Year: 1860

For the Yorkvle Enquirer.


LETTER FROM REV. 81. W. T."


Messrs. Editors SO thoroughly have l
been under the influence of the sun, that
for five weeks have hardly put pen to pa
per for any purpose at all. Let this be the
natural, rational and sufficient excuse for
my long continued silence.


We have had an unusual amount Of
thunder and lightning this season, in these
parts. Fires in the pinewoods, in some in
stances, have been the result. A gentle
man told me that his wife aroused him
about midnight, saying that she felt the
shock sensibly. The children also were
walked up by the noise and the glare, and
on looking out, large pine on the verge
of his yard, about one hundred PAGES from
the house, was on fire, full blaze, and he
had to arouse his people an dbe at some
trouble to extiuguish the fire that had thus
fallen from Heaven.


In some sections of this Savannah river
country-say about ten miles square-there
has been great deal of rain, all the season.
bitches full of water along the roads
ponds full-grass vigorous-crops in unu'
sual spots, drowned. One farmer told me
that at one time he had to stop his plows
for FIVE or six days, which had hardly ever
occurred before in all his experience as a
farmer In other regions, however, the
drought has been severe. The corn CROP
will hardly be an average in the most ia
vored sections, while in some places, one
third of crop is all that is expected. The
cotton yield will be curtailed somewhat iu
some instances, but take our section as a
whole, and I think the crop will be large
one. 1t is now opening rapidly, and the
picking and preparing for market will soon
be in full blast.


The potato crop will also be considerably
short, by reason of the inability of many to
get in their sip.crop. Sweet potatoes con-
stitute an integral portion of low country
crop. In my section there are several plan.
ters who cultivate from 40 to Is acres, in
potatoes alone. A considerable division OF
this amount is put in in July, as slip.crop
vines pulled or clipped, and set out in
rainy weather, from which very fine crops
are realized. The stock are frequently fat
tened, in the fall, on them and they fur
nish substantial and welcome variety to
the diet of the darkies-old and young
The denizens of the great house, also, hav'
ing them as an unfailing and welcome par'
Of table supplies, one or two, and in not
few instances, all the meals daily for more
than half the year-sometimes two thirds
of the year-and with care, they might
have them for the table all the gear round


We have fat buck occasionally now: as
the peas are ripe, and an old buck will
range the pea field on the border of the
swamp, and the stock minder, or the driver
the sub overseer-a darkey-will be
sure to report deer sign; and then the wind
ing horn, the yelpins pack, and the pran'
cling steed, and glisteuing double barrel,
and all the pomp and circumstance of dri-
wing! One of my neighbors being inform
ed by the old man that 'two buck been come
in de peas field dar,' took his faithful
coachee along, and with gun apiece, they
soon had them both up in an adjoining bay,
and had the luck to down them both-each
man telling buck. So we 60 in the dog
days! >. W. K.