This plant may be cultivated in lands newly cleared, and not yet proper for tobacco, much less for indigo, which requires a ground well worked like a garden. The seeds of cotton are planted three feet asunder, more or less according to the quality of the soil: the field is weeded at the proper season, in order to clear it of the noxious weeds, and fresh earth laid to the root of the plant, to secure it against the winds. The cotton requires weeding, neither so often, nor so carefully as other plants; and the care of gathering is the employment of young people, incapable of harder labour.
When the root of the cotton is once covered with fresh earth, and the weeds are removed, it is suffered to grow without further touching it, till it arrives to maturity. Then its heads or pods open into five parts, and expose their cotton to view. When the sun has dried the cotton well, it is gathered in a proper manner, and conveyed into the conservatory; after which comes on the greatest task, which is to separate it from the grain or seed to which it closely adheres; and it is this part of the work, which disgusts the inhabitants in the cultivation of it. I contrived a mill for the purpose, tried it, and found it to succeed, so as to dispatch the work very much.
The culture of indigo, tobacco, and cotton, may be easily carried on without any interruption to the making of silk, as any one of these is no manner of hindrance to the other. In the first place, the work about these three plants does not come on till after the worms have spun their silk: in the second place, the feeding and cleaning the silk-worm requires no great degree of strength; and thus the care employed about them interrupts no other sort of work, either as to time, or as to the persons employed therein. It suffices for this operation to have a person who knows how to feed and clean the worms; young negroes of both sexes might assist this person, little skill sufficing for this purpose: the oldest of the young negroes, when taught, might shift the worms and lay the leaves; the other young negroes gather and fetch them; and all this labour, which takes not up the whole day, lasts only for about six weeks. It appears therefore, that the profit made of the silk is an additional benefit, so much the more profitable, as it diverts not the workmen from their ordinary tasks. If it be objected, that buildings are requisite to make silk to advantage; I answer, buildings for the purpose cost very little in a country where wood may be had for taking; I add farther, that these buildings may be made and daubed with mud by any persons about the family; and besides, may serve for hanging tobacco in, two months after the silk-worms are gone.
I own I have not seen the wax-tree cultivated in Louisiana; people content themselves to take the berries of this tree, without being at pains to rear it; but as I am persuaded it would be very advantageous to make plantations of it, I shall give my sentiments on the culture proper for this tree, after the experiments I made in regard to it.
I had some seeds of the wax-tree brought me to Fontenai le Comte, in Poictou, some of which I gave to several of my friends, but not one of them came up. I began to reflect, that Poictou not being by far so warm as Louisiana, these seeds would have difficulty to shoot; I therefore thought it was necessary to supply by art the defect of nature; I procured horse, cow, sheep, and pigeon's dung in equal quantity, all which I put in a vessel of proportionable size, and poured on them water, almost boiling, in order to dissolve their salts: this water I drew off, and steeped the grains in a sufficient quantity thereof for forty-eight hours; after which I sowed them in a box full of good earth; seven of them came up, and made shoots between seven and eight inches high, but they were all killed by the frost for want of putting them into the greenhouse.
This seed having such difficulty to come up, I presume that the wax, in which it is wrapped up, hinders the moisture from penetrating into, and making its kernel shoot; and there fore I should think that those who choose to sow it, would do well if they previously rolled it lightly between two small boards just rough from the saw; this friction would cause the pellicle of wax to scale off with so much the greater facility, as it is naturally very dry; and then it might be put to steep.
Hops grow naturally in Louisiana, yet such as have a desire to make use of them for themselves, or sell them to brewers, cultivate this plant. It is planted in alleys, distant asunder six feet, in holes two feet and one foot deep, in which the root is lodged. When shot a good deal, a pole of the size of one's arm, and between twelve and fifteen feet long, is fixed in the hole; care is had to direct the shoots towards it, which fail not to run up the pole. When the flower is ripe and yellowish, the stem is cut quite close to the earth and the pole pulled out, in order to pick the flowers, which are saved.
If we consider the climate of Louisiana, and the quality of the high lands of that province, we might easily produce saffron there. The culture of this plant would be so much the more advantageous to the planters, as the neighbourhood of Mexico would procure a quick and useful vent for it.
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