion, which is kept in admirable good order. For 
several miles below Dr. P., the coast is lined with 
small planters, a few of whom try to make a little 
crop of sugar with the old primitive horse mill, 
which is as great a contrast to the modern steam 
mill, as the people are to the modern class of sugar 
planters. 
To-day, December 18th, I dined with Mr. Robert 
C. Camp, who keeps from 200 to 500 sheep for the 
purpose of feeding mutton to his people, which he 
finds a very healthy diet. The wool is quite a 
secondary object with him, as it is with nearly ali 
