Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/281

 in size. It is cultivated in the same manner as in other parts of the western country.

The crows, which are a true plague in the Atlantic states, where they ravage, at three different periods, the fields of Indian wheat, which are obliged to be sown again as many times, have not yet made their appearance in Tennessea; but it is very probable that this visit is only deferred, as they do, annually, great damage in Kentucky.

I must also observe here that the grey European rats have not yet penetrated into Cumberland, though they are very numerous in other parts of the country, particularly in those settlements belonging to the whites.

The culture of cotton, infinitely more lucrative {241} than that of corn and tobacco, is, as before observed, the most adhered to in West Tennessea. There is scarcely a single emigrant but what begins to plant his estate with it the third year after his settling in the country. Those who have no negroes cultivate it with the plough, nearly in the same manner as Indian wheat, taking particular care to weed and throw new earth upon it several times in the course of the season. Others lay out their fields in parallel furrows, made with the hoe, from twelve to fifteen inches high. It is computed that one man, who employs himself with this alone, is sufficient to cultivate eight or nine acres, but not to gather in the harvest. A man and a woman, with two or three children, may, notwithstanding, cultivate four acres with the greatest ease, independent of the Indian wheat necessary for their subsistence; and calculating upon a harvest of three hundred and fifty pounds weight per acre, which is very moderate according to the extreme fertility of the soil, they will have, in four acres, a produce of fourteen hun