MR. ROBINSON S TOUR.-NO. 18. 
187 
MR. ROBINSONS’ TOUR.—No. 18. 
Visit to Jehossee Island—Rice Plantation of Ex- 
Govenor Aikin. —I hope my readers have read 
with some degree of interest, my account of Col. 
Carson’s rice plantation, in the March number 
of the Agriculturist. The minuteness of that 
description will enable me to shorten the pres¬ 
ent one. I left Charleston on the morning of 
January 25th., which was like a mild summer 
day in autumn with us, and followed the wind¬ 
ings of a crooked, narrow channel, through 
which small steamboats run towards Savannah 
by the inside channel to Beaufort. We were 
several times interrupted by meeting large tim¬ 
ber rafts that come down the Edisto River, and 
through this passage to Charleston, and had to 
wait till they could be separated, to give us a 
passage through this fit abode of aligators, that 
are often to be seen “ as thick as three in a bed.” 
Although my point of destination was only 
thirty miles direct from the city, I was twelve 
hours on the passage. This island contains 
about 3,300 acres, no part of which is over ten 
or fifteen feet above tide, and not more than 200 
to 300 acres but what was subject to overflow 
until diked out by an amount of labor almost 
inconceivable to be performed by individual en- 
enterprise, when we also take into account the 
many miles of navigable canals and smaller 
ditches. There are 1,500 acres of rice lands, 
divided into convenient compartments for flood¬ 
ing, by substantial banks, and all laid off in 
beds between ditches 3 feet deep, only 35 feet 
apart. Part of the land was tide-water marsh, 
and part of it timber swamp. Besides this, Gov. 
A. cultivates 500 acres in corn, oats, and pota¬ 
toes ; the balance is gardens, yards, lawns, and 
in woods, pasture, and unreclaimed swamp. 
Wood is becoming scarce on the island, so much 
so, that he drives the steam engine to thresh the 
crop, by burning straw, which answers a good 
purpose, but is of doubtful economy; though he 
intends carefully to save and apply the ashes, 
which are very abundant, and note the differ¬ 
ence in value, between that application and the 
manure made from the decomposed straw. It 
is generally calculated that two thirds of the 
straw will be sufficient fuel to thresh the crop; 
but Governor Aikin has not found it so. He 
says there is no more danger of fire in the use 
of straw than iii any other fuel. The flue is 
carried off fifty or sixty feet along the ground 
and there rises in a tall stack that never emits 
any sparks. Sugar planters, and all farmers 
who use steam, may do well to notice this. I 
recollect Mr. Burgwyn carries his off from his 
barn in the same way, with the same effect. 
Governor Aikin, however, has one improve¬ 
ment that I recollect mentioning to Mr. B., that 
he would require; that is, a “ man hole” into 
this flue, to enable him to clean out the great 
accumulation of cinders at the bottom of the 
stack. In Gov. A.’s, there are two which are 
closed by iron covers. 
The threshing apparatus is a most, convenient 
one. The sheaves are brought from the stacks 
in the great smooth yard, to a large shed where 
all the sheltered grain can be saved, and are 
there opened and laid on carriers, similar to 
cane carriers, which carries them up to these 
machines in the second story, where the grain 
is separated from the straw, and falls down into 
winnowing machines, from whence it is removed 
by hand, (it might be carried by machinery,) to 
another part of the building over a canal, and 
is let down into boats to carry about half a mile 
to the hulling mill, which is exactly like Col. Car¬ 
son’s, and driven by tide. It is carried from the 
boats to the mill by hand, or rather head, where 
a little head work of another kind would take it 
up out of the boat by elevators. 
The straw is consumed almost as fast as 
threshed. And here the saving of labor in get¬ 
ting wood, as well as the saving of labor stack¬ 
ing the straw and hauling manure, must be 
taken into account, as an offset to the loss of 
manure in burning the straw. 
The rice for seed is always threshed by hand, 
as experience has taught that the vitality of a 
considerable portion is injured in the threshing 
machines. It is just so with wheat. [An experi¬ 
enced farmer thinks about one grain in 500 is 
injured by threshing with machines, and as 
about 6 per cent, by the last process, there is 
still a great pecuniary advantage in favor of 
threshing with a machine.— Eds.] The quantity 
of seed to the acre is 2 to 3 bushels, planted 
in drills 15 inches apart, opened by trenching 
plows, and singular as it may sound to some 
other rice planters, Governor Aikin plows all 
of the land that will bear a mule or horse, of 
which he works about forty and twenty oxen. 
Corn is generally planted in hills, up"on the 
upland part of the island, which is sandy, 4 
by 5 feet, two stalks in a place, and yields an 
average of 15 bushels per acre. Corn upon the 
low, or rice land, does not yield well, though it 
makes very large stalks. With sweet potatoes, 
on the contrary, the low land produces nearly 
double, and of better quality, averaging 200 
bushels to the acre, and frequently 400 bushels. 
The average yields of rice is 45 bushels to the 
acre, and upon one eighty-acre lot the average 
yield is 64 bushels. The crop upon that lot 
last year was 5,100 bushels, weighing 234,600, lbs. 
that is 46 lbs. to the bushel. This made 229 
barrels of whole rice, two barrels of middling, 
and two and a half barrels of small rice, which, 
at 600 lbs. each, (probably about 20 lbs. below’ 
the average,) would make 140,100 lbs. This, 
at three cents, will give the very snug sum of 
$4,203 for the crop of 80 acres. 
The average annual sales of the place do not 
vary materially from $25,000, and the average 
annual expenses not far from $10,000, of which 
sum $2,000 is paid the overseer, who is the only 
white man upon the place, besides the owner, 
who is always absent during the sickly months 
of summer. All the engineers, millers, smiths, 
carpenters, and sailors are black. A vessel be¬ 
longing to the island goes twice a week to 
Charleston, and carries a cargo of 100 casks. 
The last crop was 1,500 casks—the year before, 
1,800, and all provisions and grain required, 
made upon the place. Last year, there was not 
more than half a supply of provisions. 
