94 
mr. Robinson’s tour.—no. 15 
separates the grains that passed through the 
stones whole without being hulled, and the 
hulled grains, together with perhaps ten per 
cent, that will not hull, falls down to the mortars 
on the lower floor. These are twelve in num¬ 
ber, holding five bushels each. The pestles are 
about ten feet long, shod with iron, and are 
lifted by cogs in a shaft, and let fall a couple of 
feet, striking some inches down into the grain in 
the mortar at every blow. This operation is 
continued about two hours, which reduces the 
unhulled grains that passed through the stones 
to powder, and also takes off the pellicle from 
the hulled grain. It pounds best, but breaks 
most in warm weather. When sufficiently 
pounded, the pestle is thrown out of geer and 
the mortar emptied and refilled from spouts, 
and the pounded rice again elevated to another 
screen that separates the flour, broken rice, and 
whole rice, and sends over the end* some of the 
largest grains and hulls, which has to be 
screened again. From this screen, the broken 
rice falls into a fan to blow out the flour, and 
the whole rice into the brush or rubber that 
cleans off everything and gives the grain a 
polish; and from this, it falls into the casks, which 
hold about 600 lbs. each. A simple piece of 
machinery keeps the cask turning around while 
filling, and at every quarter round it is struck by 
a wooden mallet, which settles the grain and 
fills the cask to its utmost capacity. 
It takes about 20 bushels of rough rice to make 
a barrel of 600 lbs. The weight of good rice is 
from 45 to 48 pounds to the bushel; and the pro¬ 
portion of good rice, broken rice, and flour, and 
value, may be understood from the following 
account of a parcel sent forward by Mr. Reed, 
from a neighboring plantation:— 
2,150 bushels made 89 bbls., weighing 
54,222 lbs., which sold for 3c., ... $1,626.66 
1 barrel given away, say 600 lbs.,.. 18.00 
1 barrel middling, 628 lbs. at lfc., . 10.20 
$1,654.86 
4 barrels small or broken rice. 
202 bushels of flour. 
The charges on the lot for freight, 
hulling and commissions,. 305.34 
Net proceeds,. $1,349.52 
Or a fraction less than 65 cents per bushel, ex¬ 
clusive of the broken rice and flour. The first 
is just as valuable for food as the whole grain, 
and is used for feeding the people; and the flour 
is worth as much as corn meal for stock. 
The average crop of rice upon the Cooper- 
River lands, may be set down at 40 bushels. 
Upon some small tracts, 90 bushels to the acre 
have been made. 
Col. Carson’s last crop was 800 bbls. which is 
about six and two thirds barrels to the hand, and 
24 bushels to the acre. This, he says, is less 
than half a usual crop, owing to the dry season, 
which kept the river so salt that he could not 
flood the crop when most needed. 
The average yield of corn he estimated at 15 
bushels, oats 20 bushels, and sweet potatoes 100 
bushels, to the acre. The corn ground is 
“listed” in the winter; that is, all the stubble 
and trash hoed into the space between the rows 
and covered with earth. Upon this additional 
dirt is hoed, and the corn planted about the 20th 
of March till 20th of April, and thinned to one 
stalk, two and a half by five feet. Oats are 
planted in drills by hand in January and 
February, and cultivated with hoes. Sweet 
potatoes are planted from middle of March to 
middle of April, and by layers, (that is, cuts of 
vines,) until July. He usually plants about one 
fourth of his crop with seed and the balance 
with layers. Corn is ripe in August, and usually 
harvested in October. He aims to cultivate six 
acres of rice to the hand, and upland enough to 
furnish them all the corn and potatoes they can 
eat. Upon none of the rice plantations is it 
customary to give rations of meat; and it is 
alledged that the people are more healthy upon 
vegetable food. 
Col. Carson made one year 45,000 bushels of 
rice with 120 hands, which is 375 bushels to the 
hand, and 75 bushels to the acre. 
The estimated value of a rice plantation is 
from $150 to $200 an acre for the rice land, and 
nothing for the remainder; so that in purchasing 
Dean Hall, at the highest price, you would get 
the whole tract for about four dollars an acre, 
including a very large tide-water hulling 
mill, steam threshing mill, steam saw mill, a 
noble mansion, a very good lot of negro houses, 
overseer’s house, barns, stables, store houses, 
shops, &c., enough to make up a town in 
California worth a million. 
The rice lands were originally covered with 
cypress and cedar, and the amount of work re¬ 
quired to clear and embank them, not only 
around the outside, but to divide into suitable 
tracts for flooding, and ditch them every hundred 
feet, and then to keep the ditches and banks in 
repair, is almost inconceivable. 
As the flooding of the rice land keeps it in a 
state of constant fertility, all the straw can be 
used as manure upon the upland, and with a 
more rational system of cultivation, by the use 
of the plow, it might be kept in a state of great 
productiveness. 
One of the great drawbacks to all these 
beautiful places along Cooper River, is the 
necessity of leaving them every summer to 
seek a more healthy location. Col. Carson goes 
to Sulivan’s Island, a spot noted in American 
history, where he keeps a house furnished and 
standing empty half the year; and while that is 
occupied, the one at the plantation is idle. The 
same difficulty affects nearly all the rice and 
sea-island cotton plantations in the lower part of 
the state. The whites cannot live upon them, 
while the negroes remain perfectly healthy. So 
that though their income may appear to be 
larger than in some other sections, their ex¬ 
penses are proportionably greater, and this 
should teach us all to be more content with our 
lot in life. 
Col. Carson estimates his proper plantation 
expenses at $5,000 a year; that is, 
For clothing, taxes, and medicine, 
Overseer’s wages,. 
$3,000 
1,000 
