Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/302

 Savannah is sold fifteen per cent. cheaper than that imported from Philadelphia.

The low price to which tobacco is fallen in Europe, within these few years, has made them give up the culture of it in this part of the country. That of green-seed cotton has resumed its place, to the great advantage of the inhabitants, many of whom have since made their fortunes by it. The separation {279} of the seed from the felt that envelopes them is a tedious operation, and which requires many hands, is now simplified by a machine for which the inventor has obtained a patent from the federal government. The legislature of South Carolina paid him, three years since, the sum of a hundred thousand dollars, for all the inhabitants belonging to the state to have the privilege of erecting one. This machine, very simple, and the price of which does not exceed sixty dollars, is put in motion by a horse or by a current of water, and separates from the seed three or four hundred pounds of cotton per day; while by the usual method, a man is not able to separate above thirty pounds. This machine, it is true, has the inconvenience of shortening by haggling it; the wool, on that account, is rather inferior in point of quality, but this inconvenience is, they say, well compensated by the saving of time, and more particularly workmanship.[60]

It is very probable that the various species of fruit trees that we have in France would succeed very well {280} in Upper Carolina. About two hundred miles from the sea-coast the apple trees are magnificent, and in the county of Lincoln several Germans make cyder. But here, as well as in Tennessea, and the greatest part of Kentucky,