Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/332

 the United States, either with respect to size, architecture, or the manner in which they are furnished. The gardens, and yards contiguous to them, are formed and decorated with much taste. The cotton, sugar, and ware houses are very large, and the buildings for the slaves are well finished. The latter buildings are, in some cases, forty or fifty in number, and each of them will accommodate ten or twelve persons. The plantations are very extensive, and on some of them there are hundreds of negroes. The planters here derive immense profits from the cultivation of their estates. The yearly income from them is from 20,000 to 30,000 dollars. Their produce is sent down to the New-Orleans market, at which place prompt payment in specie is immediately realized. At Natches and New-Orleans, gold and silver are as plenty in the market as any other article. Some of the noted plantations above mentioned are those of Balay, Arnold, Baronge, and Forteus.

The plantations on the Mississippi produce vast quantities of sugar and cotton. The latter article grows in pods, upon a stalk; and the appearance of the latter is not much unlike that of the bean. These pods, when ripe, open; and the cotton is then {220} gathered from the stalk, and separated from the seeds by a machine which will clean 1000 pounds in a day. An acre of land will yield about 800 pounds.

Cotton is sewed in drills about eight feet apart. The seed is thrown in thick; and after they spring, the stalks are thinned so as to make them eighteen inches apart. They are then weeded, and the earth taken from the upper roots, so as to leave them bare. A few weeks after this process, the earth is hoed up to the stalk, and the roots covered. Then there is a third hoeing like the second. If the ground is well prepared, and the growth