[Landon Carter to John Boughton]

[n.d. (1769)]

John Boughton

According to your appointment my boat now carries over to Pages Quarter for my people under your care five cotton suits to be made up with thread ready for making them Linnen for a shirt or shift a piece and a pair of shoes for each and for my sons people. I suppose the same altho' perhaps he may have orderd two shirts and shifts a piece for his people for he differs from me he loves to encourage people for doing nothing when for my part I think they ought to be severely punished and if the proof of any pudding lies in the eating of it Mr. Boughton must acknowledge their produce in two years is no proof that they have done well. One year at seating may produce nothing but to get next akin to nothing in the second year is really very bad. However I acknowledge it has certainly been proportionally bad with John Boughton but as he is but a single man he may not possibly feel it so much as one with a large family who has had all the expences of seating fallen upon his and his sons shoulders and I believe no masters of 10 or 12 slaves can bear such an expence without an equivolent from their labour and this besides their levies every year nothing of which comes out of your pocket Mr. Boughton. But now I am told the land will not bring Tobo. A pretty tale for my son to swallow who at sometimes thinks himself a great Planter but to me I assure you one of the greatest jokes in the world for I will venture to assert that no man upon earth can produce me one hill of earth leavel enough to put a little manure into in which if it is not a mere sand beach I cannot make fine Tobo. I have been forty seven years proving this single truth against every body that asserts to the contrary. It is true that different soils may produce better flavourd Tobo. one than another and it is also sometimes said that soils produce thicker Tobo. some than others but my firend this lies principally in the management and a good Overseer like a good Physician should consult the constitution as well as the disease of the Patient he works

upon I mean a good overseer should manage according to the soils that he is to raise Tobo. in and light soils I own are more difficult to be managed for a crop than stiff. Believe me John I have of both kinds in the greatest degree and I assure you when accidents have not attended I have made 2000 a share upon the lightest land and if you were near me I would show you the difference altho' perhaps I might affront you to think I know how better to manage a crop than you do. How ever I will tell you one thing or two If you work your hills very fine break them up before Christmas hoe them again in March and turn them ready for your plants there is no dry weather that ever has happened in my remembrance that I cannot stick a well grown plant in bend its leaves to the Sun rising and cover the whole over with a large handful of dust all to the tip and which your finger and thumb hold when you bend it to give it air I say that a plant so planted will not live in any summer month in the year and this without uncovering of it in the least This thing I did this year with 100,000 plants no rain for 20 days before nor now for 17 days after and not one plant died that my overseer had not foolishly begun to uncover till I stopped him Observe in order to put the roots well in I opend the hill with my hand instead of planting sticks and pressed the earth quite dusty to the roots with my knuckles and then coverd it with a large handful of dust as before which with the natural moisture rises in the night grew a little baked and kept the sun out so that the plant grew away without injuring again you all at your first weeding pare your hills quite down in order to keep off webb worm I pare to take what few weeds there may be and before I have the plant nurse it with with a broad hill as high as its leaves can bear By this I keep the scorching sun from the tender roots and as I hardly suffer a weed to grow in a Tobo. ground I never get webb worms because the fly which breeds them lays its eggs on those weeds Therefore if those weeds are not taken away those eggs hatch and the worms not having other food must crawl to the plants In this begins the growth of your plant and if you watch it just as it is fitt to top prune it

This late Hurricane having by means of the destruction of all the mills about, thrown me and I suppose every body else, into a prodigious difficulty of getting bread for the people, I could not help reflecting upon the prudence of our forefathers which we their graceless sons have as imprudently disregarded; that of having a little hand mill at every Plantation to accomodate [illeg.] evil of the destruction of the mills, till there could be a fit time to put them in order again; but then considering how great the labour must be, for a people after having all day tended perhaps a much fuller crop now than was formerly attempted, to go to grinding for bread in the night, when they should sleep for the labour of the next day; as my memory easily furnished me with the method that those hand mills were workd in, that of turning the runner (properly only with the hand; whilst they filld the eye of the stone with corn, by the other hand; for as they turnd the stone, it was impossible to keep any hopper or shoe for the delivery of the corn, because they always did it by a rod or stick which played round in an upper piece over the joist, with the lower end fixt in a moveable manner, near the edge of the stone the arm must necessarily pass round the whole diameter of the stone, which could not be done with any contrivance for a hopper. I say reflecting upon these things, I projected the following method for working such a mill, in doing of which these difficulties struck me, that if I turnd the stone by a cogg wheel and trunnel head fixt to the spindle, only that trunnel head should (according to the principle of the leaver) possess a diameter [illeg.] of the stone at least, the force to turn it must be extremely great; [illeg.] that trunnel head should be made with such a diameter, then the capacity of the stone would be retarded; because the diameter of the cogg wheel, could not then effect so many revolutions of the trunnel head (and of course of the stone) as it would if the diameter of the trunnel head was less than that of the stone (according to the present practice

