THE CULTIVATOR. 
365 
^Domestic (tfomsponknce. 
NOTES OF TRAVEL in the SOUTHWEST— No. IV, 
BY SOLON ROBINSON. 
Mississippi—Visit to Mr. North, Ed. S. W. Farmer — 
and Mr. Gibson. 
“ There is no rest for the wicked ”—and so, as Dr. P. 
and myself both belong to that family, we are off upon 
the morning after you and I, my dear reader, last part¬ 
ed company, and our first object is to visit friend North, 
of the South Western Farmer, at Raymond. We found 
him in his office sticking type, for to that was he bred. 
Would you know what manner of man is this southern 
editor? He is perhaps forty years old—six feet high—slim 
built—has a very intellectual face and keen eye—and with¬ 
al, has the organ of benevolence so large that he would 
gladly see all mankind as happy as himself. To say 
that he was pleased to see me, conveys but a faint idea 
of the real enjoyment that my visit afforded him, as I 
fully believe. Mr. North feels the greatest anxiety to 
improve the agriculture of the south, and as a natural 
consequence to elevate the moral condition of the cultiva¬ 
tors of the soil. ’Tis for this holy purpose that he has la¬ 
bored several years in publishing the South Western Far¬ 
mer with a list of subscribers amounting almost to 400, and 
this the only paper devoted to agriculture in the state of 
Mississippi, or for the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and 
Alabama. It seems a hopeless task to attempt to enlighten 
such a population; but Mr. North is full of hope, and 
intends as soon as the present volume is closed, to en¬ 
large and improve the next, and being assisted by the 
able and ever ready pen of Dr. Phillips, hopes and be¬ 
lieves that the farmers of the south will come up to his 
aid and sustain the paper. I hope so, but I must own 
that my hope is not strong. 
Raymond is the county seat of Hinds, 16 miles west of 
Jackson, the seat of government, which is in the same coun¬ 
ty. It has a court-house and very expensively built jail, and 
several very humble looking churches. The town does 
not wear a very flourishing look, and the surround¬ 
ing land, to my eye, looks decidedly poor; the soil, 
sandy and white clay, and timber, pine and oak. The 
surface of this county is, in comparison wit . the other-; I 
have visited, pretty level. It has, upon Chittaloosa on 
the west, and Pearl river on the east, some very rich bot¬ 
tom land, but subject to inundation, and is yet covered 
with timber. 
After spending two days of most pleasant sociability, 
the Doctor and I started for Natchez, about one hundred 
miles southwest. The day previous had been for a 
great rarity a very rainy one, and during this day we had 
some very fine sprinkles; so that I began to discover 
that if they don’t have any of our frozen weather, they 
are not far behind in the mud line. 
After leaving Raymond, the land becomes quite hilly 
in the course of the day, and a great portion of it still 
bearing its native growth of pine, oak, and some hicko¬ 
ry, and upon the creeks, a good deal of sweet gum—the 
only value of which is, and that ought to be universally 
known, that a strong tea made of the bark will cure any 
kind of bowel complaint. The splendid 
grandiflora,” in places here is so abundant that it gives 
the woods a cheerful aspect with its beautiful evergreen 
leaves. The evergreen holly too, is abundant. 
This is the 2d day of March. The oat fields are look¬ 
ing green, and corn begins to show its rows. As is the 
fashion, we stopped at night with a planter in Claiborne 
county, by the name of Gadi Gibson. It was dark and 
showery, and as is also fashionable, we found the num¬ 
ber of visitors “ just what might be expected in Missis¬ 
sippi,” and thereupon we proposed to withdraw, and not 
add what seems to us at the north would be a burden. 
But we were too late. We had told who we were, and 
we were known by name, and to such a Mississippian’s 
house is never full, and Mr. Gibson is a true one, born 
upon the soil, now near fifty years old, and as stout and 
robust as one of the Green Mountain boys of Vermont. 
