Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Wednesday, May 25, 1774

Saw them plant Tobacco. The Land is first hoed into small round hills about the size of Molehills and about 4000 of them in an acre. The plants are something like small Cabbage plants; they only make a hole with their fingers or a small stick and put them in, one in each hill. Two Negroes will plant three acres in one day. Small Blisters are broke out all over my body, attended with an intolerable itching. They call it the Prickly heat and say it is very wholesome. It may be so, for everything I can tell, but it is very troublesome.

SOURCE: Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774—1777, pp. 17-8

Journal of Nicholas Cresswell, Saturday, May 28, 1774

The Land here is level, sandy and barren in general, except where it is mixed with Oyster shells which renders it very fertile. Agriculture is in a very poor state. In short, they know very little about farming. Tobacco and Indian corn is all they make and some little wheat. All done by Negroes. The Tobacco is all worked with Hoes, the Indian corn with Ploughs, but of a bad sort and without a Colter. The furrow they make is not more than two inches deep and does little more than kill the weeds. Land sells upon an average here, at about three Dollars pr. acre. (Thirteen shillings and Sixpence Sterling.)

SOURCE: Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774—1777, p. 18