Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/282

 *dred pounds of {242} cotton. Valuing it at the rate of eighteen dollars per hundred weight, the lowest price to which it had fallen at the epoch of the last peace, when I was in the country, gives two hundred and fifty-two dollars; from which deducting forty dollars for the expenses of culture, they will have a net produce of two hundred and twelve dollars; while the same number of acres, planted with Indian wheat, or sown with corn, would only yield at the rate of fifty bushels per acre; and twenty-five bushels of corn, about fifty dollars, reckoning the Indian wheat at thirteen pence, and the corn at two shillings and two pence per bushel; under the supposition that they can sell it at that price, which is not always the case. This light sketch demonstrates with what facility a poor family may acquire speedily, in West Tennessea, a certain degree of independence, particularly after having been settled five or six years, as they procure the means of purchasing one or two negroes, and of annually increasing their number.

The species of cotton which they cultivate here is {243} somewhat more esteemed than that described by the name of green-seed cotton, in which there is a trifling distinction in point of colour.

The cottons that are manufactured in West Tennessea are exceedingly fine, and superior in quality to those I saw in the course of my travels. The legislature of this state, appreciating the advantage of encouraging this kind of industry, and of diminishing, by that means, the importation of English goods of the same nature, has given, for these two years past, a premium of ten dollars to the female inhabitant who, in every county, presents the best manufactured piece; for in this part, as well as in Kentucky, the higher circles wear, in summer time, as much