Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/296

 The foreign news is extracted from the papers that are published at the sea ports. The federal government, of which the constant aim is {268} to propagate among the people instruction, the knowledge of the laws, grants the editors of periodical papers, throughout the whole extent of the United States, the right to receive, free of postage, the newspapers that they wish to exchange among themselves, or those which are addressed to them.

The county of Lincoln is populated, in a great measure, by Germans from Pennsylvania. Their plantations are kept in the greatest order, and their lands well cultivated. Almost all have negro slaves, and there reigns much more independance among them than in the families of English origin. One may form a correct idea of the industry of some of them by the appearance of the plantation where I stopped, situated upon a branch of the Catabaw River. In eight hundred acres, of which it is composed, a hundred and fifty are cultivated in cotton, Indian corn, wheat, and oats, and dunged annually, which is a great degree of perfection in the present state of the agriculture of this part of the country. Independant of this, he has built in his yard several {269} machines, that the same current of water puts in motion; they consist of a corn mill, a saw mill, another to separate the cotton seeds, a tan-house, a tan-mill, a distillery to make peach brandy, and a small forge, where the inhabitants of the country go to have their horses shod. Seven or eight negro slaves are employed in the different departments, some of which are only occupied at certain periods of the year. Their wives are employed under the direction of the mistress in manufacturing cotton and linen for the use of the family.

The whole of my landlord's taxes, assessed upon his