in tubb mills) Therefore to accomodate, or rather compromise these two great points, that of turning the stone with ease, and at the same time preserving a due velocity in it, by the revolution of the cogg wheel, I reflected in my mind that if this spindle which moves the runner [illeg.] have a bend something like a crank in it, equal to half the diameter of the [illeg.] method might be fallen upon to turn that runner with ease, [illeg.] the before mentioned principle of the leaver and at the same keep up a velocity by the revolution of a cogg wheel. And to effect this, I imagined a strap of iron playing round in that before mentioned bend of the spindle, would add greatly both to its ease, and velocity in motion, and to work this strap, still with greater ease, I fell upon the expedient of fixing a trunnel head by it, the diameter of which, with that of the cogg wheel, should be as 1 is to 5. To effect this, I would fix this trunnel head by a spindle playing in a brass or ink at bottom, and at top through a collar or box in a beam or cross piece, at which upper end of the spindle there should be a kind of winch, equal to the half diameter of the stone; on the handle or upper part of which, the strap before mentioned should also play. Of course then this trunnel head by moving its winch in its revolution, would move the strap playing upon the crank spindle; and as it went round give an easy motion to the stone; which by the diameter of the cogg wheel, giving five revolutions to the trunnel head for once round of itself, would also give five revolutions of the stone in the same proportion. Now this cogg wheel might either be movd by a winch on the outer end of its axis; or rather by capston bars fixt in a nut; and this cogg wheel with these capston bars, might either be made [illeg.] in a pit or conduit at bottom, when the coggs must take the [illeg.] top of the cogg wheel; or else the cogg wheel might be made to revolve above the trunnel head, when the coggs must take the trunnel head at the bottom of the cogg wheel; and any inconveniency for the standing of the people who are to work it, might be accomodated by a little platform or stage

to be erected for that purpose.

I would have it observed, that this bend in the stone spindle which is to receive the strap before mentioned, need not be of a greater depth in the height of the spindle [illeg.] in the thickness of the strap; and to keep the strap in one con [illeg.] place there should be under the girder upon which the bed stone lies, [illeg.] made staple wise at each end, of the length of the diameter of the stone, to give it the requisite play as it hauls about the bend of the spindle.

I would have it observed, that the winch at the upper end of the trunnel head, altho' it must be necessarily half the diameter of the stone, and of course exceeding in its revolution the diameter of the trunnel head, yet if the cogg wheel plays in a pit or conduit as before, it cannot be obstructed in its revolution, by any part of the cogg wheel; tho' this probably might happen should the cogg wheel work the trunnel head above as before.

Now for the proportion of the mill

These hand mill stones I believe are seldom above 30 inches diameter, of course if a house was built 40 foot wide, and girders tenanted in its posts about 8 feet or a little more from the end of the house within, the bed stone might be let proportionably down in these girders by way of a cirb and of course all below these girders entirely clear for the rest of the works.

The spindle must have a cock head and horns as usual, to move the runner and also a collar with a wooden box to play round in the bed stone; then below the cir[illeg.] as many inches as would let the winch upon the trunnel head play with ease round, the bend in the spindle should be made equal to 15 inches from its perpendicular line; and the bottom of the spindle from that bind, should not exceed in in length to the brass or ink (fixt in a bridge fitted to raise or lower the runner occasionally) than to admit of an easy play round above the bridge tree of that bend in the spindle.

As the strap playing round the bend of that spindle, need not be above the same diameter of the stone in length, but just to admit the winch of the trunnel head to play clear, by the strait of the spindle, this winch of the trunnel head being equal to half the diameter of the stone, will [illeg.] a direction show the perpendicular position, where the in[illeg.] that the lower gudgeon of the spindle of the trunnel head [illeg.]ght to be fixt.

The length of the spindle of the trunnel head, is to be governed by the depth of the trunnel head; and that need not be of a greater depth than fairly three times the width of any cogg, and it may be raised upon a bridge tree so to be fixt, that the winch upon the upper end of the spindle may play close by the upright of the stone spindle near the bottom of its bend.

Allow then this trunnel head to have 9 rounds the diameter of the cogg wheel must then be such as to contain 45 coggs; but if 5 rounds will do, 50 coggs will give 6 revolutions, and 25, give 5 revolutions. It is impossible to conceive much labour in working the cogg wheel; stone of 30 inches diameter by being like common guion stone in thickness, I know from experience are extremely light; and cannot give in their revolution much assistance. The strap playing both round the bend of the spindle and round the handle of the trunnel head winch, by means of grease and tar, must needs be easy in their motion, and I believe when the power that a man has in hauling down capston bars, upon the principle of the leaver is considered, the labour of such an one will be very trifling to work this mill: At least this is my present opinion; and if the method I amnow taking of bringing the water to my present grist mill, by a long race from a dam to be made above, should not succeed to save me the possible trouble of reparing large breaches in my mill dam, I shall erect a mill of this sort here; but if it should, there will be no occasion for such a mill down here. However at my plantation where the mills are really not my own, it may be necessary to erect such mills if I find they answer as I believe they will.

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