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Other farm products.

Cotton was the chief product of the Mississippi farms and nothing else was raised to sell.  Wheat, oats and rye were raised in limited quantities, but only for the slaves and the stock.  All the fine flour for the master’s family was bought in St. Louis.  Corn was raised in abundance, as it was a staple article of food for the slaves.  It was planted about the 1st of March, or about a month earlier than the cotton.  It was, therefore, up and partially worked before the cotton was planted and fully tilled before the cotton was ready for cultivation.  Peas were planted between the rows of corn, and hundreds of bushels were raised.  These peas after being harvested, dried and beaten out of the shell, were of a reddish brown tint, not like those raised for the master’s family, but they were considered a wholesome and nutritious food for the slaves.  Cabbage and yams, a large sweet potato, coarser than the kind generally used by the whites and not so delicate in flavor, were also raised for the servants in liberal quantities.  No hay was raised, but the leaves of the corn, stripped from the stalks while yet green, cured and bound in bundles, were used as a substitute for it in feeding horses.

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Farm implements.

Almost all the implements used on the plantation were made by the slaves.  Very few things were bought.  Boss had a skilled blacksmith, uncle Ben, for whom he paid $1,800, and there were slaves who were carpenters and workers in wood who could turn their hands to almost anything.  Wagons, plows, harrows, grubbing hoes, hames, collars, baskets, bridle bits and hoe handles were all made on the farm and from the material which it produced, except the iron.  The timber used in these implements was generally white or red oak, and was cut and thoroughly seasoned long before it was needed.  The articles thus manufactured were not fine in form or finish, but they were durable, and answered the purposes of a rude method of agriculture.  Horse collars were made from corn husks and from poplar bark which was stripped from the tree, in the spring, when the sap was up and it was soft and pliable, and separated into narrow strips which were plaited together.  These collars were easy for the horse, and served the purpose of the more costly leather collar.  Every season at least 200 cotton baskets were made.  One man usually worked at this all the year round, but in the spring he had three assistants.  The baskets were made from oak timber, grown in the home forests and prepared by the slaves.  It was no small part of the work of the blacksmith and his assistant to keep the farm implements in good repair, and much of this work was done at night.  All the plank used was sawed by hand from timber grown on the master’s land, as there were no saw mills in that region.  Almost the only things not made on the farm which were in general use there were axes, trace chains and the hoes used in cultivating the cotton.