Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1900-12-12
AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS
In the United States Interesting Statistics
from the Department at Washington.

United States Department of Agri-
culture for 1890:
The farming practiced in the
Eastern side of North America by
the Indians was to burn off the for
est, scrape up the top soil into little
hills, and, if corn was to be raised,
to plant the seed therein. Indian
corn, or maize, was Indigenous, and
the Indians raised it from time i'm
memorial. Women did the work,
and the only implements employed
were their fingers, pointed stick
for planting, and clam shell or the
scapula OF an animal for a hoe. At
the time Of harvest the ears of corn
were stored in cache, or were hung
up to dry, held together by the
braided husks.
In Georgia in 1890 the staple was
tobacco, cultivated in the simplest
manner, with the rudest tools. The
plow was little used. The hoe was
the implement of industry; made at
the plantation smithy, the blade was
Informed and clumsy, and the
handle was a sapling with the bark
left on. After succession of crops
had exhausted the soil the COWS were
sometimes pcnncd upon it.
The first yield of Indian corn, or
maize, in any considerable quantity
produced in the United States, by
people of English blood of which
we have any authentic record, was
that of forty acres in the James
town colony in 1909
Wheat was first sown in Massa-
chusetts on the southern coast as
early as 1902, and it was first cult
waited in Virginia in 1911.
Rye dates back in New England
certainly to 1913, and perhaps to
1880, and oats and barley to Cos
nOld colony IN lOU2.
The first cultivation Of buckwheat
dates back to 1925 or 1926, on Man
hatten Island.
Plymouth colony cultivated pota-
toes as early as 1929.
Beans have the date Of 1902 on
islands South of Massachusetts, the
date of 1G44 at Manhattan and
about the same date in Virginia.
The first apples raised in this
country were possibly from trees
planted on Governors Island, in the
harbor of Boston, from which on
October 10, 1859, "tcn fair pippins"
were brought. Governor Endicott
had on his farm in Salem, now Dan
vers, Mass, in 1910, the first nur-
sery Of young fruit trees that was
ever planted in this country.
The English first saw tobacco cul-
tivatcd and smoked in clay pipes by
the Indians Of Virginia in 1885, and
the cultivation Of tobacco was intro
duced into the Dutch colony Of New
York as early as 1916, when it sold
for 40 cents pound.
Flax was taken to Holland from
NJ ,nbattan Island as early as 1926.
Hemp and flax were raised in Vir-
ginia prior to 1G4S. Hop roots were
ordered by the Governor of Massa-
chusctts Bay as early as 1923.
Sugar cane was first introduced
into Louisiana in 1851, and the first
plantation was established in 1853.
The culture Of rice was introduced
into the colony of Carolina about
1904, the seed being obtained by the
Governor Of the province from a
ship from Madagascar.
A pamphlet published in London
in 1909 predicts that cotton would
grow as well in Virginia as Italy,
and the author Of another pamphlet,
published in 1920, mentions cotton
as product that may be had in
abundance in Virginia, but Bancroft's
History of the United States SAYS
the first experiment in cotton cul-
turc in the thirteen colonies was
made in Virginia in 1921, when the
cotton seeds were planted as an ex-
pertinent, and their "plcntiful com
ing up" was at that early day a sub
ject Of interest in America and Eng
land. Cotton wool was listed in that
year at pence a pound, which indi-
Gates that it may have been grown
earlier.
When cows were so high as to
sell in 1886, at from % to 80 pounds
sterling at plymouth and oxen at 10
pounds pair, quart Of new milk
could be bought for penny.
Dairy cattle were first brought to
Virginia in 1911 and to Plymouth in
1924 from the coast of Dcvonshirc.
1T was common opinion in the Vir-
ginia colony that the housing and
milking of cows in the winter
would kill them.
The first horses taken from