less than one million of acres, but the congress of the United States, inclined to put in force a kind of agrarian law against such monopolizers, had laid them, as I was told, under the stipulation of settling upon this immense tract a certain number of families.[79]
The cotton produced in this neighbourhood, of a quality no way inferior to that of Red river, obtained this year from six to six and a half dollars per cwt. in the seed, and there were now two gins established for its preparation, though, like every thing else, in this infant settlement of the poor and improvident, but little attention beyond that of absolute necessity, was as yet paid to any branch of agriculture. Nature has here done so much, and man so little, that we are yet totally unable to appreciate the value and resources of the soil. Amongst other kinds of grain, rice has been tried on a small scale, and found to answer every expectation. The price of this grain, brought from New Orleans, was no less than 25 to 37-1/2 cents per lb. by retail. Under the influence of a climate mild as the south of Europe, and a soil equal to that of Kentucky, wealth will ere long flow, no doubt, to the banks of the Arkansa.
I again made application to the land speculators, trying to prevail upon them on any terms, to take up my baggage, as far as the Cadron, which would have enabled me imme-*