Mrs. Gibson is also one of the finest specimens of a 
healthy woman that I ever saw. To them at least the 
climate is salubrious. By the bye, I saw at Raymond, a 
hale and hearty old man of 72, who was born in what is 
now Mississippi, though then under a foreign govern¬ 
ment. This man told me he had lived upon the same soil 
under three governments, English, Spanish, and Amer¬ 
ican. I have no doubt but what it is more the fault of 
the people than the climate that they suffer with sick¬ 
ness. 
Mr. Gibson lives upon a very good plantation, and 
has, the Lord knows, how many negroes around him, 
but, as is the fashion, lives in a log cabin, and what ap¬ 
peared a little unfashionable, the owner takes the papers. 
But, as is also the fashion, our lodging room was in “a 
separate establishment,” across the yard from the main 
centre of the small village that it takes to make up a 
dwelling place “in these diggings.” Another fashion 
we find here, as is often found hereabouts, and that is 
the capacity of a Mississippi stable, which is known as 
“ the lot,” and is surrounded with a fence sixteen rails 
high, with a gate of corresponding height, into which 
said lot are turned all manner of horse flesh, to eat corn 
out of a capacious trough in the centre, and do their own 
fighting on their own hook for a position. Corn is the 
only grain, and corn blades, called “ fodder,” the only 
other kind of feed ever given, for which the same trough 
answers. 
Now this is certainly a very primitive kind of stable, 
and possesses this advantage that it can be enlarged very 
easily to accommodate the increase of stock. It is also 
said to be healthy on account of its airyness. 
Mr. Gibson keeps his sweet potatoes different from most 
others. He has a cave cellar, the doOr being made open 
work to serve as a ventilator, in which they keep well. 
The common way is to put them up in “pumps”—a 
term that I am sure will be as difficult for my northern 
readers to understand as is the word “ chores ” here. 
But the one means a pile of potatoes covered over with 
dirt, having a hollow log or box bored full of holes, set 
upon the ground and running out at the top through the 
centre of the pile, to give ventilation; for without it, 
sweet potatoes will not keep At the north, I believe a 
good way to keep them would be to put them in small 
parcels with Irish potatoes in a cellar not too warm, but 
very dry. Or if you can contrive to keep sweet pota¬ 
toes always dry and warm, they will always keep. The 
same thing of dahlia roots. 
For the accommodation of my southern readers, let 
me explain that the word chores means all the little jobs 
of work about the house, necessary to be done of a night 
and morning. Dr. Phillips is so well pleased with its 
expressiveness, that he has adopted it in his family. 
Being naturally an admirer of beauty under whatever 
form it shows itself, I was attracted to notice a very beau¬ 
tiful lace cap of Mrs. Gibson’s, upon which she showed 
me several others “ as fine as silk,” and all the work of 
her own hands—beautiful domestic manufactures. 
March 3d—being a littte showery, afforded our host an 
excellent excuse for detaining us another day, and he 
would have done the same the next—for this is southern 
fashion, among those who take the newspapers—this 
being a better criterion to mark civilization “than the 
| use of soap.” 
Negroes upon large plantations are always under the 
charge of an overseer. Their wages vary from $250 to 
$800 a year. A common negro man when hired out, 
gets from $10 to $15 a month. A woman cook or good 
house servant, the same. A negro carpenter or black¬ 
smith, from $25 to $45 a month. Corn is now worth 
from 60 cts. to $1 a bushel, in the interior of the state. 
Cow peas $1 to $1.50. Sweet potatoes, 50 cts. Irish 
do., 50 cts. to 75 cts. Oats, 50 cts. Millet, $1, to $1.50. 
Cotton seed for planting, 50 cts. to $5 a bushel. While 
at the same time cotton is not worth on the plantations 
over an average price of 4 cts. a pound. 
While off the go ahead track, I will make a memo¬ 
randum of the weather here in Mississippi since last no¬ 
ticed—this is for comparison with any other place you 
please. 
Feb. 19. Warm, sunny, dry—roads fine, streams low. 
“magnolia 
